As part of Anand Chhabra’s residency one of the chief aims of his residency is to reach out as an ambassador of the HIVE to show to communities that a) does not engage with the arts and secondly b) considers the HIVE and the facilities as not intended for them. Anand took time to build relationship as the Pakistani group makes up the largest ethnicity in the City and began to work with them in a way that appealed to their values namely family. Anand worked with a 20-60s age group and sourcing their vernacular family images and began telling their stories. The result was a scrapbook of images and stories that describe their historical movements from Pakistan to the time they have settled in the City of Worcester. Anand also worked with their youth groups who were interested in photographing and recording a fashion show. Anand challenged them to put away their phones and use film to record their event.
Photographer Maryam Wahid joins Anand Chhabra in engaging the Pakistani ladies group in talking about their parents or their personal journey in moving the City of Worcester. - Arts Council Funded
Amazing images like this ones that speak of their parents working life in the City in the early years of migration.
Vernacular photographs were printed out by Anand to encourage groups to tell write stories of themselves and their journey to the City of Worcester.
As the weeks progress the group began to tell others about the project and many more ladies got involved in bringing their images to share.
Whole albums represent the unseen and untold story of migration to the City. All images were scanned and then used towards creating a single 2D work that would be displayed at the HIVE in Feb 2020.