The exhibition has closed

The Different Moons exhibition at the Whitaker Museum & Art Gallery in Rawtenstall has now closed after its 8-week run, after being extended for two weeks longer than planned. 

It's been a very, very successful event; the Whitaker estimate that they had over 5000 people visit during these two months, and the Comments Book is full of glowing feedback from visitors. 

We're already planning the new programme of events, and our core team of artists and teachers are all on board for 2015. So many people have contributed to the success of the project that it's impossible to list everyone here - but we'll single out the Heritage Lottery Fund with a big 'thank you' for their encouragement during the planning of the project, and their faith and generosity in funding us and our work. 

Extended opening announced.

A quick update to say that the Different Moons exhibition at the Whitaker Museum & Art Gallery in Rawtenstall has had its stay extended. Instead of closing on the 29th December it will now stay open another two weeks - closing on the 12th January 2015. Check the Christmas opening times before visiting over the holidays. 

One week to go...

The calligraphic piece I wrote about a couple blogs back is now on display in The Whitaker Museum & Art Gallery in Rawtenstall. The piece is by Omani master calligrapher Hst Al-Awaidi and is now being shown in the top corridor of the Museum, leading to the exhibition galleries. 

There's now just over week left before the Different Moons exhibition gets taken down, so rush along if you haven't yet seen it - and don't forget to pick up a copy of the free accompanying brochure about Rossendale's South Asian communities and containing a handful of stunning poems written by women from Haslingden.

The Different Moons exhibition

I went to visit Mr Aslom Miah today. Mr Miah is one of the people we've interviewed for the project. Extracts from his interview - and a short and funny animation by Rehmat Gangreker based on one his stories - can be seen and heard at the Whitaker exhibition. 

I had wondered if Mr Miah, who must now be approaching 80, had actually managed to get to see the show - which although it's in Rawtenstall, not far from his house, is an uphill walk all the way. But I shouldn't have doubted - he had been to see it with a group from his family, and was very excited about the show. He said that his son had stayed for over 3 hours. He was also full of how well he had been treated by the staff at the museum - and the quality of the food in their cafe! Another reason to go - quite apart from the fact that the exhibition is only open for two further weeks after this. 

Looking through the blog I realised that there's not that many photos from the exhibition itself, so I thought I should add a few here to give a taste:

Our Opening Weekend

Mr Mazhar Hussain, one of the very first people to emigrate to Lancashire from South Asia, shows Lizzie Lempen (of Lempen Puppets) where his family originated on a map from the first of the boards in the explanatory section of Different Moons.

The exhibition opened Saturday 15th November at the Whitaker Museum & Art Gallery in Rawtenstall and the galleries were packed all day long with visitors, including many from the local South Asian communities. The reactions have been unanimously positive, with many people spending a long time to take in the animated films, listen to the recordings we've made of people reminiscing about their journeys from Pakistan or Bangladesh to Rossendale, or read the poetry inspired by these stories. 

On Sunday we had a Bengali storyteller, Saikat Ahamed, at the Boo to tell the story of his mother and the traumatic period when West and East Pakistan tore apart and the new nation of Bangladesh was formed, in his show 'The Tiger and the Moustache'. It was well attended afternoon, and a brilliant tour-de-force of a performance by Saikat. A memorable opening weekend to the exhibition that runs until the end of December. 

Scrolling text

Today was our first day day hanging the show in the Whitaker Museum and Art Gallery in Rawtenstall. Things went slowly, with a number of unexpected hitches slowing our progress. Still, Phil got the fountain basin in situ, and I erected the listening booth structure, where visitors will be able to listen to extracts from some of the interviews we've had with older immigrants to Rossendale, both from Pakistan and Bangladesh.

Throughout the project we've been at pains to include mother tongues within the interviews - and in the poetry and other creative writing done in response. There majority of the recordings are in English, but we're also including Pashto, Sylheti, Urdu, Punjabi and Bengali. One or two of the interviews selected for the listening spots are in Urdu and Pashto. 

