Local press showcase Changing Bradford

With the exhibition up and running and the book launch only a few days away we have been delighted at the level of press interest.

Regular readers of the Telegraph & Argus may have spotted this very colourful article which featured last Saturday, and the same article is now online on the T&A website.

We'll be posting more information on the blog about the exhibition and book launch over the next few days, and we will also be showcasing some of the oral history material and photographs which are not in the book.

Changing Bradford exhibition opens!

We said things would go quiet for a while while the team grappled with the problem of select material for the book and exhibition. Not an easy task when you realise how much wonderful oral history material and photographs have been collected. However, its is all done. In fact, as you can see, with support from the amazing team of staff and New Focus members, the exhibition is now up and running in the stunning Studio space at Bradford's Impressions Gallery where it will remain open to the public until 2nd November. Do come and see it!

Impressions Gallery is in Bradford's Centenary Square overlooking the Mirror Pool and Town Hall. Directions: http://www.impressions-gallery.com/planning_your_visit/index.php

Exploring Bradford's built heritage

Part of the Changing Bradford aims has been to explore the influence and legacy of south Asian culture on Bradford's buildings and streetscape. Last Friday this was put into action as a group of young participants set off in a mini-bus to photograph some of the key places that have been highlighted by our oral history interviewees. One was the former Marlborough cinema, once famous as one of the earliest venues for Bollywood screenings but now, as seen from the advertising hoarding, a busy bazaar packed with stalls selling fabric and clothing.

The group also took in a visit to Carlisle Business Centre on Carlisle Road which over the years has played a major role in supporting local businesses, social enterprises and charities. The Consortia for Ethnic Minority Organisations (COEMO) is one of over 50 organisations based there!

Bombay Stores - An enterprising family

The Changing Bradford project has unearthed some fabulous stories. Here is one of the heartwarming from Bradford's most well established Asian businesses.

Sabra is the proud daughter of Abdul and Mariam Kader, founders of Bradford's famous Bombay Stores - "Spreading shopping delights since 1967" is the slogan above the doors. Sabra tells how her dad started life selling sweets in the street as a little boy in Bombay, India, "but he had a dream". Able to read and write, he later made a living helping people fill in visa application, then one day filled in one himself! Arriving by plane in London he was told that Bradford was a good place to go, so he did! Starting by sweeping up in Lister Mills, then working as a bus driver, he and his wife - who had previously been a seamstress, selling fabric from home - combined their skills and energies to set up a small fabric shop in a former fish and chip shop on Great Horton Road. From such small beginnings the Bombay Stores grew until it is now reputed to be the UK's largest Asian department store, attracting customers from far and wide. It is still a family business, with Sabra's brother Saleem playing a key role.

Accessing the archives

One of the project's important partners is the West Yorkshire Archive Services (Bradford) who have a huge collection of material relating to the history of the area from old maps and newspaper cuttings to important documents and photographs.

Archivist Ameena Mughal, who is herself a Bradfordian, has taken a keen interest in the Changing Bradford project from the outset and kindly gave a talk to new recruits at the very first workshop, using material she gathered for her undergraduate dissertation.

Today (Wednesday 3rd July) Ameena and her colleague Anthony were kind enough to host a visit to the Archive's search room so that we could see some of the interesting artefacts relating to South Asian immigration in Bradford. A small number of photographs, posters and newspaper articles were selected by project manager, Yvonne Deane, and New Focus volunteer, Rameez Khawaja, for possible inclusion in the project's forthcoming publication and exhibition. While we were there Ameena also related how her own family had come to Bradford from Pakistan. She recently wrote a fascinating blog post for Leeds Museum Service's Secret Lives of Objects web site about the way that South Asian family jewellery can create a symbolic personal and cultural links between generations.

Bradford's women mean business!

At the latest workshop participants from Manningham Youth Project successfully interviewed and photographed three of Bradford’s most successful women  – Usha Parmer, Anita Rani and Naveeda Ikram.

Usha Parmer, Chief Executive of the award winning Sunrise Radio, provided an in-depth interview about her experience as a South-Asian woman. Her involvement in Bradford began when she was given the opportunity to run Sunrise Radio for six months but for Usha six months turned into a year which turned into twenty four years and she has “thoroughly enjoyed it”. Although it was challenging job for Usha, some of her earliest memories of Bradford are about how the South Asian community provided her with a close-knit community making her feel “like you were part of a family”. Usha also went on to say the South Asian community “have contributed a lot, not just to Bradford, but to the country itself”.

