Workshops and Exhibition at the Shipley Gallery

An Exhibition of Migrant Makers

We will offer a series of workshops which will focus on the skills of migrant makers and the many positive contributions these have always made – and are still making – to their host communities.

The Northeast of England has several thousand years of history of migration and those who came over the centuries have made the region what it is now by contributing their labour, skills, and experience, culture, language, and art. We want to empower those who arrived more recently to tell the story of the many contributions they are making, through the objects they create.

The aim is to work together to develop a public exhibition that both shows the art /craft objects and tells some of the stories around them. Our intention is to provide a space where migrant makers can not only show their works and share their stories, but also be a part of planning and making an exhibition that showcases how they, privately and publicly, enrich their new environments. The first workshop will allow us to get to know one another, the second will focus on storytelling around art and craft objects, and the third will centre on planning the exhibition. As a participant, you can choose to join all of the workshops or only the first two. The workshops will be held in November and December and the exhibition will be held in February.

These workshops are being jointly organised between Northumbria and TWAM. On the Northumbria side they bring together the FLF project “Migration, Adaptation, Innovation” with Alexandra Peat (Northumbria University) whose project is entitled ‘Literature as Imaginary Archive: Ephemera, Migration, and Literature, 1900-1950’. On the TWAM side they are lead by Benjamin Jones is Project Coordinator (Shipley Arts Participation) at Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums; and Nicola Maxwell is Project Co-ordinator for Multaka North East England, based at the Culture, Health and Communities Team in the Discovery Museum.

Purpose and Aims

·        These workshops will be jointly offered by Northumbria and the Shipley, but we will act as facilitators only. The workshops will be participant-led, and it is the participants themselves who will design and have ownership of the exhibition to tell their own stories.

·        The purpose of the workshops and exhibition is to celebrate and showcase the participants’ everyday skills, objects, and cultures and thereby highlight the positive and enriching contribution they make to their communities.

·        We expressly do not want to put participants in a situation where they feel obliged to share experiences of trauma or victimhood, but instead celebrate their contributions. We nevertheless realise that this may bring out some very sensitive stories and experiences. We therefore ask all facilitators and participants to treat each other with mutual respect and empathy.

Programme

·        1 Nov: Announcement and prep

·        8 Nov 1:30-3:30pm: Workshop I – migrating objects and skills

o   We will share stories about our objects and skills

·        15 November: Workshop II – telling exhibition stories

o   We will start to think about how we can present the objects and their stories to visitors through texts, pictures, and, where possible, the objects themselves.

·        13 December: Workshop III – designing the physical exhibition

o   We will put together the physical exhibition and document it photographically, so that it can be stored and easily put up again in February.

o   The month between workshops II and III and the two months between workshop III and the exhibition opening will also give participants sufficient time should they wish to design and make their own specific objects they wish to display in the exhibition.

·        Weekend in February (date tbc): Exhibition opening.