David's film 'Home Is' was screened today before a group discussion. It was really nice to meet so many new people, and potential new participants to the project!
The post screening discussion allowed us time to reflect, share and discuss some of the many themes and ideas explored in the film. These included themes of isolation, the role of technology, time, home, language, discrimination and the power of performance in the personal expression of lived experience. We spent much time discussing language. Jayshri (a new participant) used to work as an ESOL teacher and recalled some of her students - highlighting some of the challenges they faced when they weren't able to learn English. For example, a student who never called in sick for work through fear of having to complete a form on return or another student who lived with the trauma of not being able to call an ambulance for her husband when he fell ill. Jayshri also talked about her relationship with East Africa which she always considered to be home, rather than India, where she often felt she was perceived to be a foreigner. Andre talked about memories of being racially discriminated against and the kinds of racist views he encountered - particularly racist views around the kinds of roles Indian people might be expected to adopt in society. Harish talked about how much more culturally integrated we all used to be - especially Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs. Discussion revealed some of the range of issues and challenges of having to 'start from scratch' as a consequence of forced migration.
David gave further insight into the process of making the film and how he came into contact with the Barnet Asian Women's Association. The performance was part of the provision of activities the organisation offer and by the end of his time with the group, David had 40 hours of film footage to work with. Some of the participants would respond to his questions in Gujarati and so he would often not know what they were saying until these responses were translated. David also talked about his own personal connection to some of the themes of the film, as someone with an Eastern European Jewish heritage, David expressed the ways in which a person's relationship to identity changes through generations. This led to discussion around inter-generational perspectives - what came though from this was how although second and third generations faced a different set of challenges, there were some similarities certain types of experiences and emotions particularly around issues of language, discrimination and the locating 'home'.
A piece of advice Jayshri once received was "if you take the best from each culture, you'll be very rich." This got me thinking about the challenges my generation (second generation) faced, as negotiating two cultures was challenging but I also felt privileged at times because I could 'take the best' from both cultures - an idea I've heard a number of South Asian artists talk about. The struggle to do this, however, I feel led to many second generation South Asians feeling torn between cultures. I often felt I was living two lives and my sense of belonging was sometimes challenged through not being able speak Hindi/ Punjabi, for example. One of the subjects in the film, in fact questions: "am I naive in thinking I can manage two cultures at the same time".
The final part of the discussion focused on how performance might be used to express some of these memories and ideas. Performance was acknowledged as a potential form of catharsis for the person performing, but also as a way of communicating to an audience what an experience may have felt like, as an opportunity for others to engage empathetically with the lived experiences of the characters performing. After some initial hesitation among participants, they all very quickly warmed to the idea... for example, we could visualise Andre re-enacting some of the memories he recounted, I could imagine some of Jayshri's memories being performed. We considered some of the things that would be needed (e.g. characterisation, scripts, props, hair and make up) as part of the process of engaging with memory through performance.
M.Sorya 13/ 03/20
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