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parminder dosanjh creative director, creative black country
In 2016, the Arts Council England and the British Council announced the launch of Re-Imagine India, a cultural exchange programme investing in creative collaborations between arts organisations in the UK and in India. Its purpose: to create new work and to build sustainable networks and partnerships between artists and cultural leaders in both countries. Creative Black Country is an Arts Council England’s Creative People & Places programme encouraging more people to experience great arts and culture. We were awarded funds to engage with local Indian diaspora communities. The Black Country boasts one of the largest Punjabi Diasporas outside of India and since their arrival in the 1940s they have created a unique identity in the area, redefining the cultural, economic and social landscape. Working in partnership with Multistory (UK) and Nazar Foundation (New Delhi), Creative Black Country saw an opportunity to explore the relationship between the region of Punjab and the Black Country by commissioning four photographers to create compelling stories about the lives of local people. With gender inequality at the forefront of political debate in the UK, and a similarly pressing topic in India, the team felt that it was important to support the creation of a body of work about women, by women. Four female artists, two Indian and two British, travelled from Wolverhampton, Walsall to West Bromwich and from Jalandhar to Patiala to explore the lives of a diverse set of women. Grandmothers, daughters, family relatives as well as housewives, professional women, students and young girls living in an orphanage invited the photographers to experience the routines, joys and challenges of their daily lives. We are delighted that our all-women team has taken up the challenge and produced four diverse and compelling pieces of work. We are excited by these photographic stories, as they have inspired new dialogues regarding what it means to be a Punjabi and British-Punjabi woman today. The exhibition Girl Gaze: Journeys Through The Punjab & Black Country, UK had its first showing in the Punjab in March 2018 – at the Punjab Lalit Kala Akademi in Chandigarh and the Apeejay College of Fine Art in Jalandhar. We are delighted to be able to show it in the Black Country at Blast! Festival 2019.
“We are delighted to be connected to this important new body of work by four women photographers. Their response to the women and girls’ stories from the Black Country and the Punjab, is a vital challenge to the issue of gender inequality that prevails in the UK and India. We invite our audiences to re-imagine an alternative view.” emma chetcuti director, multistory
“In the past, collaborative projects of this nature which seek to represent aspects of the East and West have often privileged international photographers over their Indian counterparts. What is really encouraging about this initiative is that both sets of female artists are working on an equal footing. They have each been able to spend time not only in the Punjab but also in the Black Country. The resulting work is consequently so much richer and more nuanced. It’s a great step forward and one which we wholeheartedly support.” prashant panjiar co-founder & managing trustee, nazar foundation
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iona fergusson
Girl Gaze: Journeys Through The Punjab & The Black Country, UK is a photographic exploration of the Punjab and diaspora communities in the West Midlands through the voices of young girls and women. The exhibition brings together commissioned work by four women artists: Jocelyn Allen (UK), Andrea Fernandes (India), Jennifer Pattison (UK), and Uzma Mohsin (India). The photographers were chosen to ensure a diversity of ages, fields of interest, artistic approaches and aesthetic output that give rise to an array of stories that reflect the multiplicity of lived experience for women of British-Punjabi heritage and those living in the Punjab. Themes that appear in the works are wide-ranging: gender, patriarchy, tradition, culture, memory, identity, place, belonging and difference. The photographers’ projects reveal interesting synergies and equally compelling divergences regarding the complex nature of migration and the connections that exist between diaspora communities and their place of origin. Jocelyn Allen’s You Will Live In This World As A Daughter is a series of portraits of young girls and women. Behind her playful portrayals is a meaningful enquiry into their visibility within traditionally patriarchal communities. In Jalandhar, she encountered girls who live the sometimes-brutal consequences of entrenched values that privilege boys over girls. In the Black Country, she photographed young BritishPunjabi women who, while guided by their parents’ value systems, seek to discover their own position in a society with different customs. In Panjabi Court Andrea Fernandes offers an insight into the daily lives of native Punjabi women and the diaspora communities who settled in the Black Country. A central theme of her exhibition explores ideas of identity and representation and how culture, tradition, nationality and place impact on the way women from both regions wish to project themselves. Through photographs
and text, the viewer is invited to explore Punjab in its unique intersection as a historical landmark and an imagined homeland. Jennifer Pattison’s interest in magical worlds finds expression in the lori from the Punjab. Rice Pudding Moon & The River of Dreams is inspired by songs depicting Punjab’s rural traditions and a mother’s love for her child. It is a poetic style of magic realism that appears in her images - beautiful and nostalgic. Pattison is interested in how lullabies are passed down through generations of mothers and the role that art can play in keeping them alive. Tradition, and how it defines us, our families and our sense of community is a theme that emerges. In Love & Other Hurts Uzma Mohsin seeks to inject new life into the personal histories of women of Punjabi and Sikh heritage. She creates a complex and richly layered picture of life in diaspora communities and amongst family members in India. Her stories are both salutary and heartrending as they portray courage, love and friendship as well as acts of violence, racism, intolerance and cruelty. The exhibits in Girl Gaze paint a layered picture of life for women in the Punjab and the Black Country. They demonstrate the importance women place on family and community but also the positive and negative impact to themselves and their values systems that often comes with migration and assimilation into different cultures. Equally, the works propose that identity is not defined by place but also by bonds of love and friendship maintained throughout life. Despite the challenges to their autonomy that still exist today, women in both regions continue to negotiate their place in the world. They adapt to their changing circumstances with courage and resilience. Accompanying them on their journey is an understanding that there is no singular truth about what it is to be a Punjabi or British-Punjabi woman but a multitude of different and imaginative ways to live it.