Next to be interviewed was Anita Rani (from BBC’s The One Show). Unfortunately, Anita was unable to come to Bradford in person so the interview was conducted online via Skype! Although Anita now lives in London she emphasised how she is “a Bradfordian through and through”. She told the group a lot about what Bradford meant to her when she was younger and how there was a strong sense of community in Bradford. In her view the South Asian community “are the backbone of Bradford”. Anita took the group on a mini ‘virtual tour’ of her house where she showed them a 1940s poster of the route from London to Yorkshire revealing that, not only does she have roots in Bradford, but she also has a poster of the route to Bradford! Anita ended her interview expressing her passion for Bradford saying “Bradford gave me everything, the most inspiring and creative city…I am proud, PROUD to be from Bradford.”

The workshop finally ended with Naveeda Ikram, the first female Muslim Lady Mayoress, provided us with an insightful view on her connections to Bradford. Although she wasn’t born in Bradford, her father’s work brought her and her family to the city. Naveeda brought along a medal which is important, not only to her, but to British history as it celebrates her role as the first Muslim Lady Mayoress. This position allowed her to change public perceptions of Muslim women and show what South Asian women can cheive in public life. Naveeda remains a social activist and is now the first Muslim female director on the Council of Mosques in Bradford.

Celebrating South Asian arts

Many fascinating stories have emerged from the oral history interviews. Dr Geetha Upadhyaya, Chief Executive Officer of Kala Sangam, is one of the leading figures in Bradford's arts scene. She told the story of how the company was started from her own living room, moving to offices in Carlisle Business Centre in Mannigham. The company eventually secured £1.5million in Arts Council funding, which enabled them to acquire St Peter's House on Forster Square, one of Bradford's finest Victorian buildings. Originally serving at the city's general post office, it is now a centre of excellence for South Asian and collaborative arts.

Inspired by Dr Geetha's account of the transformation of the building the Changing Bradford group extended the workshop to make a special visit to document St Peter's House and to see the arts in action!

Dr Geetha is an internationally respected dance teacher and choreographer. Through Kala Sangam's Academy, South Asian traditions of classical dance, music and language are being preserved and shared with the wider world

Mumtaz memories

The Changing Bradford group were delighted to interview one of Bradford's most famous business owners, Mumtaz Khan who thoughtfully brought along an old photographs and an original Mumtaz menu. 

Today Mumtaz is a global brand, and one of the reasons why Bradford is known as the curry capital of the world.

The workshop, which took place at Impressions Gallery on 6th June, offered plenty of opportunities to for participants to learn new photography skills and experiment with different portrait styles. 

Photographer Bip Mistry shares his expertise with group members.

Bradford is Bradford!

In this session the young people from the Manningham Youth Project interviewed Aqib Khan, the young actor who played the lead role in the film West is West (the sequel to East is East). Aqib gave a frank and open interview and talked about how his Bradford roots have helped him stay grounded and how his feelings for the place have helped him give his best performances on film. He spoke highly of Bradford as a place where he feels at home and where 'you always meet someone who knows you somehow... from your aunties', uncles', nieces' kid!'...

Other notable and exciting interviewees included Champak Kumar Limbachia, the Founder and Artistic Director of Oriental Arts organisation and Mohammed Ajeeb a former councillor and the first ever Asian Lord Mayor in the country. Champak talked about his experience of coming from the bright and warm climate of Kenya to England, a very different place to Africa! He talked about his passion for music and Bradford. We were lucky enough to see and hear a piece of music on his harmonica in the interview, which was refreshing, unexpected and brilliant.

Mohammed Ajeeb gave an emotional and thought provoking interview when he talked about his interests and entry into politics. He talked about the challenges he faced when becoming the Lord Mayor in the 80's. The young interviewers found him inspirational and an excellent role model for young people who want to go into politics in Bradford.

The New Focus young people from the Impressions Gallery helped with the filming and portrait photography. Hayley Sargent, Rameez Khwaja and Austaeja Krukonyte took pictures for the blog.

A trip to Blackburn Museum and Art Gallery

Stephanie Murfin, from the Blackburn Museum and Art Gallery very kindly showed the young people from the Manningham Youth Project around the South Asian Exhibition at the museum. She explained the history of the South Asian population of Blackburn and their experience of coming to Blackburn to work in the Mills (not too dissimilar to Bradford). She explained that the exhibition was well received by the South Asian community in Blackburn when it was opened about 20 years ago. She did emphasise that although the exhibition did need updating it was still relevant and well used.

