​"When Gabi Jimenez, a French Spanish Romani painter, first heard several years ago that a major museum in France was planning an exhibition on Romani culture and history, he said he thought it would be “a mess.”

The story of the Roma, Jimenez said, has long been told by outsiders who depict them at best as itinerant slackers and at worst as unhygienic thieves. Past shows about Romani people have typically featured pictures of bedraggled children and women breastfeeding near caravans. “I told myself: ‘We’re going to get all the stereotypes again,’” he said.

Except this time, Romani people were shaping the narrative."

"That is especially true in the “Gadjo Museum,” a gallery that takes an ironic look at the Gadjo — the word for non-Roma in the Romani language — by reducing its history and culture to a few caricatures, including the club of prehistoric men and a cushion featuring Johnny Hallyday, the beloved French pop singer.

“It’s a mirror effect,” said Jimenez, who designed the satirical installation. “The goal was to reverse the gaze, to project the same kind of homogeneous, clichéd image that is attached to our culture.”