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You Will Live In This World As A Daughter presents a series of enigmatic and unconventional portraits of young girls and women from the Black Country and Jalandhar. The title of Allen’s work references lyrics from the song Middle of the Night by edgy US-based punk-pop band The Soviettes. ‘Now listen girl I’m your father, And you will live in this house as a daughter.’ The words become a metaphor for the different sets of rules by which girls living in patriarchal communities often live their lives. Whilst conducting her research, the artist discovered that the ratio of men to women in the Punjab is below the national average and her interest in what it is to be born a daughter of the Punjab was roused. Furthermore, issues surrounding gender inequality are at the vanguard of political and social discourse in the UK and India with movements such as #metoo challenging unacceptable male behaviour. The topic becomes a timely jumping off point for Allen’s investigation into the lives of Punjabi girls from the Black Country and those she met in India. Gender bias exists in both countries. In Jalandhar, she interacted with girls in a children’s home and at an allgirls college. The former find shelter against abandonment and domestic violence; the latter find hope and greater independence through education and sport despite the chauvinism they encounter. In the Black Country, girls and young women spoke of how brothers and male cousins were treated less strictly. The birth of a boy a cause for celebration; a girl, a grandmother’s tears. Allen’s visual language emerges from a process of selfinvestigation. Much of her work is directed at her own body to tackle themes of representation, identity, self-esteem and anxiety. For Girl Gaze, the artist turns her lens outward to explore how photography can be used as a stage upon which girls are free to play. The result is a series of idiosyncratic, whimsical and at times purposefully indirect portraits of her subjects. Her photographs play with the dichotomies of women’s lives: presence/absence, visibility/invisibility, hiding/ revealing and public/private. Mysterious and improvised gestures, concealed faces and carefully selected objects constitute a small theatre of the vernacular – a secret language with which each girl performs her identity. During the project, Allen was struck by how confident the girls and young women appeared to be despite the expectations and limitations placed on them by family and society. The intention of her portraits is to reflect their spirit and energy – to be playful as well as thought-provoking.
If I was born a boy, I would be able to walk freely the streets. If I was born a boy, my parents would’ve handed out ladoo at my birth. If I was born a boy, I wouldn’t have had to work twice as hard for the same reward. If I was born a boy, the villagers would not have pitied my parents. If I was born a boy, I would not have had to argue for the same entitlement. If I was born a boy, marriage would not be a conversation at 21. If I was born a boy, I may have been heard harder whenever I speak. But I was born a girl, and I am here.
pavjot atwal
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Travel, for Andrea Fernandes, is an experimental process - a creative impetus for chance encounters with people and places. Over the course of a year, the artist journeyed extensively in the Panjab and the Black Country engaging with native women from the local villages and towns as well as the diaspora communities in the West Midlands. With her camera as companion, she set out to explore what it means to be a Panjabi and British-Panjabi woman today only to be confronted with the complex, fluid and often contradictory nature of human identity and how individuals and communities choose to represent themselves. The work is comprised of a sequence of portraits interspersed with landscapes of the Panjab and the Black Country as well as short quotes by the women she encountered. In Panjab Court, Fernandes offers us a window through which to investigate how culture, tradition, nationality and place impact upon the way we perceive and represent ourselves both collectively and individually and the potential frictions and harmonies that are inherent in our desire for communal and self-actualisation. This phenomenon is particularly present in diaspora and migrant communities whose sense of ‘difference’ is often brought sharply into focus by the host nation. While many overlapping themes of shared history exist between the Punjab and the Black Country, every individual’s lived experience and version of history is distinct. As the artist herself states: “I look back at the portraits and narrations of the women in order to understand how and why a particular community portrays a cohesive and singular identity when the reality of their lives is multi-dimensional.” With each photograph, the viewer is invited to explore Panjab in its unique intersection as a historical landmark and an imagined homeland. What emerges is an understanding that there is no singular or universal truth that defines the identity of Punjabi and British-Punjabi women but a multitude of different realities – all of them authentic – that are conjured up in our shared imaginations.
