Creative Archives: Producing, Preserving and Showcasing Transnational India Film Heritage
Lead Research Organisation:
De Montfort University
Department Name: LMS - Leicester Media School
Abstract
Hindi films and the experiences of watching them are an inextricable aspect of the South Asian diaspora in the UK. Literature on the cinema-going experience of South Asian diasporic communities in the UK highlights the crucial role that film screenings, specialised cinemas and other sites of cultural aggregation had in community building.
Within this broad context, the earlier Multilingual Euro-Bollywood project placed the UK and the English language as liminal creative spaces for Indian cinema to be distributed organically across Europe and reach broader audiences.
From the project, it emerged that the UK is still (certainly linguistically) a "stop over" for the cultural transfer and distribution of Indian cinema to other European countries. In this light, this project centres around the recently acquired Cinema Museum London's Indian cinemas collection currently held at DMU. The unique publicity material in this collection dates from the 1948, year immediately post-independence, and is a tangible and untold testimony of the global success and economic growth of Indian creative industries in the UK.
The strategic loan of the collection by the Cinema Museum London to DMU is due to the presence of a large South Asian demographic in the Midlands, and the possibility of developing a regional hub for the preservation and public engagement with Indian film heritage in the UK.
Thus, "Creative Archives", will use the DMU Indian cinema collection and digital storytelling to involve the community to engage, beyond the mere experience of film viewing, with other multilingual mediatic experiences that constitute Indian film culture.
By engaging with the publicity material held in the collection, "Creative Archives" will showcase Indian film heritage through a variety of on-line and off-line activities to re-memorialize identities, values and commemorate the 75th anniversary of Indian independence. Preserving this heritage is important to enable the engagement of the present generation with their past.
The diasporic Indian nation is evoked not just through the production aspects of films' artistic materials (how they foreground a narrative moment of the national Hindi cinema), but also in the affective values triggered by the consumption of the film ephemera during the planned community engagement activities; these artefacts are central for embodying social moments where the notion of 'India', and 'national culture' are preserved, transferred or articulated in the UK.
Within this broad context, the earlier Multilingual Euro-Bollywood project placed the UK and the English language as liminal creative spaces for Indian cinema to be distributed organically across Europe and reach broader audiences.
From the project, it emerged that the UK is still (certainly linguistically) a "stop over" for the cultural transfer and distribution of Indian cinema to other European countries. In this light, this project centres around the recently acquired Cinema Museum London's Indian cinemas collection currently held at DMU. The unique publicity material in this collection dates from the 1948, year immediately post-independence, and is a tangible and untold testimony of the global success and economic growth of Indian creative industries in the UK.
The strategic loan of the collection by the Cinema Museum London to DMU is due to the presence of a large South Asian demographic in the Midlands, and the possibility of developing a regional hub for the preservation and public engagement with Indian film heritage in the UK.
Thus, "Creative Archives", will use the DMU Indian cinema collection and digital storytelling to involve the community to engage, beyond the mere experience of film viewing, with other multilingual mediatic experiences that constitute Indian film culture.
By engaging with the publicity material held in the collection, "Creative Archives" will showcase Indian film heritage through a variety of on-line and off-line activities to re-memorialize identities, values and commemorate the 75th anniversary of Indian independence. Preserving this heritage is important to enable the engagement of the present generation with their past.
The diasporic Indian nation is evoked not just through the production aspects of films' artistic materials (how they foreground a narrative moment of the national Hindi cinema), but also in the affective values triggered by the consumption of the film ephemera during the planned community engagement activities; these artefacts are central for embodying social moments where the notion of 'India', and 'national culture' are preserved, transferred or articulated in the UK.
