Installation view of Kaleidoscope: Immigration and Modern Britain

You are here

Blog listing
Blog

Creative Careers Academy Insights: Kaleidoscope

Share
  • Facebook logo
  • Twitter logo

Terersa Fan

Creative Careers Academy Member

30 Aug 2019

Creative Careers Academy member Teresa Fan, currently working with Somerset House resident Creative United, shares her thoughts on our current exhibition Kaleidoscope: Immigration and Modern Britain

Being a photographer, alongside my placement with Creative United, I am always gaining insight into the decision-making process of curating content and often overwhelmed by artists and photographers alike who champion authentic experiences. Whilst ‘kaleidoscope’ has connotations of childhood pasttimes, it was a fitting name for an exhibition which conveys a multiplicity of voices surrounding immigration and the experiences and challenges of living in modern Britain.

Roughly split into three parts, each room provides a range of stills and film. Photography is a diverse medium which skilfully facilitates the storytelling of immigration - past and present. The search for identity is reflected by contrasting methods of film and digital photography, giving a sense of linear history characterised by the camera technologies available at the time. Kurt Tong compiles a mix of old black & white family portraits with his own colour photography, featuring a nostalgic theme park; an image of a daring rollercoaster attraction at Ocean Park to snippets of English town life. Tong weaves a wonderful past of migration from China to Hong Kong and finally, to the UK. The viewer is left to peruse his work like a family album, a more personal approach to retelling Tong’s family origins, many who endured social upheaval in Mao’s communist rule in China.

TBB_8366.jpg

Kurt Tong, The Queen, The Chairman and I
Kurt Tong, The Queen, The Chairman and I

For me, Tong sparks close memories of Hong Kong, and the question becomes: ‘Which home, is home?’. Born in Hong Kong, I migrated with my mother in 1997; marking the year of the handover of Hong Kong to China as the same year we united with my father in England. At the time, being a babbling baby of one and a half years old, I can only begin to imagine and piece together a time capsule of memories that Kaleidoscope presented to me. Flashes of memorable pasts, like Rhianna Clarke’s father’s personal photographs. Her project Many Rivers to Cross is an unfolding memoir and a documentation of her father’s journey assimilating in Britain in the '70s and '80s after migrating from the Caribbean.

2. Many Rivers to Cross © Rhianne Clarke.jpg

Many Rivers to Cross © Rhianne Clarke
Many Rivers to Cross © Rhianne Clarke


Like Tong’s work, Billy Dosanjh uses an auto-biographical take, his film 1965 from Super 8 camera footage of his family boarding the plane with their bags, heavy with smiles and hope, showing immigration as a more universally relatable experience.

When exploring themes such as cultural identity belonging is pivotal to seeking a meaning to the individual and even the families we create. Teresa Eng's Jessica MUA (2018) presents a group of proud individuals of South London. In Chris Steele-Perkins' The New Londoners some 200 families are pictured within their homes. Steele-Perkins captures the different personalities and pride in creating a home. Upon viewing, sentiments like ‘home is where the heart is’ and the celebration of multiculturalism humbled me.

11. The New Londoners © Chris Steele Perkins.jpg

The New Londoners © Chris Steele Perkins
The New Londoners © Chris Steele Perkins

Some works were more surprising than others, Hetain Patel’s leaping Spiderman in his family home, is aptly named The Jump presenting itself like a leap of faith in a new, unfamiliar culture. Juxtaposed against the deeply saturated coloured portraits adopted by Seba Kurtis, Heartbeat insinuates a sense of alienation and loss of individualism. Kurtis plays with long exposure and his personal experience as an immigrant to document migrants crossing borders illegaly. Like the individuals, an uncertain future is sensed, their faces barely visible, all too hard to see and they are subject to limbo status at detention centres. The viewer is left in a similar state of limbo - emotions which resonate with the heavy topic of immigration politics prevalent today.

5. The Jump (Film still) 3, 2015 © Hetain Patel.jpg

The Jump (Film still) 3, 2015 © Hetain Patel
The Jump (Film still) 3, 2015 © Hetain Patel

Immigration is often viewed as a one-sided matter and Kaleidoscope seeks to tackle it from every viewpoint. Reading material is optional but will allow a deep dive into what the ten artists each seek to represent. I would highly recommend this exhibition for everyone and anyone to see.

Kaleidoscope: Immigration and Modern Britain

Visit the exhibition free until 08 Sep 2019

You Might Also Like