Adopting Britain: 70 Years of Migration – presented by the Southbank Centre in partnership with Counterpoints Arts (17 April – 6 September 2015)
Adopting Britain: 70 Years of Migration is part of the Southbank Centre’s Changing Britain Festival. Inspired by Tales of a New Jerusalem, a series of books by historian David Kynaston, this festival looks at British society, culture and politics of the past 70 years. In 1951 a total of 50 per cent of the construction team responsible for building Royal Festival Hall were reportedly from migrant backgrounds. Together with our exhibition partners, the Southbank Centre, we continue to celebrate the positive contribution that refugees and migrants have made to Britain’s artistic and cultural landscape.
This exhibition explores the stories of many different communities that have made Britain their home, from those who chose to come here for work or for love, to those who have sought asylum, fleeing persecution or war in their own countries. Adopting Britain celebrates the keepsakes, traditions and languages communities bring with them from their mother countries, as well as the ways in which individuals and families adapt to their new home. Throughout the exhibition can be found photographs from the Migration Museum Project’s 100 Images of Migration.
While we cannot hope to tell all of the stories of the migrant communities who have come to Britain over many centuries, we can build a picture of migration that moves from British recruitment campaigns in the Caribbean in the 1950s to Indian subcontinent and European migration following dramatic political upheavals. Looking at the ways in which migration is reported in the media, and the fact that people arriving in the UK have not always received a warm welcome, the exhibition also celebrates those acts of kindness and humanity as the British people, as diverse as they have ever been, reach out to new communities, offering friendship and hope.
Image credit: Tim Smith, Children at play in the Beeston area of Leeds, 2005
