RE-CONSTRUCT …. VOICES THROUGH ART

The VOICES exhibition at The Basement Gallery, John Bunyan Museum, ran from August 13th-17th 2018. It was a collaboration between The Higgins Museum and BRASS on the VOICES PROJECT.

This exhibition combined the VOICES display with the tapestry of objects and the work carried out at the Primary Schools around Bedford with structures made of wire together with the new extension of this project entitled ‘RE-CONSTRUCT … VOICES THROUGH ART’. The photographs displayed in the exhibition were taken while visiting six Syrian Families in Bedford and recording their oral history of displacement:

All the Syrian Families came on Tuesday together with their interpreter Mahmoud. Their thoughts on the display of the photographs with reference to the NOSTALGIA they are still unable to feel about their country, but which is nevertheless, reflected in the coffee ritual, were very positive with comments about the fact that they will find it difficult for quite a while to forget the images they saw and what they experienced. It will take time and detail will be added to their oral histories as time goes by, now too sketchy.

Children engaged in the workshop making wire structures, adding their comments and hanging them onto the existing display:

The opportunity to exhibit for a whole week gave us the opportunity to introduce the work to other members of the community who, when visiting the John Bunyan museum walked down into the Basement and engaged in the VOICES work. Comments received by the visitors were enriching, with links made to the journeys undertaken by the characters described in The Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan, journeys through imaginary mountains with the struggles faced by the individuals though without the urge to become heroes, the unsung heroes maybe. The VOICES tapestry definitely is linked to those struggles.

Josepa Munoz www.josepa.eu - Collaborating: Sumana Das.