London Met hosts event for South Asian Heritage Month News

Collaborative community event celebrating Bengali cultural heritage through food, textiles and music, organised by Dr Clelia Clini

Date: 28 August 2024

Restitching Heritage: a journey through Bengali textile, music, and food took place on 20th July at the Wash Houses at London Met, to commemorate South Asian Heritage Month. The event was organised by Dr Clelia Clini from the School of Computing and Digital Media in partnership with Migrant Memory Collective, Tower Hamlets Council and international human rights organisation Restless Beings.

Given the number of organisations involved, this was a truly collaborative effort, that was born under the initiative of Migrant Memory Collective, a grassroots organisation born in 2022 with the aim of celebrating Bengali and Bangladeshi cultural heritage within the wider framework of South Asian Heritage Month. The event brought together people from across the British Bengali community and beyond to celebrate Bengali culture with a focus on sensory forms of cultural heritage such as food, textiles, and music, and promoted discussions on themes of identity, cultural heritage, and community.

Musicians from Gouri Chowdhury’s Suraloy’s music school opened the event with a selection of musical items ranging from Tagore to Folk, to Bengal dance numbers. The music segment was followed by a section on textile led by acclaimed fashion designer Rahemur Rahman in conversation with Shama Kun and Maher Anjum from Oitij-jo Collective, who shared insights on their creative processes and brought along a selection of items for participants to see and touch, and which epitomised the diversity of their inspirations, techniques, and approaches. 

The final section featured Sabina Khan (community advocate and Parent’s Liaison Officer at Mulberry School for Girls) who talked with Clelia about the social and cultural significance of Bengali food in the diasporic context of London, a conversation which led to a profound exchange with attendees on the relationship between food and cultural identity. During the event, participants also had the opportunity to savour Bengali snacks provided by Oitij-jo.

Between 2017 and 2023 Clelia has collaborated with several British Bengali organisations in East London, as part of her research for the Migrant Memory and the Postcolonial Imagination project, which investigated memories of the 1947 Partition of British India, decolonisation and migration within British Asian communities, and the impact of these memories on inter-community relations and questions of identity and belonging. These collaborations have led to the co-curation of several public engagement events aimed at promoting a conversation on the research themes with the wider public.

This event was thus a natural evolution of this work and it is line with London Met’s Knowledge Exchange strategy and Education for Social Justice framework, as it put the spotlight on the intertwined history of Bengal and Britain and the cross-cultural connections between communities, while also promoting a critical engagement with the legacy of colonialism on contemporary British (and British Bengali) culture.

Clelia said: "Collaboration and knowledge-exchange is a key aspect of my research on South Asian cultural heritage, and, given London Met’s commitment to the Education for Social Justice Framework, and its Race Equity Agenda, London Met is the ideal setting to continue to engage in critical conversations on migration, culture and the legacy of colonialism in British society."

Anjuma Choudhury, founder of Migrant Memory Collective, commented: "The Migrant Memory Collective came together to host events for South Asian Heritage Month with the focus on British Bengali culture, heritage and identity. The creative process has been fun, impactful and rewarding."

The event was supported by Loughborough University’s Migrant Memory and the Postcolonial Imagination research project and by the heritage organisations Oitij-jo, BritBangla, and Everyday Muslim. Photography by Mustapha Ousellam. Videography by Seetha Tan (Migrant Memory Collective). Social Media by Tanbir Mirza-Baeg (Migrant Memory Collective).

Musicians from Suraloy’s music school: Ranjita Sen, Shuvangi Dam, Palmira Taran. On Octopad Pappu Das. On keyboard Syed Ahmed.