Event details
Start
Tue 21 January 2025 • 5:00pm
Finishes
01 Feb 2025 • 10:00pm
A sound and light installation amplifying the lives and histories of Bangladeshi women living in Tower Hamlets.
Produced by Emergency Exit Arts with Creative Director Ruhul Abdin in partnership with Oitij-jo, Paraa and the Migration Museum, Stitching Light gathers real life experiences of Bangladeshi women who've migrated to England and weaves their stories together into an immersive sound and light installation. The installation is created using traditional Bangladeshi folk style painting and embroidered using light thread to tell their stories which are rarely gathered, told or heard.
Stitching Light will be on display at Canary Wharf Winter Lights from 21 January 2025 - 1 February 2025
Creative Process
In Autumn 2024 creative workshops were held with a group of British Bangladeshi women in Tower Hamlets. These were led by Oitij-jo Collective, an organisation dedicated to providing creative collaborations and platforms to enhance British Bangladeshi engagement with wider global, national and local communities.
The women shared stories of their lives in Bangladesh and Tower Hamlets, some of the difficulties they encountered in transitioning to their new lives as well as childhood games and memories. The workshop participants expressed how powerful and empowering the project has been for them, they loved being able to talk about themselves and their shared histories in a way they have never done before.
Their experiences have been translated into 3m high textile panels by designer Shihab Mahmud Baten who is based in Bangladesh. Light thread has also been stitched into the designs and a soundscape was created combining the voices of the women and traditional music and sounds that remind them of home.
The panels have then been arranged within a purpose-built 3D structure which the audience can walk through and around to immerse themselves in these stories.
Please click the button below for further information on the individual panels.
Executive Producers: Daniel Bernstein, Ben Raine, Hannah Rushforth (EEA)
Creative Direction: Ruhul Abdin (Paraa)
Textile Workshop Leader: Shama Kun (Oitij-jo)
Workshop Participants: Thanks to the various women who contributed such rich migration stories to London with Oitij-jo.
Workshop Management: Maher Anjum (Oitij-jo)
Folk Artists:
Design: Shihab Mahmud Baten
Sound Artist: Aditya Arzu ( Siaminium )
Textile Artists: Melissa Dawkins, Danielle Williamson, Kim Dawkins, Debs Eastlake, Jess Ormerod, Allison Sau Wai Hui, Tania Hills (EEA)
Technical Manager: Kenji Takahashi (EEA)
Production Team: Isabel Shortt, Martin Jenkins, Matt Alston, Kat Currie, Amy West, Craig West, James Corner, Roy Gurvitz, Emma Corck, Joe Boultwood (EEA)
Oral History : Liberty Melly (Migration Museum)
Paraa Team Design support: Abdul Kadir, Farhin Iqbal,
Translation Support: Ayesha Rahman Chowdhury, Nasib Ahsan, Fahim Bin Hamid, Adit Dewan
Bangladesh production support: Abrar Galib
Thanks to: Canary Wharf, Arts Council England, The National Lottery Heritage Fund, Garfield Weston