The 50th anniversary of the Independence of Bangladesh provided a perfect opportunity to increase the visibility of the local Bangladeshi community in the Bloomsbury and Kings Cross areas of London, and allow their stories and culture to be shared with people from all backgrounds in the area. The Visible People, Visible Places project aimed to do this in innovative and highly visible ways including outdoor video projections, local radio broadcasts/podcasts and outdoor events, and a large scale event at the British Library for Bangladesh 50. Another objective was to increase the skills for young people and offer new cultural opportunities for people of all ages. We offered a trainee scheme for 5 young trainees from the local area, four of Bangladeshi heritage and one from a Hong Kong background.
We linked with the Bangladesh High Commission, local Bangladeshi organisations such as Camden Mela, and with local community organisations KCBNA, Holborn Community and Somers Town Community Association, and had additional dialogue with Tower Hamlets around Brick Lane commissions for Bangladesh 50. We had the support of Camden Council, Bedford Estates, University of London, UCL, Bloomsbury Radio (based at the Bloomsbury Institute) and Central Alliance BID. We worked closely with larger national status institutions in the immediate area, particularly the British Library, home to many artefacts relating to the Bangladeshi and Bengali history, SOAS and Guildhall School of Music and Drama. We also involved Holborn Library and they will continue to hold archives from the project.
Skills Training for our Trainees and the Wider Community
Community and skills sessions run by our heritage project team and partners included photograph and artefact sharing, story sharing and gathering, audio recording for radio, podcast and social media, video and video projection skills and silk painting.
Podcasts relating to the Bangladesh 50 and the wider Bloomsbury Festival 2021 can be found on the festival podcast site Anchor.fm/Bloomsburyfestival
Interviews with families who moved to Camden from Bengal can be found here. The interviews were conducted as part of
Transcripts of the interviews which were conducted in English are available here
Translated transcripts of interviews conducted in Bengali can be found here
Other interviews as part of this project are featured in Mohammed Ali’s curated film ‘Bangladeshi Tales of Kings Cross’
Other activities included exhibitions of Bengali silk banners from artists at Kinetika, concerts linking a British Bangladeshi singer Sohini Alam with a local school and presenting two concerts – one with the school and one with SOAS, a further concert at SOAS and activities at our festival opening night, Lights Banners Tigers, including a neon exhibition by artist Chila Kumari Singh Burman influenced by both her South Asian heritage and her British upbringing.
Bangladesh 50 at the Bloomsbury Festival 2021 