20:20 - a multimedia arts and heritage project from Salusbury World Refugee Centre - cast a long lens over the personal memories of refugee families who arrived in the UK from 1999 onwards.
The project explored our work from 1999-2019, through the collection and interpretation of oral testimonies and ephemera of 14 'grown up' Salusbury World children to mark our 20th anniversary. 20:20 was co-curated by FotoDocument and students and academics within the Design School at London College of Communication. This project was also supported by The National Lottery Heritage Fund.
20:20 explored the impact the charity has had on the children’s lives and includes memories of homeland, reasons for exile, exploring their own resilience and social agility and celebrating their achievements as young adults now. The children featured in the stories attended Salusbury Primary School from 1999 onwards when the school leadership team created a bespoke refugee centre, Salusbury World, in response to growing numbers of new-arrivals presenting with complex needs in the wake of the Kosovan war and other major global conflicts. 20:20 created artistic responses in the form of multimedia exhibitions, theatre and poetry performances, as well as creative workshops within education settings.
Exhibition content including digital and physical items have been donated to Brent Museum and Archives for public use.
It is our pleasure to share our fantastic review of our anniversary project, which gives you an opportunity to relive some of our events and immerse yourself in the multi-media arts project. It's filled with testimonies from participants and partners, pictures from our events, and various artistic responses, including links to the films produced as part of the project.
Please click on the image on the right to open the review!
We're also keen to hear your thoughts, feelings, and reflections on the 20:20 Project and Review. You can use the form below or email us at mail@salusburyworld.org.uk
Our Partners
Salusbury World’s partners in the project have been:
FotoDocument - a not-for-profit arts education social enterprise that brings visibility to positive social and environmental initiatives around the world through visual story-telling. https://fotodocument.org/
London College of Communication – a college of the University of the Arts, London. It specialises in media-related subjects including advertising, animation, film, graphic design, photography and sound arts. https://www.arts.ac.uk/colleges/london-college-of-communication
Counterpoint Arts - Counterpoints Arts is a leading national organisation in the field of arts, migration and cultural change. https://counterpointsarts.org.uk/
English PEN – English PEN is a campaigning charity championing the freedom to write and the freedom to read around the world. https://www.englishpen.org/
Scarabeus Aerial Theatre – Scarabeus fuses aerial skills with visual theatre in site-specific, immersive performances. Their participation projects deal with contemporary narratives aimed at awakening empathy, ethical and political consciousness. https://scarabeus.co.uk/
Brent Museum and Libraries - collects material covering the history of the London Borough of Brent. https://www.brent.gov.uk/services-for-residents/culture-leisure-and-parks/brent-museum-and-archives/
20:20 Films
As part of our partnership with London College of Communication, students and alumni from the Design School have contributed to 20:20 through the creation of a series of short films. These films were produced as a creative response to the oral histories.
Here are a few of the short films that have been produced - click here to watch more.
Transcripts
Here is part of one transcription that has inspired the artistic responses created by students and alumni from the London College of Communication
"I left to Bosinia with my son on an airplane, I keep saying I don’t believe in a miracle but that plane landed in Bosnia, I heard and found out later (sic) was the last plane from Iran, they cut off that flight completely, they had information (sic) majority of people were going to claim asylum. The plan was to come to England. We were on that lorry, it was so frightening and scary, nobody had to say a word, maybe 18 hours and it was freezing cold. They said when the sounds go absolutely quiet that means the lorry has moved to the port in England, so there you can open up and come out.
[00:03:04]
The full transcription can be found here.
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02 Jul 2020
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19 Aug 2020
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17 Sep 2019
The Library at Willesden Green Event – 29.10.2019
Salusbury World launched our exhibition at the Library at Willesden Green on the 29th of October, which was open to visit until 15th January 2020. The launch featured a poetry performance from Salusbury Primary School and Queens Park Community School pupils aged between 10 and 13. They worked with English Pen to write poems in response to the stories of the 2020 project participants. There was also a physical theatre performance from QPCS students who worked with Scarabeus to produce this art. Ben Bailey Smith (Doc Brown), Salusbury World patron, also performed and hosted the event.
During the poetry workshops, the children worked with Rosemary Harris, a poet, writer and performer, and used the oral history recordings as inspiration for these poems. Rosemary also introduced Tom Jousselin (Slam the Poet) to the children and worked with them on group poems and performance. You can read the poems the group produced here and below are extracts from their amazing work.
London College of Communication – 19.09.2019
September saw our incredible arts and heritage project 20:20 feature as part of London Design Festival 2019. This special exhibition, Emergence, took place at London College of Communication, UAL (LCC) and addressed issues around sustainability and how societal inequalities are becoming more pervasive, complex and urgent than ever before.
V&A Exhibition 16.06.2019
We were invited to curate a participatory exhibition within a large wooden globe at the Victoria & Albert Museum as part of Refugee Week 2019, in celebration of the national Refugee Week theme "You, Me and Those Who Came Before".
We installed three films based on the oral histories and a hologram display of significant objects within the Globe. Audiences were welcomed into the structure for a multi-sensory experience. There were six of these exhibition ‘experiences’ throughout the day, with more than 200 participants attending.
I am very thankful as an immigrant to hear other refugee voices shared and seen in such an establishment
Exhibition participant
Tate Exchange Learning Lab Workshops 22.05.2019
The sessions were run by Salusbury World Director Sarah Reynolds, FotoDocument Director Nina Emett, Karrie Fransman, a comic creator and Syrian refugee photographer Abd Doumany. The workshops explored the importance and methods of oral history collation; participative illustration activity based on one of the oral histories; journalism reporting activity distinguishing between real and fake news.
Artwork