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I HAD A TEACHER CALLED MRS. ACKERMAN, MY MOTHER USED TO CALL HER MRS AMERICAN. SHE WOULD SEE HER ACROSS THE STREET AND SHOUT OUT “GOOD MORNING, MRS. AMERICAN!”.
MA RECENTLY CONFESSED THAT SHE WOULD DO THAT ON PURPOSE - WHICH MAKES SENSE - CONSIDERING MY MOTHER IS A PRETTY WELL EDUCATED WOMAN. SHE STARTED MISCALLING MRS. ACKERMAN BECAUSE MRS. ACKERMAN SAID MY NAME, JASPRIT WAS TOO DIFFICULT TO PRONOUNCE SO SHE HAD SHORTENED IT TO JESS. I LIKE JESS, EVERYONE CALL ME JESS, EXCEPT FOR MY MOTHER.
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AMAN: SO YOU’RE ON TINDER TO MAKE FRIENDS? NEETU: YOU HAVE TO SAY THAT. WHAT ARE YOU ON TINDER FOR? A: TO FIND A GIRLFRIEND. SOMEONE TO LOVE AND MARRY. HAVE CHILDREN WITH. N: ME TOO. MY PARENTS WILL START LOOKING FOR BOYS FOR ME NEXT YEAR. I THOUGHT IT’S BEST I AT LEAST TRY TO FIND SOMEONE OF MY OWN CHOICE.
A: HOW’S IT GOING SO FAR? N: FIRST OF ALL, THERE ARE SO FEW SIKH MEN - PRACTICING SIKH MEN - IT REALLY NARROWS DOWN MY CHOICES. A: IS THAT YOUR MAIN REASON FOR BEING ON THIS DATE? N: IT’S NOT THE MAIN REASON BUT I PROBABLY WOULDN’T HAVE STOPPED AT YOUR PROFILE IF YOU DIDN’T HAVE A DASTAR. LOOK, I KNOW THERE ARE WONDERFUL MEN I COULD BE COMPATIBLE WITH WHETHER THEY ARE SIKH OR NOT AND MY FAMILY WILL EVENTUALLY ACCEPT IT TOO. BUT BEING SIKHI IS IMPORTANT TO ME.
LATER THAT AFTERNOON IN AMAN’S ROOM THEY EXCHANGED TURBANS. IT WAS THE MOST INTIMATE THING NEETU WOULD DO WITH A MAN UNTIL SHE WAS MARRIED.
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As a child, Jennifer Pattison was beguiled by stories of magical worlds. Phantasmagorical images transcended the boundaries of her imagination and became almost real. Vivid memories of these enchanted moments accompanied her into adulthood where they found creative expression in her photographic practice. Today, imaginary worlds and her instinctive response to them become a starting point for her artistic endeavours. For Girl Gaze, Pattison finds inspiration in the rich folkloric traditions of the Punjabi loris –particularly those sung by Bazigar communities, the Sufi Saint Sakhi Sarwar and those popularised and preserved in Bollywood cinema. Her interest in the lullaby stems from the birth of her daughter and the realisation that songs that her mother sang to her as a child were emerging from her subconscious. These poignant moments of remembering inspired her to make this work. Tradition and how it defines us, our families, our sense of community is a theme that surfaces in her work. The imagery of the lori is rich with cultural references. They allude to Punjab’s rural heritage: its fields of cotton and wheat, fathers tending their crops, mothers spinning and homes where warm milk, ghee and sugary pinnis are consumed. But they also depict universal truths about a mother’s love for her child. In conceptualising her work, Pattison plays with these two essential elements. Captured within her frame are whispers of a bygone era steeped in rural traditions and evocations of earthy scents of fertile land bathed in soft moonlight. Her images conjure up dreamlike visions of a mother’s love for her child: of infants lying in their parent’s lap dreaming of Chanda Mama the uncle in the moon; of childhood treats replete with golden sweets, colourful balloons and tender caresses. The project is a visual culmination of conversations with women from the Black Country and Patiala. Pattison was interested in how lullabies are passed down the generations from grandmother to daughter to grandchild and wondered whether this everyday ritual connected the two communities under the same moon but thousands of miles apart. However, it was during discussions with women that she came to understand how the traditions of singing lullabies no longer connect with their lives. Cultural assimilation in the UK, and contemporary lifestyles in both countries, mitigate against their preservation. But the language of the loris is finding new expression in the on-line space where stories of a mother’s love continue to weave their magic spell. In Rice Pudding Moon & The River of Dreams, Pattison seeks to add her voice and re-imagine the loris for a new generation of mothers.
