Kiba Lumberg

Kiba (Kirsti Leila Annikki) Lumberg, who lives in Helsinki, is one of the most visible and versatile Romani artists and activists in Finland. Her work as an artist encompasses visual art, performance, installation and video art; she is also a writer and a comic artist.

Lumberg was born in Lappeenranta in a Finnish Kaale family (Kaale is the self-denomination of Finnish Roma). She ran away from her childhood home at the age of thirteen, refusing to put up with Romani women’s roles. Much of her work has been inspired by her childhood and early youth. Lumberg studied art, design and music in Finland and abroad. In her works, she criticises direct and indirect forms of discrimination of Roma in Finnish society, but she is also a kind of ‘internal critic’, having criticised the Roma community from within, especially the subjugation of women and discrimination against otherness (e. g. LGBT) in the name of maintaining Romani traditions.