A second animated film

We've started on the second of the planned animated films. The story, once more, is taken from the recorded interview with Mr Mazhar Hussain; its a short section in which he talks about his sea journey from Pakistan to England.

Habiba Shenza is creating the animation, and she has already edited the sound recording into the two-minute section she wants to animate. Habiba is a mehndi artist, and is using henna forms as the inspiration for the visual style of the film. Today we created some short test sections to try different approaches to stop-frame animation. Tomorrow the serious animating starts!

Planning and training...

The Different Moons project is waiting to find out if we'll get a Heritage Lottery grant to support its development. This will mean an exhibition at The Whitaker in November this year, as well as the creation of an archive of interviews, artefacts and writings relating to the history of the South Asian communities in Rossendale - something which is currently lacking. The main work at the moment is planning and training, hopefully in readiness to move ahead later in the summer. 

In the meantime we've been helped that Habiba Shenza Rahman from Rising Bridge, who has taken a key part in our pilot projects, has been able to take a 5 week placement at Horse + Bamboo from her Education Degree in Leeds.  She is working on an animated film inspired by the recordings we made of Mr Mazhar Hussain during our pilot project, as well as taking part in the Puppet School we're running for two weeks during her placement period (above). Up to now Habiba has been helping and supporting Shamshad Khan on her creative writing work with the Islamic Supplementary School. Her local contacts have been helpful in making new contacts with people in the South Asian community, and in addition Habiba is also a talented mehndi (henna) artist.

One contact I made recently was very far from being a new one...Mr Lal Miah was our neighbour when Horse + Bamboo were based in Rawtenstall, and I often used to talk with him. His young daughter used to play in our workshop. We lost touch when the company moved to Waterfoot, so I was delighted to meet him again. Miah is from a Bengali background, and it's great that we can extend our pilot contacts who, so far, have been from a Pakistani background, Urdu and Pashto speakers. 

Another thing I discovered is that Lal Miah has just finished writing a book about his life - a labour of love which documents his years in England. He arrived more than 60 years ago speaking absolutely no English, and writes of the struggles of an immigrant making his way in a strange country. Miah's story will be a very different one from Mr Hussain's, who was an educated English-speaking student when he arrived, so the two tales will provide a fascinating contrast with one another...

Our first animated film!

Finally - we've managed to post a link to the first film to emerge from the Different Moons animation studio! I spent the morning with Habiba setting up a Different Moons YouTube Channel where we'll be posting our films as they are created.

Click on the link above to watch our animated film based around Mr Hussain's recollection of a story from his childhood in India...

(Or click here if your tablet doesn't use flash)

The Djinn Story

We've put together the first Different Moons short animated film - 'The Djinn Story' - which is a story told by Mr Mazhar Hussain during our recording of his memories and reminiscences. 

It's an important moment as it also happens to be the final stage of our pilot programme - which has been the trial run for how we hope that various important aspects the Different Moons project will unfold. 

We interviewed Mr Hussain and recorded well over 90 minutes of conversation with him in English and Urdu. These have been transcribed into 20-odd pages of A4, and eventually will form part of a local history archive for libraries, museums and other resources. 

Above and below are stills from the film, in which Mr Hussain remembers the stories that were told to him as a young boy by his grandmother in India (this was pre-Partition). This particular story is about a djinn (a genie) who first appears to his great-grandfather as a snake, but then re-appears as a boy who attends the local mosque to learn the Qur'an - and gets up to all sorts of mischief in the process.  

Eventually this, and the other animations that will emerge from the Different Moons project, will be made available for all to see on a special Different Moons YouTube Channel. 

Mehndi day...

Another busy week including Tuesday spent at the South Asian Arts Forum at MMU in Manchester, where I was reminded that 2014 will be the third Asia Triennial Manchester (ATM14), the only Asian Arts festival outside of Asia! So what better year to choose for our first year of Different Moons!

Then today was the final session for Habiba and Shamshad (top photo) at the Rossendale Valley Islamic Supplementary School. It was a session that focused on the young people each translating one of their moon poems into mehndi, henna-painting, and experimenting by painting onto a white circle in the form of a paper plate.

The older of todays' groups got together for a photograph. These sessions have been really encouraging for our project, despite each being only an hour in length.  Tomorrow we do a final check through our application to the Heritage Lottery Fund, and then the bid sails off into the ether, and we all wait...

A busy weekend and an application

While Shamshad and Habiba continue to work at the Rossendale Valley Islamic Supplementary School on Sundays, I spent the weekend writing up the project plan for a major funding bid. A bid that, if successful, will enable us to run the Different Moons project over the next two years. 

Last Friday Shamshad, Esther, and I had a five hour long session working on the details of this bid. Over the weekend I drew the bits and pieces together, and then fleshed out the  writing, leaving Esther the job of adding everything to the application form - and all the sections she will need to write and bring to the bid herself - the budgets, the administrative details and so on. It's a lot of work - and finally it'll be sent off. Then - there will be a three month wait for the result. 

One of the most encouraging things was the statements of support and need that have reached us; short written pieces that we can add to the application to show a wide range of people and groups who support the project. We have had some wonderful comments - from the RVISS itself, from the young people involved in the pilot projects, from the museum, from a local historian....and these have all encouraged us enormously.

The Islamic School

I joined in with the third session of Shamshad and Habiba's classes at Rossendale Islamic Supplementary School this afternoon. The subject used the recordings we made a few weeks ago of Mr Muzzar Hussain, covering a range of subjects but here concentrating on his memories of travelling to and arriving in England in 1958. 

The young people were first asked to uncover his name through a game of 'hangman'. Then they divided in half and each half was shown a different photograph - one I took a few weeks ago of Mr Hussain in his house in Accrington, and the other a photograph from the 1930s of his maternal grandfather on  horseback in India (pre-Partition). They were asked to describe their feelings about the characters in the photos. and were then played a short recording of Mr Hussain reminiscences. Finally they were asked to guess which of the two photographs was of Mr Hussain. 

This discussion and lesson took place in the context of Mr Hussain being described to them as among the very first Asians to settle in Haslingden, and their homework had been to discover who of their own relatives first arrived and settled in England. Shamshad and Habiba took turns in leading the class, and it provoked discussion and interest in the young people about the subject.

I was very impressed by the way the children focused on the subject, and entered into the 'games'. Shamshad has planned the five week course with these young people to develop an awareness of, and pride in, their heritage. What I witnessed today was very encouraging.