Story time

Last week we (Shamshad Khan, Habiba Shenza Rahman, and I) started the second phase of Different Moons when we drove to Accrington and interviewed Mr Muzhar Hussain; an interview that I recorded for later use in our project.

Mr Hussain (above right, with his daughter-in-law, Hafiza) entertained us with several hours of his memories, thoughts and reflections on his life - starting with his family and childhood in Lahore, then partition, his early education, his travels as a student to Lancashire, and finally his subsequent involvement with the community in Haslingden. Mr Hussain was one of the very earliest south Asian visitors who settled in Rossendale, and he took a very active part in local community politics, even standing at one time for the council elections. He was an instrumental figure is establishing the first mosque and islamic centre, the community council, and a wide range of other initiatives. 

Mr Hussain is an impressive man, with a lively mind and a wealth of stories on many, many subjects. His memories will form a valuable part of the archive we hope to build as part of the Different Moons project. They will also form part of a dialogue we're holding with young people with a background in the south Asian community. Shamshad and Habiba will be taking a selection of these stories to the young people at the Islamic Supplementary School to help start a dialogue about their community and its culture. At the same time I'm taking one particular story told by Mazhar Hussain about his grand-father, a story about a djinn (a supernatural being often known as a genie) and I'll use it to make a short animated film to be shown to teenagers at the local Youth Club held at Haslingden Library. 

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. 

A new post on offer

Above is a cover of a Mamluk copy of the Qur’an that dates to the early 14th century. It's from an excellent site ISLAMIC ARTS & ARCHITECTURE (http://islamic-arts.org) that I found from a link to the Burnley-based LOVE & ETIQUETTE Facebook page. It's well worth linking to Love & Etiquette (https://www.facebook.com/love.etiquette) as Rizwan Iqbal posts fascinating, beautiful links to sites promoting high quality visual arts, especially relating to Islamic traditions, as well as the great events they promote themselves. 

Another page I'm pleased to have posted today is on the Horse + Bamboo website advertising a new post of ARTS TEAM ASSISTANT. This is a 6-month post that is open to a young person (26 or under, and currently on Jobs Seekers allowance) to work with the artists at Horse + Bamboo, including on the Different Moons project. For that reason we would welcome applicants from a South Asian heritage background, although this is not essential. 

For more information and how to apply go to the Horse + Bamboo Opportunities page at http://www.horseandbamboo.org/opportunities/

To The Moon

I met Shamshad Khan in Manchester last week and we discussed and planned how Different Moons would develop this year. Shamshad had a copy of a lovely anthology of poems inspired by the moon, 'To The Moon', edited by Carol Anne Duffy. Once we finished I went straight out and ordered my own copy. 

We talked about starting work soon with two Haslingden-based groups. One would be the Rossendale Islamic Supplementary School and the other the youth group who meet at Haslingden Library on Monday and Tuesday evenings. Both would start work inspired by poetry, particularly one poem  in the anthology 'Speech Balloon' by Imtiaz Dharker, who was born in Pakistan but raised in Glasgow. To help things along with the young people we will tie this in with computer-based animation.

Man or Rabbit?

When I met with Jerry Smith and Sally Martin to discuss a funding application we're making for Different Moons, Sally reminded me that when she grew up in Sri Lanka, it was a Rabbit or Hare in the Moon that children saw, rather than a Man in the Moon, as is common in Europe. Sally immediately identified this as the reason for the name of our project - i.e. Different Moons. 

Actually I had several inspirations for that name, and the Rabbit/Man in the Moon is only one. I'm not sure how widespread this difference is. Sally felt it was to do with seeing the moon from a different angle but, again, I'm not completely sure if that is the case. Either way it's a fascinating phenomena, and a quick look at Wikipedia tells me that the Hare in the Moon is also a pagan idea, as hares are believed to gaze at the moon in Spring (presumably between their bouts of boxing and other crazy behaviour). The other well-known story is a Buddhist story of a selfless hare as a previous incarnation of the Buddha - you can find it here. 

As nearly all of the south Asian heritage population locally are Muslims, not Buddhists, I'm not certain exactly who or what they see when they look up in our sky and, on the rare occasion the clouds have parted, see the Moon. I must find out...

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 Way of Life

In between working on other Horse + Bamboo projects I'm continuing the research and planning for Different Moons. Local historian John Simpson suggested I look for a a booklet published in 1981 called 'A Way of Life: The Muslim Community in Hyndburn and Rossendale', written by Jackie Smallridge.

Copies in Rawtenstall and Haslingden Libraries seem to have gone missing, but I finally tracked a copy down in Accrington Library - where John Simpson works. The booklet, typed and cheaply produced, turned out to be not so much a history as a source of information for outsiders about the local south Asian community, including the languages, traditions, etiquette and other customs. It inevitably contained a lot of information about Islam which I found valuable and sympathetic. All in all a useful guide, if now slightly out of date.