ਿਮੱ ਠੀ ਿਮੱ ਠੀ ਨੀਂਦ ਆਜਾ ਛੇ ਤੀ ਛੇ ਤੀ ਨੀਂਦ ਆਜਾ ਸੋ ਹਣੇ ਵੀਰ ਨੂੰ ਸਵਾ ਜਾ Come, sweet sweet sleep, come! Come soon, come quick, Put my beautiful brother to sleep
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Uzma Mohsin’s multi-layered approach to storytelling weaves a rich tapestry of narratives about people, places and their histories. In Love Stories & Other Hurts she uses photography to delve into the lives of women from the Black Country and the Punjab through their personal journeys, family accounts and tales of love. Time and memory tinged with a delicate touch of melancholy are themes that emerge in her work. The artist’s form of image-making follows a subjective narrative that interlaces individual stories through research and the examination of literature, archives, family albums, personal letters, objects and other found material. This sense of inquiry stems from her past engagement with journalism and an interest in vernacular stories. Her choice of subject is deliberately broad, selecting women across generations from diverse socio-economic groups of Punjabi and Sikh extraction. What emerges in her work is a complex picture of life in diaspora communities and amongst family members in India that speaks of courage, resilience, bonds of love and friendship but correspondingly of hardship, loneliness, ostracism, abandonment and depression. For Mohsin, her technique of making images plays a fundamental role in the narrative process of her stories. In Love Stories & Other Hurts she experiments with abstraction and photographic layering to push the boundaries of storytelling. She reshoots over archival material to meld past with present and gives analogue film to a handful of her female subjects over which she photographs her own pictures. What comes to the surface are elements of chance and surreal connections which convey the dualities and complexities of the lives lived between two cultures. Embroidery, stitched onto the surface of her photographs or stretched between her work, becomes the metaphor for threads that connect people to place. But also of erasure, of absent husbands and fading memories. But above all, it is participation that defines her working practice: a desire to involve her subjects in the narrative process of their stories. She rejects the notion of the objective outside documenter and favours inclusiveness and interaction as her shared image-making process demonstrates. This approach enriches her storytelling and blurs the boundaries between fact and fiction. Truth-telling takes second place in favour of impressions and shifting gazes that play with the imagination. In seeking to breathe new life into the histories of women from the Black Country and the Punjab, Mohsin recontextualises their lives within the contemporary moment.
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united kingdom
united kingdom
Iona Fergusson moved to India from London in 2003 seeking a new challenge after a decade working in the perfume industry. She found it at Vogue India where she worked as Photo Editor for six years. In 2013, she returned to London to complete her Masters in Photography History & Theory at Sotheby’s Institute of Art. She is now an independent curator and producer specialising in lens based work with a particular interest in South Asia.
Jocelyn Allen is an artist who works mainly with photography, video and performance. Her photographs have been exhibited in festivals and group shows both in the UK and internationally. She was recently awarded Graduate Single Image in the British Journal of Photography Breakthrough Awards 2017. Jocelyn often appears within her personal work, whilst exploring themes of representation, self-esteem, anxiety, hiding/revealing and identity. jocelynallen.co.uk
india Andrea Fernandes is a photographic artist. She’s drawn to the personal heroism of others and their attempts to articulate life through performance. Fernandes has a Master’s Degree in Photographic Studies from the University of Westminster, London. In 2015, Fernandes co-founded BIND, an experimental platform involved in developing original practices and using inventive forms of engagement with the medium. andreafernandes.in
united kingdom Jennifer Pattison is an award winning British photographer based in London. Her work has been exhibited at The National Portrait Gallery in London, U.K and internationally. She is interested in otherworldly stories and creating characters from her imagination. Her portraits are arresting and full of unselfconscious expression. jennifer-pattison.com
india Uzma Mohsin was born in Aligarh and graduated from the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, India. As part of her image-making practice, she uses personal voice, metaphorical exploration and abstraction to unravel narratives of people, places and their histories. Her last two exhibitions include The Surface of Things: Photography in Process at the Alliance FranÇaise, Delhi and Zones of Privacy at Chatterjee & Lal gallery, Mumbai in 2016. She was recently awarded the Alkazi Foundation’s Documentary Grant, 2017. uzmamohsin.com
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we would like to thank the following organisations and people for their generous support and contribution to the project Arts Council England British Council India Multistory Deepika Sharma – Producer India Tania Sohal – Producer India Laura Dicken – Coordinator Black Country Dawinder Bansal – Coordinator Black Country Ines Dalal – Coordinator Black Country Andy Noarem – Catalogue Designer The British Muslim School, Latifiah Fultali Complex, Lodge Road, West Bromwich. the artists would like to pay special tribute to those who helped realise their projects Jocelyn Allen: Aarti, Amani, Amanjot, Amanpreet, Amber, Amrita, Angel, Anjali, Anya, Asawari, Avi, Bakshi, Balbita, Deepa, Ginni Mahi, Gloria, Gurneet, Gurvinder, Jaskamalpreet, Jasmeen, Jasminder, Jasmine, Jaspreet, Jastaran, Kajal, Kanta, Kiran, Kiranjeet, Krishna, Manpreet, Mekakpreet, Navjot, Neelam, Neha, Nisha, Payal, Prabhjot, Pravjot, Priya, Rajat, Ravika, Reeta Rani, Riya, Rupinder, Sapna, Sara, Sarbjit, Shivranjini, Simranjeet, Sukhveer, Sunaina, Suneeta, Sushma, Tanisha, Tanmeet and Vinita.
Asian Women’s Group in the Black Country, Alex Muggleton, Chris Kane and Labyrinth Photographic. Uzma Mohsin: Anand Chhabra, Sarvjit Sra (Apna Heritage Archive, Wolverhampton), Navtej Purewal, Inès Elsa Dalal, Suraksha Asar, Kanchan Jain, Laxmiben L Patel, Raghwir Kaur, Kamaljeet Kaur & the women of the Asian Ladies’ Group at Brickkiln Community Centre (Wolverhampton), Ranjit and Uresh Patel, DJ Nav, Parv Kaur, Kalbir Bains, Kulwant Kaur and Gurmail Bhamra, Pam Sond and Serge, Amarjit Chandan, Nirupama Dutt, Kali Desraj, Rinku Chopra at Chopra Studio (Jalandhar), Usha Ghai & the women at Chetna Asian Women’s Group, Gulshan Radio (Wolverhampton), Luther Photographers (Jalandhar), Satveer Nijjar, Zena & Anna, Deep Kailey, Harpreet Sharma, Kash Sandhu and Nigel, Charu Soni, Mushtaq Singh, Manjit Kaur, Daljit Singh, Ram Swaroop and Pavitr (Ranipur), Karambir Sandhu, Kavita Bhanot, Preeti Gill, Rupebehenji (Phagwara), Jinder & the everyone at Prince of Wales Pub (West Bromwich), Ruby Kaur, Red Cow Pub & Grill (Smethwick), Rajni Syal, PC Rani Gundhu, Jaz Kaur, Sonam Dubal & Nanki Singh, Christina Noble, Arina & Danish Siddiqi, Amana & Alina, Aditya Pande, Sukanya Ghosh, Rahul Noble and Ahuja Framers.
Jennifer Pattison: Professor Surjit Singh and Sandeep Kaur from the Punjabi University, Patiala who have been researching lori’s from the Malwa region of Punjab, Dr. Jagbir Singh, Dr. Shamsher Singh Sandhu, Professor Ravinder Singh, Sakshi & Yuvansh, Mankirat & Ravinder, Mudita & Dr Bhupesh Jain, Mohinder Singh Jaggi, Gurmeet Jaggi, Ajeet Hundal, Jaideep Narula at Star Colour, Kulwant Singh Gill and Dollar Gill, Gopika Parmar and Nairen Parmar, Hardish Kaur and Guravani Kaur, Sanyogita Kumari, Balwinder Singh Sohal, Rupinder Kaur Sohal, the Humjoli
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