{"id":3727,"date":"2009-03-11T13:03:41","date_gmt":"2009-03-11T13:03:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tat.reddaisytrading.co.uk\/index.php\/2009\/03\/11\/30-years-of-southall-celebrated\/"},"modified":"2016-01-07T11:33:11","modified_gmt":"2016-01-07T11:33:11","slug":"30-years-of-southall-celebrated","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/2009\/03\/11\/30-years-of-southall-celebrated\/","title":{"rendered":"30 years of Southall celebrated"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Exhibitions and events to mark development of \u2018Little India\u2019 <\/h3>\n
\"\"A SERIES of exhibitions and events will celebrate 30 years of London suburb Southall next month.<\/strong> <\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

\u2018The Southall Story\u2019 will chart the development of the much-loved area through photographs, recordings, film documentaries and archive material. <\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

The suburb, dubbed \u2018Little India\u2019, is one of the capital\u2019s most heavily populated South Asian areas.<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

The events will take place from April at venues including the British Library, South Bank Centre, Royal Geographical Society and Southall Library.<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

Musician Kuljit Bhamra, artistic director of the project, said the importance of the area to British culture has never been fully acknowledged. <\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cSouthall’s contribution to music, poetry, film and theatre is under acknowledged,\u201d he said. \u201cPeople sometimes forget that Bhangra is a British creation \u2013 along with Fish \u2018n\u2019 Chips and Chicken Tikka Masala. If you think about it, you will realise that many of the creative pioneers came out of Southall.\u201d <\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

Mr Bhamra will be joined at a special launch event at the end of next month by Pragna Patel from the renowned refuge Southall Black Sisters, and Bend it Like Beckham director Gurinder Chadha. <\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

Today tourists are as eager to visit Southall as they are to experience the capitals most recognised attractions. <\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

While the area embodies all that can be celebrated from multi-cultural Britain, the launch of The Southall Story coincides with the 30th<\/sup> anniversary of Britain\u2019s first major race riot. <\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

What was meant to be a peaceful protest made up of Black, White and largely Asian residents turned into a bloody uprising against the National Front in which 33-year-old schoolteacher Blair Peach died. As a result, Southall emerged as a community determined to fight for its identity, integrity and self-respect.<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

Faced with racial attacks and police brutality, there was an eruption of prominent groups such as the Southall Monitoring Group and the Southall Black Sisters, determined to overcome racial adversity. <\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

On the other side of the spectrum Southall\u2019s cultural awakening began with an outpouring of creative expression from poetry, theatre, music, art and literature. Progressive Writers Association began to explore writings in native Punjabi and there was an emergence of talented musicians and producers such as Kuljit Bhamra and his mother Mohinder Kaur who introduced \u2018Bhangra music\u2019 into British culture.

\nShakila Taranum Maan, Co-Artistic Director of The Southall Story, said the events of 1979 shaped the area. <\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cThe events of 1979 were central to placing Southall on the consciousness of Britain. British Asians, Caribbean and White young people at the time gravitated towards this incredible town including myself to find a voice,\u201d she said. \u201cOur sole aim was to transcend race but on our terms and not within a multi-cultural framework. We wanted the mix of Southall\u2019s reggae band Misty in Roots with the Bhangra sounds of the likes of Alaap and so on. For us this was the ultimate gesture of determining our identity, doing away with the ever evolving pathological construction of Asians and Blacks through mainstream media and education.\u201d<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was this energy and originality that enabled the mushrooming of artists, activists, poets, actors, directors and entrepreneurs vindicating the enormous talents that had so far been ignored by the mainstream. The aim of the Southall Story is to readdress that balance, placing centre stage the creative talents and the influence of Southall internationally.\u201d<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

For more information on The Southall Story log onto <\/em><\/strong>www.thesouthallstory.com<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/div>\n

\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Exhibitions and events to mark development of \u2018Little India\u2019 A SERIES of exhibitions and events will celebrate 30 years of London suburb Southall next month. \u2018The Southall Story\u2019 will chart the development of the much-loved area through photographs, recordings, film documentaries and archive material. The suburb, dubbed \u2018Little India\u2019, is one of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11753,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3727","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3727","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3727"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3727\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11753"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3727"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3727"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3727"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}