I Packed This Myself
Click here to keep up to date via our blog. Above: four Lithuanian workers near Leedstown who have shot a film of their day-to-day lives.
Migrant workers play a vital role in the UK economy. They offer valuable skills and often do jobs that no one else wants. The Home Office estimates that new migrants added £6 billion to the economy in 2006. In Cornwall, hundreds of migrant workers harvest crops, work in care homes, hotels, meat processing factories, restaurants and schools. The local economy depends on them.
Yet these workers can face hostility and resentment. In rural Cornwall, due to expensive local housing, workers are often housed in caravans. They can have little contact with local communities, who often lack the opportunity to meet them. I Packed This Myself aims to change that.
We are running workshops and a travelling exhibition of suitcases revealing the background of migrant workers. We can offer schools in Cornwall a limited number of free workshops in the autumn: to book. email info@bridging-arts.com. Just launched: our updated Education Pack. To download click here.
For a guide to the I Packed This Myself exhibition click here. View a photogallery of the exhibition.
This project has been showcased by the Commission for Rural Communities as a national example of good practice. Click here to download a report. It has been supported by various funders – most recently, the Migration Impacts Fund through Communities and Local Government.
We are constantly in search of venues for the exhibition. Please contact us if you are interested in displaying it. It includes:
– Eastern European and Portuguese suitcases
– work by Jack Seal and Ross Tibbles, 3D design students at University College Falmouth with input from migrant workers from as far afield as Bugle and Denmark
– a suitcase from Nottingham-based artist Paul Matosic brought to this country by his father in the late 1940s after he carried it with him from Zagreb, Yugoslavia, to Dresden, Germany, where he sheltered under it during the bombing.
– a Relic Box by Patrick Coleman. This is a three-dimensional scrapbook in a toolbox which belonged to Coleman’s father, who arrived in the UK from Ireland in the early 1950s.
– photography by award winning photojournalist Tom Pilston.
Maureen Twose of Cornwall Libraries has helped to put together a captivating reading list for use with the project. Click here to download..
Click here for a piece in the Guardian on Short Stories from the Edge, a film shot at the Eden Project, Cornwall, with migrant workers and local people.
To download a flyer about school and youth group workshops, click here..
To view a web gallery featured in the Guardian in 2009 of a show in Camborne, Cornwall, click here.