Putting Ourselves in the Picture - our migrant heritage project in Glasgow

Putting Ourselves in the Picture - Summer 2024 Project Update

In the early days of ‘Putting Ourselves in the Picture’, we were a one-person team whose task was to engage people from diverse migrant groups in the project. We were settling in our new Glasgow office, gradually re-establishing and forming new links with the local migrant community, and figuring out how to present the complexity of migrant heritage and contributions in one or two exhibitions. Today, almost two years and multiple Project Vision Group meetings later, we have four migrant heritage exhibitions in the making, fourteen zines published with 8000 copies, and over 500 creative people with diverse migration stories involved in our activities. Let’s take a look at the project highlights and celebrate the achievements of our community!

‘Putting Ourselves in the Picture’ - an exhibition at Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum

This photography exhibition opened in September 2023. The photographs on display were taken as part of Migrant Voice’s projects by a group of migrants ten years earlier and by the photographer, Karen Gordon, 5 years earlier. In early 2023, we invited another group of migrants to curate them. The community curators made decisions on how to group and display the photographs, wrote descriptions, and designed family activities for the opening day. Thanks to their work, the exhibition is accessible to different age groups and levels of English.

We estimate that a minimum of 150,000 visitors have seen the exhibition since it opened. We have hosted college groups and produced learning resources for English learners suitable for various levels. The exhibition will stay open until September 2025. Make sure to visit it by then and get in touch with us if you’d like the learning resources or a free tour for your school, college or community group.

Zines and the zine posters exhibition

Preparing an exhibition will be a long process - what can we do in the meantime to keep our communities involved in the project? We asked this question to our women’s group, and they suggested publishing monthly zines (mini-magazines). Since Winter 2022, we have published 14 zines. The topics have included preserving traditions, overcoming difficulties, making one’s new life, and more aspects of Glasgow migrant life. The zines feature short stories, memories, and poetry from our Glasgow community members. Each one also has a poster from a local artist with experience of migration. We curated an exhibition of these posters at the University of Glasgow and invited contributors to read their stories. The zines and posters are available for free - you can pick up a copy from our office or at our Glasgow events. We welcome new contributors, so please get in touch if you’d like to write a story, or submit a photograph or an illustration.

Photography group

Our photography group, led by Karen Gordon and Anna Majewska, have been busy finishing their artworks. Each artist has produced a triptych showcasing a migrant contributing to Scottish daily life. The triptychs feature a yoga teacher from India working in Milngavie, a Romanian woman teaching Chinese martial arts to Scottish kids, a Persian shopkeeper and his new supermarket in Glasgow, and more.

We invited the general public to co-curate an exhibition through a vision group session. The attendees came up with keywords describing each triptych, gave feedback on labels written by the group members for each other, and contributed ideas for display and engagement activities. We are approaching potential exhibition venues to bring some of these ideas into life - we can’t wait to see the exhibition on show!

Illustration workshops

We are working with the illustrator Rosemary Cunningham to create an exhibition of illustration about migrant lives in Scotland. The illustrations were contributed by migrants through workshops (open-to-all and for ESOL groups) and through an open call. We have received over 200 drawings of reasons for moving here, work and life in Scotland, navigating the new system, and more. We also had a community curating session to group them into clusters and decide how to display them. Now we are making them into a coherent installation and approaching potential exhibition venues - stay tuned for the next updates.

Threading Stories - embroidery workshops and exhibitions

This series of embroidery workshops came into existence due to initiative and hard work of one of our community members - Julita Hanlon. Julita is an artist, a member of our photography group, and a zine contributor. She proposed embroidery workshops for migrants in response to ‘Putting Ourselves in the Picture’ - our exhibition at Kelvingrove. What was originally planned as a block of four workshops evolved into a weekly-meeting group of women. They have already organised two exhibitions in Glasgow - one at Glasgow School of Art Student Association and one at New Glasgow Society - and have ambitious plans for the future. Congratulations!

We are always looking for zine contributors, poster artists, volunteers, event attendees, and community members involved in any other way. We prioritise the voices of migrants and those with migrant ancestry, but we welcome non-migrants too. Register your interest through www.tinyurl.com/MigrantVoiceGlasgow or email us at [email protected]. We would love to hear from you!

Putting Ourselves in the Picture explores and celebrates the heritage and contributions of those who have made Scotland their home. The project creates opportunities for people to interact and get to know one another through collaborative exhibitions, publications, and multicultural events. 

The project, made possible by the National Lottery Heritage Fund, is a strand of Migrant Voice’s work around balancing the media portrayal of migration and bringing the stories of migrants into the mainstream media, art institutions, and the public realm.

Throughout 2022 - 2025, the local community will have a chance to get involved with a range of events and opportunities, including creating pop-up and online exhibitions, collaborative publications, participating in training sessions, museum tours and other creative undertakings. 

Sign up here: www.tinyurl.com/MigrantVoiceGlasgow

As part of the project, a major photographic exhibition will launch at the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum in September 2023. It’ll feature photographic portraits of migrants representing different backgrounds and contributions, and a series of photographs taken by people from different ethnic minorities. 

Community members will collaborate with the Migrant Voice and Glasgow Museums teams to curate the exhibition and develop a programme of accessible engagement activities, creating opportunities to have a conversation with people who have migrated to Scotland and making visitors from the BSL community and English learners able to fully enjoy it. 

Contribute to a series of collaborative zines

There is also a series of collaborative zines in the making, each featuring a poster by an artist representing a different ethnic background, and texts and images from diverse participants, including those who don’t speak fluent English. The posters will make up one of the exhibitions in the later phase of the project.

Everyone with a connection to Glasgow is welcome to contribute: those who moved to Glasgow from elsewhere, those from Glasgow who have lived somewhere else, and those with ancestry in other parts of the world.

See our first zine here.

Take part in training 

Starting from January 2023, you can sign up to take part in a series of training opportunities aimed at supporting community members to develop their skills and share their heritage and experiences of migration through photography, creative writing, and illustration. 

Sign up here: www.tinyurl.com/MigrantVoiceGlasgow

Let’s put ourselves in the picture!

Join us on social media and share the word with everyone who may be interested!

Facebook: Putting Ourselves in the Picture

Instagram: @migrantvoice

Twitter: @migrantvoiceuk

Feel free to contact Marzanna Antoniak, the project coordinator, at [email protected] or 078 9588 2963.  

Download the project flyer here.

News and events

April 2023 calendar

Past news and events

March 2023 calendar

We are looking for photography and illustration trainers for our Putting Ourselves in the Picture project.

Download the brief here.