Fortune Telling Machine

Title
Fortune Telling Machine
Date
c19C
Publisher
Delaine le Bas
Contributor
Delaine le Bas, queer members of the Roma community and Lisa Hiskins.
Format
New cards that are dispensed by the machine
Type
Victorian Arcade Machine
Spatial Coverage
Brighton
Language
Roma
English
Rights Holder
Brighton Museum & Art Gallery
Rights
Brighton Museum & Art Gallery
Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License
Description: Artist Delaine le Bas created a series of unique cards to be dispensed by the this arcade machine inspired by an LGBTIQ+ Roma, Gysepy and Traveller workshop held at Brighton Musuem & Art Gallery as part of the Queer the Pier exhibition making process. Participants viewed the machine and read copies of the original fortune telling cards. The produced responses through drawings and writings. Le Bas harnessed these contributions to design new cards. The positive messages are in response to the negative stereotypes of gypsy fortune telling as represented by this problematic machine. As Le Bas states "There should be no fixed lines to define us." By responding with creative collective action to this artefact, and inserting new interpretation into it, the Queer the Pier Roma project has "queered the past".
Subject
Gypsy
Traveller
queer
Victorian
arcade game
Delaine le Bas
queering the museum
queering the past
queer theory
Queer The Pier
Brighton Museum
Brighton Museum and Art Gallery
Fortune Telling Machine
Queer the Pier Roma Text Panel
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