During our search for photographs and ephemera we came across a document dated 26th April 1963 sent from 'Office of the High Commissioner for the United Kingdom'. This is a great example of the type of correspondence that took place at the time of migration in the 1960's.
BCVA teamed up with St Luke's school in Blakenhall Wolverhampton to talk about their "Exodus" project and the installation we want to create with our collection of images. The children had brought in their vintage photographs and talked about why the photographs were meaningful to them.
The workshop included making our own photographs using a Fujifilm Instax camera. The children were amazed with the analogue instant prints, no delete button here ! Some of the children had never seen an instant print !
Overall the workshop was a great success and we felt that the children learned the importance of taking pictures, creating memories and actually handling prints. A big thank you to Clare Williams, Staff and especially the children at St Luke's school.
In April Anand and Sarvjit were invited as live studio guests by the BBC WM Midland Masala radio show. We were interviewed by DJ Qasa about our 'Exodus' project and reasons behind it. This was a great opportunity that allowed us to reach out to over 250,000 listeners !
We had a warm welcome at Dunstall ladies group along with a lovely cup of tea ! Over the last few months we have built up a good relationship with the group that resulted in the sharing of great photographs, memories and stories.
During our visits we have collected some fantastic images from the Dunstall group that will be used as part of the R&D for the 'Exodus' project.
Anand talks to one of the members of Park Village ladies group who meet on a weekly basis. As part of our research and development we are reaching out to local community groups to talk about the Exodus project and collect black and white images that will make up our final arts installation. This was one of the first groups we visited due to its location being one the areas early migrants settled in during the 1960's. The reception we got from the group was very positive and resulted in the telling of stories from the past.
We took along some black and white images that and shared them with the group. The group recognised some of the faces in the photographs and actually knew both our families !
