Mapping and Photographs
The weather was wet and windy and although numbers were down on the week before we were delighted that so many people still ventured out in the rain to the second workshop. Three new participants joined us, Sant Kaur, Usha and Krishna. Mahenderpal started the session by asking the participants to recap what we had discovered in the first week. This was followed by introducing new members of the group, getting to know their interests and why they had come along. One participant (Krishna) was particularly interested in using the workshops as an opportunity to gather further information from people who may have known her father who was one of the very early arrivals – 1955 – in Southall. Hopefully the group will be able to help her in her endeavour to write a biography of her father who was an important member of the community over a number of years. The introductory discussion also touched on issues of education – and the kind of history taught in schools which everybody agreed was generally British history with very little focus on other perspectives of the world. Janpal expressed the view that the younger generation are actually very interested in their grandparents’ histories because they have first-hand knowledge of India which they have not been taught about. I think this is something else we might want to keep in mind as may be a future workshop topic. Letters to my grandchildren… Maybe? The need for a multicultural arts centre in Southall was also raised and the decline in interest in the arts in general being a real problem. The group also talked about the ways in which their children were moving away from Southall and how the character of the area was changing as a result.
The main focus of this week’s workshop was attempting to map the journeys that participants had made to arrive in Southall and also to link these with the stories associated with the photographs they had brought to the session. We projected a map of the world on the screen and then asked participants how we might translate this into a map which was particular to the journeys of the individuals in the room – their own map of the world. The big roll of paper was stretched across the table and the group quickly came up with ideas of shapes to depict the countries relevant to their personal journeys, in forms that were not representational or to scale, but illustrated their own histories. Individually group members then started to talk about their backgrounds and this was mapped by Mahenderpal using different coloured markers for each person differentiated by a key. The process generated much discussion and also discovery in terms of the close links many people had with particular areas of the Punjab. In some cases a number of people coming from villages or small towns within a few miles of each other. There were also journeys mapped that revealed migration to East Africa and travelling between East Africa and India and then eventually the UK and Southall. Very few journeys were straightforward with one participant (Sant Kaur) coming from Singapore. Participants were also keen to include Canada and Australia as countries where their children were now living which has particular relevance in terms of the ever-growing expansion of the Indian Diaspora and something to perhaps be developed later on in the workshops.
Mapping the journeys of the participants took up the major part of the workshop so we didn’t have too much time to discuss the photographs people had brought in. However, as triggers for memory and discussion the photographs provided a rich starting point. Most of the photographs had been taken in the UK and prompted further memories of early Southall and West London, the importance of family and particularly the close relationship between mothers and sons. The circulation of messages on WhatsApp as a way of keeping in daily contact with loved ones often using symbolic and religious icons was a revealing example of the way in which Indian cultural heritage and modern technology was being harnessed by members of the group.
Janpal's photos above, Mahenderpal and Harish's below
Week 2 slides:
