Adopting Britain

Thought provoking show at the Royal Festival Hall looking at the history of recent migrations to Britain, looking at the stories of different communities that have come here and made Britain their home.

The show had a number of interactive section and began with offering you different cards to fill in with your own story depending if you were a migrant, if a grandparent was, if a parents was or if no-one back that far was. I fell into the latter category and the attached photos is my card! Many people like me seemed a bit apologetic about it, adding comments like “but I’ve travelled a lot” or “my best friend is a migrant”!

The objects and stories in the show were accompanied by a number of interesting photograph projects many from the Migration Museum’s project to gather 100 images of migration. I loved the first section which looked at why various groups came and there were some great objects from Transport for London looking at the recruitment of workers in the Caribbean.

A moving section looked at objects people associated with where they had come from and I particularly loved a photo of a lady with a necklace that she had kept hidden in the heel of a shoe in Auschwitz. Her mother had passed the shoes to her as they were separated and she never saw her mother again.

Another display compared the press coverage following the Enoch Powell Rivers of Blood speech with a week of cutting from current UK papers in the week beginning 22 March. It makes you realise the world has not changed that much! The language of migration in the popular press is quietly inflammatory! Incidentally I was interested to spot that the coincidence that the day after Rivers of Blood papers we dated 22 April and I went to the exhibition on the 22 April!

 

 

 

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