BORDER CROSSINGS November/ December 2022

Thanks for following the activities of the AHRC-SOAS Border Crossings research project. Border Crossings seeks to examine how public narratives and memories of the partition of 1947 in Britain have developed and changed over time. We are working with Project Dastaan to explore how Virtual Reality (VR) technology and visual media can be used to facilitate new dialogues across different generations and communities. 

BORDER CROSSINGS and PARTITION IN INDIA AND BRITAIN 

The Border Crossings project is focusing primarily on conversations within the South Asian diaspora but the team are also working on a connected project – Partition in India and Britain. This project is interviewing individuals and families from European and white British communities who were in South Asia during the time of partition to understand the impact of 1947 and its legacies on their lives. This work is taking place in conjunction with the Partition Museum who will display some of these stories in their oral history collection.  

 

These are two distinct – but obviously connected – projects and our research findings will explore connections, as well as differences, across the two sets of conversations. Though you have signed up for information about Border Crossings we thought you might be interested to know about the Partition in India and Britain project too and have included information about both below.  

 

We are continuing to undertake interviews and participatory workshops for both Border Crossings and Partition in India and Britain. If you would like to be involved in these – or know of other people who may want to contribute to the project – please forward this information or email us on bordercrossings@soas.ac.uk.  

 

Share your stories 

The Border Crossings team have been conducting interviews with members of the UK South Asian diaspora to understand the impact and ongoing legacies of 1947. We are particularly interested in hearing from individuals who are in touch with family across the different South Asian countries, or from those who have links to East Africa and regions in the Middle East.  

If you have a story, or know of others who would like to talk to the research team please do get in touch.

Project Dastaan installation and tour in Derby and Bradford 

The Border Crossings team supported Project Dastaan’s Child of Empire VR installation and animation screenings as the tour moved to Derby Museum and then Bradford Cathedral as part of the inter-faith week there in November 2022.

World Café workshop at SOAS  

In October, the Border Crossings team held an interactive world café workshop at SOAS using conversation-based prompts and activities in small groups to facilitate reflections for in-depth collective exploration on issues pertaining to the legacies of the partition in the region and the diaspora. We had 20 people join use for the conversation and feedback from the workshop was positive with participants commenting that they had found the event a space for very ‘meaningful conversation and engagement’.

We plan to have another world café in the new year in London. Details will be announced via our social media and website. However, if any schools or community groups are interested in having us run a bespoke world café session either at SOAS or on site, please do get in touch. The sessions

usually run around 1.5 hours long. 

Book talk by photographer Graciela Magnoni  

In November, the SOAS library hosted a talk by Graciela Magnoni whose photographs had been exhibited in the Wolfson gallery in September and October.   

Graciela spoke about her recent book Watan (Homeland) which features photographs of everyday life taken in Punjab across the India-Pakistan border. Watan is available to purchase from the SOAS Bookshop.  

 

Collaboration with the Partition Museum  

The team is working in collaboration with the Partition Museum on both the Border Crossings and Partition in India and Britain projects. The oral histories collected through the Partition in India and Britain work will be shared with the Partition Museum and displayed in their collections. Border Crossings is helping to bring Project Dastaan’s Child of Empire installation to the museum in January, where it will remain a permanent part of the Museum’s exhibits/ 

 

The Partition Museum opened its Amritsar branch in 2017. Preparations for a new site of the Partition Museum at Kashmere Gate in Delhi are underway with the new museum space due to open sometime in early 2023. Project PI, Professor Tej Purewal, made a visit to the new site in November 2022 and met with the curatorial team there. 

 

For project updates subscribe to our mailing list at Border-Crossings-L.

Border Crossings - public call out

Left to right, Child of Empire VR, Call out for contributions, theconversation.com, Masala Hut.

Border Crossings’ is a SOAS project funded by the AHRC which seeks to examine how public narratives and memories of the partition of 1947 have developed and changed over time. By specifically focusing on the experiences of South Asia diaspora communities in the UK, the project will explore how Virtual Reality (VR) technology and visual media can be used to facilitate new dialogues across different generations and communities. Closer attention has come to be placed on the experiential dimensions which diasporas pose to the partition and its legacies, while opening up the social categories through which we understand the past and future of the South Asian subcontinent beyond those of religion and nation.

