Create London has commissioned Turner Prize 2024 shortlisted artist Delaine Le Bas to create a new installation with Roma & Traveller communities at The White House on the Becontree Estate in Dagenham, East London. Titled Atchin Tan at The White House, Le Bas’ installation will transform The White House into a unique experience, free and open to all visitors from Friday 21 March 2025. “Atchin Tan” is a Romany phrase that translates to “stopping place” in English.
Over the second half of 2024, Le Bas is artist-in-residence at The White House as she works collaboratively with Roma & Traveller communities through an engagement programme of creative workshops, community conversations and youth events. This collaborative effort aims to challenge existing narratives about Roma & Traveller cultures and to reimagine how they are seen and celebrated.
This project builds on a lifetime of work for Le Bas. The English-Romani artist has long championed Roma & Traveller creativity; with work across Europe that includes presence at the 52nd and 58th Venice Biennales, co-curating the first Roma Biennial in 2018 and exhibitions in Vienna, Berlin and Athens. This commission is part of a new wave of attention in the UK, chief among them her covetable recognition on the Turner Prize shortlist and a significant exhibition at Tramway in Glasgow. Her commitment to Roma & Traveller creativity highlights the plight of a community that faces significant social injustice in the UK, with racist sentiments and exclusion from broader society impacting education levels, socio-economic status and life expectancy.
To counter these inequities, the installation will weave together personal stories with symbols and iconography from Delaine’s lexicon. Every corner of The White House will be activated and infused with elements that reflect the richness, complexity and resilience of Roma & Traveller life whilst investigating conceptions and the materiality of the domestic space. Create London is consulting with a range of advocacy and community groups to reach Roma & Traveller communities, including Roma Support Group, London Gypsies & Travellers, Gypsies & Travellers Essex, Traveller Movement and Romano Lav.
Marie Bak Mortensen, Director of Create London, said: “By fostering meaningful connections and creating artwork that reflects and amplifies the narratives of Roma & Traveller communities, we aim to counter singular and stereotypical conceptions of Roma & Traveller people, exploring the impact of the diaspora experience by asking what has been displaced, dismissed, withheld or thrust onto Roma communities as a result of historical discrimination. We are also excited to see how the resulting installation will re-examine and play with the architecture of the domestic spaces of The White House, testing ideas around the liveable museum, home-as-artwork and studio-as-domestic space.”
Delaine Le Bas said “Traditionally, the Atchin Tan ‘stopping place’ is where nomadic communities return over and over, and build a familiarity and connection to the site. At The White House, together we will “un-paint” what is not there, and create a new Roma/Traveller presence in this new Atchin Tan that will transcend old conceptions and become embedded in the space.”
Once a derelict 18th-century farmhouse, The White House was saved and revitalised in 2016 by Create London, who commissioned emerging architects APPARATA to transform it into a vibrant home for art and social activity. It has since hosted numerous artists and events, workshops, poetry circles, youth projects and seasonal parties for the local community. E
Atchin Tan at The White House by Delaine Le Bas is commissioned by Create London. The project is supported by Art Fund, Arts Council England – National Lottery Project Grants, and Cockayne Grants for the Arts – a donor-advised fund held at The London Community Foundation.