The wonderful women at New Hope Global have embarked on the third and final phase of their project, Our Stories in Nakshi Kantha. This project looks at the migration stories of local women in Aston from their birth countries, mainly Bangladesh. Whilst many of the women arrived in the UK a few decades ago, some women recently migrated during Brexit from neighbouring European countries. The project hopes to build bonds of friendship between the participants through their shared experiences. The first phase of the project drew out the women’s stories using drama techniques and this was followed by visualising designs relating to these stories before beginning the stitching phase.
Local textiles artist Abeda Begum began working closely with participants after Ramadan. She has been helping participants select colours, threads and use various stitching techniques to bring their stories to life. The women have so far learnt numerous technical skills as well as gaining confidence and making friends. As part of the project, the participants have visited two exhibitions and will be attending more as they begin to put together their own to showcase their work later this year.
Image credit: Salsabil Khalifa, Minya Productions
Forming part of
Co-created projects
This project is part of Amal’s Co-created Projects programme. We support high-quality arts projects that are co-created by Muslims and creative professionals and showcased within the wider community. These provide Muslims with opportunities they would not otherwise have to express their creativity in ways that matter to them. By enabling experimentation between Muslim artists and communities, these projects model ways in which the UK’s arts and cultural mainstream could more fully and authentically represent and engage Muslims as individuals and communities.