The Border Crossings team (Prof. Navtej Purewal, Dr. Eleanor Newbigin and Tajender Sagoo) will gather survey data and qualitative reflections, views, and attitudes around the memorialisation of partition with a focus on changes or shifts across generations of the South Asian diaspora, and amongst non-South Asians in the UK. Building on the research team’s expertise on gender, borders, the partition, and religious identities in South Asia, the project will consider how historically embedded logics of religious and other forms of difference, logics that are heavily grounded in memories and public narratives of the partition of 1947, are experienced, navigated and even challenged by diaspora communities in the UK. With the understanding of border crossings as pertaining to both the partition as well as diasporic migration and settlement, the research for the project is interested in engaging with South Asian communities in the UK by exploring how rethinking the past can help understand the present through less bounded logics of belonging and identity.

The Border Crossing’s project is working with Project Dastaan at the UK venues of their VR experience ‘‘Exploring 75 Years of Partition and Migration: Child of Empire and Lost Migrations’’ from July-October 2022. The project uses innovative and participatory methods to facilitate cross-community conversations with interested participants to engage with themes related to South Asian communities in the UK, the legacy of partition, and overlapping experiences and trajectories.

Our overarching aim is to gain insight into new and nuanced ways of considering the partition’s legacy within South Asian diaspora communities, as one of both border-making and border-crossing.

We are gathering stories and narratives between July - February 2023. If you would like to contribute to the project, either through participation at a Project Dastaan installation or more directly, or if you would like to receive more information about the project’s activities, please contact bordercrossings@soas.ac.uk.

The Border Crossings team will be at venues conducting surveys.

To receive updates about the project subscribe to our mailing list Border-Crossings-L.

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Border Crossings - exhibition with Graciela Magnoni and Amarjeet Nandhra

Border Crossings exhibition, with work by Amarjeet Nandhra and Graciela Magnoni

Border Crossings: Exploring Community and History of the Partition through Virtual Reality is a AHRC funded research project led by Professor Navtej Purewal (Development Studies), Dr. Eleanor Newbigin (History, Religions and Philosophy) and Tajender Sagoo (project coordinator and exhibition curator). Border Crossings seeks to examine how public narratives and memories of the partition of 1947 have developed and changed over time. The project uses the South Asia diaspora in the UK as a vantage point from which to reflect on the partition.

In this exhibition we present the work of artists Graciela Magnoni a street photographer based in Singapore, and Amarjeet Nandhra a textile artist and educator based in London. Both artists use different forms to narrate new stories about the partition of 1947.

Admission free

25 August to 16 November 2022 (extended to 16th November)
Monday to Friday: 08:00 to 23:30
Saturday and Sunday: 10:30 to 23:30

Venue:

SOAS Library
SOAS University of London
10 Thornhaugh Street
Russell Square
London
WC1H 0XG

Map

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BORDER CROSSINGS - Invitation to a participatory workshop and 'what have we been up to?'

We'd like to invite you to the Border Crossings Participatory Workshop on Thursday 3^rd  Nov 2022 from 17:30 to 19:00, in room G3 (next to the SOAS reception) with a chance to see the Project Dastaan animated shorts from 17:00-17:30 in the DLT next door.

To contribute to our research into how public narratives and memories of the partition of 1947 in the UK have developed and changed over time. Join us for a 'World Cafe' workshop which will be an interactive session in which you can talk with others, share your thoughts and learn more about the different ways in which 1947 continues to impact the world today.

Attendance is open to everyone, but please register here, as capacity is limited.

We thought you might like to see what we’ve been up to since the project launched earlier this summer.

From late July onwards we’ve been supporting the UK tour of Project Dastaan’s Child of Empire VR installation, conducting survey and interview research alongside the installation. On 29^th  July we joined the Project Dastaan team at the V&A, London as part of the museum’s late night events. From 1^st -7^th  August we were at the BFI and the Birmingham Museum from 8-14^th  August.

