10th January-30th January
Bonington gallery, Nottingham
The Sense of Belonging exhibition forms one strand of activity and is part of a larger project ‘Beyond Borders: making connections’ funded by the arts and humanities research council (AHRC) knowledge transfer scheme.
Beyond Borders is a partnership between Loughborough University, Charnwood Arts, City Arts, Long Journey Home, Soft Touch and is supported by Nottingham Trent University, Derby University, Dreamers and Refugee Action. It is an outcome of a successful two year programme of workshops and seminars entitled Making Connections (http://www.makingconnections.info) also funded by the AHRC that in turn grew out of previous AHRC and locally funded participatory action research and participatory arts practice with asylum seekers and refugees.
Our partnerships build upon the strong regional work of many artists, community arts organizations, voluntary and statutory sector agencies and researchers working with new arrivals, community groups and the regional making connections network.
We aim to better understand the experiences of exile and displacement as well as facilitate processes and practices of inclusion and belonging with new arrivals by encouraging collaboration and exchange of ideas among artists, practitioners, academics, policy makers and new arrivals in the East Midlands.
Our collaborations examine how the arts - defined in their broadest sense - might help mediate and represent the experience of arriving in a new country and what it means to feel a sense of belonging as well as deliver cultural, social, and economic benefits to new arrivals in the East Midlands region. This includes developing a web site and a data base of exhibiting artists to connect with each another as well as to programmers, schools and regional community and participatory arts organisations seeking artists for their projects and programmes in schools and community settings, see www.beyondbordersuk.org Thus highlighting the impact of arts and cultural activity for social policy agendas in participation with new arrivals.
A ‘Sense of Belonging’ arts/research project was launched with a series of guided walks in June 2008 based on the arts practice of Misha Myers (www.wayfromhome.org and consultant to the walks) followed by a series of arts/research workshops led by City Arts, Charnwood Arts, Long Journey Home, Charnwood Arts and Soft Touch Arts. Post walk workshop discussions led to the connecting themes for the development of the arts practice. The arts practice tells of what belonging means to those participating through their experiences and meanings about home, place making, belonging, friendship, what it is like to live in Nottingham, Derby, Leicester and Loughborough and the perilous journeys people make to seek freedom and safety. The emotional and physical impact of these journey’s, and the experiences of ‘double consciousness’ and being ‘home away from home’ are represented alongside the rich cultural contributions and skills migrants bring to the region’s cities, towns, cultures and communities.
A Sense of Belonging is exhibited at the Bonington art gallery in Nottingham 10 - 30 January as well as on-line at http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/society+content/gallery