As a special treat, she allowed the young people to look and touch the objects that were usually kept behind the glass cabinets. She also told them about the background of the objects and how they came to be in the museum.

The young people really enjoyed walking around the exhibition and taking pictures (especially of the buffalos!). They looked at and read the striking panels. In particular, many of the young people crowded around the large map of South Asia and pointed out where their families were originally from.

Interviews and photography at the Impressions Gallery

Two very different Bradfordians were interviewed and photographed at the session on Friday 23rd May. One was Mr Tarafdar, an elderly Bengali gentleman who is a retired teacher and Mrs Andleeb Hanif, the Co-owner and Managing Editor of ‘The Asian Express’ newspaper. Both were fascinating and insightful interviews. Hayley Sargent, a young New Focus member from the Impressions Gallery took photographs for the blog and commented, “he spoke beautifully of the different ethnicities in Bradford, describing how the world is like a garden, and that there should be many different kinds of flowers in it for it to grow. It was inspirational to hear him speak about his life in Bangladesh and coming to Bradford to work as a teacher”. 

 The young people from the Manningham Youth Project, Atheeb and Sameer enjoyed this challenging session. Atheeb was an excellent interviewer, asking probing and thoughtful questions and listening intently whilst keeping the interviewee comfortable and engaged in the interview (a difficult thing to do, but he did it well!). He mentioned that interviewing Andleeb was a good experience as he could see and understand how passionate she was about her work and Bradford, which was inspiring. Sameer got into the swing of taking portrait pictures guided by a professional photographer and got very creative! Everyone is looking forward to seeing the final portrait pictures for the the publication.

Interviews and portrait photography

The first interviewees were held at the Grange Interlink with the help of Shakila Hanif who works at the venue. Our first two ladies, Mrs Banu Mistry and Mrs Amba Patel were a little nervous about the interviews but Halima Hussain and Mariam Islam (the young interviewers) soon put them at ease and the interview went smoothly. They talked about their experiences of coming to Bradford and working in Bradford. The young people found the stories fascinating, especially when Amba talked about her early years in Bradford. She talked about running to catch a bus for work, in the snow, in a saree!

The young people also interviewed two elderly gentlemen (Mr Shah Mohammed Akbar and Mr Fateh Muhammed Malik) who provided insightful stories about what it was like to live in Bradford in the 1960's, what people were like and how they adapted to their new lives. The interviewees brought in old documentation such as work permits, clocking in cards, old photographs and pictures of places they worked at, such as the mills and the local school. The young people particularly liked looking at and talking about the old photographs.

Cameras at the ready! Photography training

Our second workshop kicked off with Bip Mistry, a professional photographer, teaching the young people how to take a 'good' portrait pictures. The young people were split into groups and given cameras. They were then asked to practice taking pictures of each other - which was effective learning and fun!

The photographs taken were uploaded on a computer and the young people then discussed what they thought looked good as a portrait photograph and what did not - the group found this very insightful and they were eager to start photographing the interviewees for the project!

Graphic Designer, Andy Edwards, then discussed design ideas of the final publication which will contain the portrait photographs and quotes from the interviews. The young people were given the opportunity to look at the example books and publications brought in by Andy. Amongst other things, they discussed publication cover material, design, content, colours and size. The group were excited to see the final product.

Getting started!

Our first workshop took place at the BEAP Centre in Manningham on Friday, 10th May 2013 and attracted 10 young people from the Manningham Youth Project and the Impression’s Gallery New Focus group. The event provided an important introduction to the project for the young members, who are going to be undertaking oral history interviews with a range of South Asian people from Bradford.

As well as learning about oral history interviewing techniques from workshop leader, Meena Jeewa, they debated the positive and negatives characteristics of Bradford, and came up with the names of really interesting South Asian people to interview. Celebrity names came high up the list – watch this space!!

Guest speaker was Ameena Mughal, from project partners, West Yorkshire Archive Service, Bradford. Ameena gave a fascinating presentation about the history of South Asian immigration in Bradford, based on her own academic studies.

Planning ahead

Dr Mohammed Salam, Chief Executive COEMO (left) and Sam Keighley, Board Member of COEMO and CEO of Action for Business Limited (right), celebrate receipt of the Heritage Lottery Fund grant. (Photo: Bip Mistry)

Every successful project begins with some intensive project planning and 'Changing Bradford' is no different. Over the past few weeks we have been busy appointing the project team, planning project publicity and making contact with our project partners - West Yorkshire Archive Service, Impressions Gallery, Manningham Youth Project and Grange Interlink Community Centre. Follow this blog to track the project as it progresses!