Roti Kapra Aur Makaan
Date: 1998 - Ongoing
With financial help from the Arts Council’s A4E Express scheme APNA Arts facilitated EKTA Luncheon Club to produce a book and an exhibition on the development of the South Asian community in Nottingham, seen through the eyes of six Asian senior citizens. Together with a description of Asian migration to Britain, these stories are a useful tool for the classroom and library, explaining the background to the Asian presence in Britain.
This project provided an important and significant ‘New Work’ in Nottingham dealing with the history of the presence of South Asian people. None of the contributors is particularly rich, or famous, but the stories are a testament to how ordinary people struggled to carve out an economic and political space for modern British born Asians. Everything that we achieve is built on what our parents and grandparents have accomplished, whilst holding on to their Asian cultures. Through the brief biographies in this book, and the accompanying exhibition, APNA Arts pays a small tribute to those who set up our communities in Nottingham.
In place of the original project title of Away from Home we felt we needed something more dynamic and appropriate. Roti, Kapra or Makaan, (Bread, Cloth and Shelter) encompasses the reasons these six South Asian individuals migrated from the Indian sub-continent. The title also relates to a 1970’s Bollywood film and to the political slogan used by the late prime minister of Pakistan; Zulfiqar Ali Bhuto during the 1970s.
2000 copies of the books were published and the exhibition toured various venue such as; OUR FESTIVAL OUR MELA 98, Angel Row Gallery, The Art Exchange and Elms Primary School in Nottingham as well as The Mega Mela in Birmingham and toured a series of venues in Worcestershire.
To develop the project further, APNA Arts in partnership with Elms Primary School produced an education pack with Activities for Key Stages 1 & 2. The pack supports the National Curriculum in the subject areas of Citizenship/PSHE, Literacy, history and art.
APNA Arts are currently working on an action research project with Djanogly City Academy to develop an education pack for Key stage 3 and 4 that can be used in conjunction with a book and exhibition.