Accuracy of translation and transcription has been a constant issue for us, but we've been lucky in having helpers in the process. In the exhibition there's a new problem - we're projecting some of the sayings and proverbs that we've learned from the interviewees (see the example above). These are being projected onto the gallery walls, and the sayings appear as scrolled words moving across the surface of the walls. The 'problem' is that some languages read from left to right, such as English and Bengali; other read right to left - Urdu and Punjabi, for example. We've solved this by the simple device of changing the direction of the scrolling depending on the language.

Final preparations for the Whitaker

It's just a week now before we move into the Whitaker to set up the Different Moons exhibition. So it's a busy period as you can imagine...here at the Boo we're finishing the fountain (above), the lanterns, the audio tracks and the animated films. Elsewhere Maryam has Shamshad's poems and is creating the 'moon-book' which will have 69 (at last count) poems from the various workshops, and creating her own paper-cut piece based on Samina's poem. Habiba has completed her large 5-panel mehndi image, and that's at the printers with all of the other information panels. 

Of course at the end of next week we're having the Opening Day - Saturday 15th - at the Whitaker, and everyone is invited along. There will be special food and live music for the occasion, and Shamshad and I will be around all day - hopefully Habiba, Arry and Maryam will also make an appearance.

Intersections

We are hoping to organise a Different Moons exhibition in November 2014 at the Whitaker Museum and Art Gallery in Rawtenstall - a celebration of the local South Asian heritage community. Our friends at the Whitaker are enthusiastic about the idea, and we now need to raise the funding for the exhibition itself, as well as the events that will lead up to and accompany  it.

I've been looking at ways of creating an inspirational space within the Whitaker's galleries and came to the decision to develop some of the shadow-puppet work we undertake at Horse + Bamboo. The idea is to create lanterns that use islamic pattern forms and project them on the gallery walls, combined with poetry and other writings. 

Then today I came across these photographs of an installation by the US based Pakistan-born artist Anila Quayyum Agha. Called 'Intersections' the cube is two metres square, so it's much larger than anything I had planned, but the effect is so exactly how I imagined the lantern idea. 

Nothing is new under the sun but inspiration is, well, inspiring wherever and whenever you find it. 

moon room, fountain room

We're beginning the serious business of fundraising for Different Moons. There's now a programme of 80 workshops being planned with local organisations and groups, and involving both local and national artists working with all ages across the Asian heritage community in Rossendale. 

These workshops will focus on people's stories - stories of families, memories of Asia, and of the first generation who arrived in England. The poet Shamshad Khan will lead these workshops over a period of two years starting in April 2014. The first phase of Different Moons will culminate in a celebration of the south Asian community with an exhibition at the Whitaker, in Rawtenstall, plus a special festival of events. 

The exhibition will take place in the upstairs galleries, featuring a Moon Room and a Fountain Room. The second phase will be the creation of a book, website and CD of the collected stories, and many will be made into films and animations. This will be the focus of our work in 2015 and into 2016.

A Festival!

Planning for Different Moons has now started in earnest after meeting with Shamshad Khan (above) and confirmation from the Whitaker (below) that they would be delighted to host an exhibition starting in October 2014. 

With a substantial programme of community workshops in the run up to the exhibition and with a good number of related events taking place during the exhibition, we've decided that  it makes sense to think of the whole thing as a Festival. The Different Moons Festival!

So my research into the history of the community continues. Shamshad and I will soon be meeting with interested individuals and groups, planning workshops and other creative activities; finally the inevitable budgeting has begun with the intention of making funding applications to support the programme. 

A year away...

Haslingden, late 1950s, photograph courtesy of RM Nostalgic Railways. The period when the first of the immigrants from Pakistan and Bangladesh were beginning to arrive in Rossendale to work in the cotton textile mills that were short of a labour force, especially for the unpopular shifts - usually the night-work. 

If you were trying to find this scene today you would be stuck. The station was closed in 1964, the railway disappeared and its route is now the A56 Haslingden By-Pass, opened in the early 1980s. The chimneys have been demolished too.

We also have agreed with the Whitaker (Rossendale's Museum & Art Gallery) to work towards an exhibition in exactly a year's time celebrating the history of the South Asian Community in Rossendale. We've also started planning the next stage of Different Moons, and soon expect to begin working on new projects within Haslingden.