LONDON, ENGLAND.- The Museum of Immigration and Diversity is opening its doors, for three days in September. Sunday, 7th September, 12 - 7 pm part of the BRICK LANE Festival. Saturday & Sunday, 20th & 21st September, 10 - 7pm part of London Open House. 19 Princelet Street - described by the New York Times as ’a powerful symbol’ - will open for three days in September. As well as visiting the Museum, you can enjoy the Brick Lane Festival on Sunday 7 September, London’s best street party, with world music and food. The day coincides also with European Day of Jewish Culture & Heritage, so celebrate diversity at 19 Princelet Street with the work of local schoolchildren - many of whom are Muslems - reflecting upon the earlier Jewish arrivals and their contribution to Britain.
Three artists featured at the recent LEAVE TO REMAIN, exhibition, have been granted a further extension to their stay in the capital. Gonkar Gyatso’s ’Soft Touch’ (photo below), is a pun on the phrase, so often used by the media and increasingly the public, when describing Britain as an easy target. Suzana Tamamovic’s installation ’People Tell Me To Cheer Up, It Could Be Worse’ (photo below - in the background), will be permeating the space, creating an insight into being a refugee: loss, alienation, anger, hope and reflection. Margareta Kern’s installation titled ’Standard Class Opinions’ consists of 100 photographs taken by the artist, of passengers traveling in England on the standard class train carriages, paired with their answers to the question “What do you think of asylum seekers coming to Britain?”.
The ’hauntingly beautiful’ exhibition SUITCASES AND SANCTUARY, which has a permanent residence at the Museum, asks you to pause and wonder what could make you leave home for a strange new country. This site specific exhibition explores the history of the waves of immigration that shaped Spitalfields, seen through the eyes of today’s children. It is the story of one area, the story of London, and the story of the making of multicultural Britain.
The history of Brick Lane is as an area that has gone through constant change as different communities have settled here. This stretches back centuries to the first influx of Huguenots who were followed, generation on generation, by the arrival of a variety of European, Jewish, Bangladeshi, Somali and other African and Asian newcomers. Over the years the interaction of these migrants with each other, and with the already established populations, has brought a unique combination of cultural and artistic flavours to the locality.