The VR has been at SOAS since 1st September and has already has more than 250 visitors. You can still catch it here at SOAS on 28^th  and 31^st  October from 14:00-17:00 in the Wolfson Gallery, in SOAS Library.

We’ll also be at Derby Museum when the exhibition heads there on 8^th  -13^th  November and at Bradford Cathedral where the installation runs from 14^th  – 19^th November.

Figure 1 V&A, 2 BFI, 3 SOAS

The Border Crossings exhibition in the Wolfson Gallery at SOAS is currently running also in the Wolfson Gallery, SOAS Library and will be available for viewing up to 16^th November. Curated by Border Crossing project co-ordinator Tajender Sagoo the exhibition features photographs by Graciela Magnoni and fabric art by Amarjeet Nandhra.

Border Crossings exhibition

We held our project launch event at SOAS on 22^nd September, the Border Crossings Multiverse ka Mushaira a music and spoken word event that featured 14 different performers: Moushimi Bhowmik and friends; DJ Shahrukh and Rahab Munir; Nabihah Iqbal; Rasika Ajotikar and Kenichi Kojima; Shaanvir Singh; Babar Luck’s World Citizen Folk Band, as well as poetry recitations from SOAS students.

We organised late night showings of Project Dastaan ‘Child of Empire’ and ‘Lost Migrations’ on the evening of 22nd September, at the project launch, and also on 20^th  October when we were joined by Project Dastaan founding member Saadia Gardezi for a fantastic Q+A session.

'Shaam-e-Sarhad Paar’

Border Crossings and Insaan Culture Club in collaboration with SOAS SU organised ‘Shaam-e-Sarhad Paar’ Thursday 27^th  October - ‘An evening of desi music, dance and words that cross the borders of South Asia and the diaspora’. With DJ Shahrukh and student performances.

For project updates subscribe to our mailing list at Border-Crossings-L.

Border Crossings Participatory Workshop on Thursday 3rd November 2022

Please come and contribute to the Border Crossings team's research into how public narratives and memories of the partition of 1947 in the UK have developed and changed over time.

Join us on Thursday 3rd November for a participatory 'World Cafe' workshop which will be an interactive session in which you can talk with others, share your thoughts and learn more about the different ways in which 1947 continues to impact the world today.

We'll be asking questions such as:

How do you think about 1947?

What do you think are the main legacies of 1947?

How do you think attitudes to partition are changing over time?

The workshop will take place at 17:30 in G3 (to the left of the SOAS reception) but we'll be screening the Project Dastaan short animations in the DLT next door from 17:00.

Attendance is open to everyone, but please register here, as capacity is limited.

Shaam-e-Sarhad Paar - Thursday 27th October

BorderX and Insaan Culture Club in collaboration with SOAS SU present

Shaam-e-Sarhad Paar

Thursday 27th October

Immerse yourself in a night of desi music, dance and words that cross the borders of South Asia and the diaspora

DJ ShahRukh

+ more tba

7-11:30pm

@SOAS JCR

Tickets: Free for SOAS and other students/staff with I.D.

£10 for non-students at Eventbrite

Project Dastaan - Thursday Late VR session and screening on 20th October 2022

Project Dastaan - Thursday late

‘Child of Empire’ VR session and screening of ‘Lost Migrations’+ Q&A with Saadia Gardezi - Project Dastaan Co-Founder

20th October 2022
17:30 - 20:30

Q&A starts at 18:30
B104, Brunei Gallery (opposite the main entrance to SOAS)
Admission free, walk in
SOAS University of London

Child of Empire

Child of Empire (left) is an animated virtual reality (VR) docu-drama experience which immerses viewers in one of the largest forced migrations in human history: the 1947

Partition of India and Pakistan. The film is directly inspired by real life accounts of three Partition witnesses from both sides of the border.

Animated shorts ‘Lost migrations - Sultanas Dream, Seabirds and Rest in Paper’

Sultanas Dream

Lost Migrations is a three-part animated anthology which explores the memory, loss and trauma that accompanied the Partition of British India, through the voices of the colonised. Each 6–8-minute episode focuses on a community that has been excluded from South Asian historiography: women, the stateless and the diaspora.

Project Dastaan at SOAS (2022)

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