“If we destroy this people, we’re destroying a little part of ourselves. The part we kill is not just show and empty flamboyance, but independence and the spirit of freedom.” This was the BBC voiceover to a 1969 documentary, which narrates a short film by Romany artist, Liza Mortimer called Take Us As We Are. Her work is part of RIBA North’s new exhibition, Roaming Britain: Gypsy and Traveller Homes.

The film shows black and white archive footage of Mortimer’s great-grandmother, Minty Smith and the interior of a spotless caravan, with three smartly dressed women chatting between fluted glass and shelves of Crown Derby porcelain. This rare glimpse into a lost world is cut with footage of contemporary writer, Damien Le Bas trying to conjure it back by staring intensely into the camera while lighting a cigarette on a caravan step or wringing his hands next to a fire in a metal grille.