| Title | PIECES (Digital Exhibition) |
| Description | The product is a digital exhibition which included a variety of digitised artefacts and digital storytelling |
| Type Of Art | Artistic/Creative Exhibition |
| Year Produced | 2022 |
| Impact | The digital exhibition is the culmination of this project. It is a creative space in which the idea of archival holdings is rethought in light of the extensive number of methods in which "history" can be narrated. The digital exhibition, which is entitled PIECES, hints at the way, indigenous and the diaspora think about Independence and the legacy of it after 75 years. The experience of independence and the relationship with cinema are all very diverse. "archival" PIECES are a metaphor to account for the diversity in which independence is perceived today. |
| URL | http://www.artsteps.com/view/6399e547ebf04d44652047de |
| Title | Soundscape for exhibition |
| Description | A curated soundscape was created for the exhibition in Leicester "75 years on: Your Filmi Your Kahania" |
| Type Of Art | Performance (Music, Dance, Drama, etc) |
| Year Produced | 2022 |
| Impact | The Soundscape was an audio stimuli for the visitor at the exhibition to engage with films and sounds related to India. |
| URL | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oprtTCgirEs |
| Title | Your Filmi Your Kahania |
| Description | This is a short film produced for the exhibition "75 years On: Your Filmi Your Kahania" |
| Type Of Art | Film/Video/Animation |
| Year Produced | 2022 |
| Impact | The film was a visual support to the exhibition "75 Years On: your filmi Your Kahania" held in Leicester in May 2022. The film acted a visual stimuli to the visitors who expressed interest in looking at how Bollywood connects different groups and experiences. Similarly, the film did use a variety of different repositories and digital archives to be made. Also, the film was produced and made by one of the DMU students at De Montfort University, who declared that this was an incredible exercise to engage with different cultures from his and build a film from diverse archives. The student mentioned that it was a great experience to produce a film for an exhibition setting rather than for a cinema space. |
| URL | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0UzcjNomV0 |
| Title | Your Filmi Your Kahania |
| Description | This was an exhibition which took place in the city of Leicester in May 2022. the exhibition showcased unique material from the Indian cinema collection, currently held at DMU. The material generated a number of reactions from the audience which was captured in form of digital stories. |
| Type Of Art | Artistic/Creative Exhibition |
| Year Produced | 2022 |
| Impact | The exhibition had significant impact on the South Asian community in Leicester. The exhibition was duplicated in a second location in Leicester as consequence of the first exhibition. Also, two citizen in the city of Leicester came forward and one of them donated a personal collection of unique film memorabilia pertaining to the film experience and cinemagoing in the city of Leicester. The exhibition stimulated significant changes in the public attitude especially pertaining to heritage, wherein the citizen felt to be integral part of heritage-making process. |
| URL | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDy5J6wZJ7I |
| Description | What were the most significant achievements from the award? The project' aims and objective were all met above the initial expectations. The involvement of the public as well as students both in the UK and India was very successful. The project had a number of stakeholders and participant involved, and a number of planned activities across the UK and India. The most significant achievement of this project was to be able to build a bridge between citizen of India and the diaspora in the UK, when it comes to heritage and heritage-sharing. The exhibitions, the trainings and the various serendipitous encounter (which emerged as a bonus of the PI and Co journey to India) generated high interest in heritage, in the significance of film heritage and more significantly in the active intervention of the public in heritage-making through the means of digital storytelling. While the project was a public engagement project, the people participating and the sharing of their stories, generated a community based heritage understanding and making, which is unique to India and the diaspora. The encounters with a number of citizens in the UK and India who have donated their collections to De Montfort University (for the preservation of their past) or who have shared their stories about unique family holdings, have highlighted the necessity to rethink within archival studies and film studies too, the notion of "archival value"; the project hence raised a set of new research questions such as: What is "of value" in archival holdings? What is "archivable"? and what makes "histories"? Similarly the project generated a number of questions about the type of archives exiting and generally used to study or research histories. Naturally, the idea is to tap into institutional archives to try and discern history and account for it. However, the project unpack the potential to explore - more significantly - personal and intimate archives and collections to determine hidden or silenced histories; these are the one of marginalised communities and citizens at large. To what extent were the award objectives met? The aims and objective of the project were amply met, above expectations. The project along with engaging actively with the public and students (as detailed above) generated also a number of new connections and new methods to engage with heritage. Specifically the use of digital storytelling produced a number of unique stories emerging from the public engagement activities. Digital tools are now key to not only access heritage, but also generate content to ancillary tangible and non-tangible heritage objects. How might the findings be taken forward and by whom? The findings of this project are diverse and have the potential to affect a number of disciplines such as heritage studies and the creative industries, tourism and creative economies to mention a few. Specifically the findings that have emerged through this project, have open the possibilities to expand research and access to history by the study and accounting of "intimate film heritage", which puts the citizen at the centre of accessing and building new pathways for the understanding of global film history. Also, this project gives the opportunity to think about film heritage and archives as creative spaces to re-memorialise history via digital tools to support both the access as well as the re-making of history and storytelling. |
| Exploitation Route | The outcome of this projects can be key to some sectors particularly in the heritage and the creative industries sector. Specifically, methodological elements such as: - digital storytelling - induced "heritage formation" - creative approaches to history-making - the centralization of the citizen as "the keeper" are key outcomes that have the potential to influence, and shape research trajectories and solid public intervention in the understanding of diversity, inclusion and history-making processes. |
| Sectors | Communities and Social Services/Policy,Creative Economy,Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software),Education,Leisure Activities, including Sports, Recreation and Tourism,Government, Democracy and Justice,Culture, Heritage, Museums and Collections |
| Description | While the project was completed only recently, this has started generating some small impact. Please keep in mind that, a fully fledged impact on wider area in society will require time. So far, the digital exhibition and digital stories will be used as gateway to introduce one of the key Film festivals in the UK in 2023 - UKAFF (UK Asian Film festival) - as innovative way to think about knowing the past and connecting with personal heritage. The material generated with this project, is currently being under scrutiny, to involve marginalised communities in India to speak and generate understanding and sensibilization on heritage in their communities (this is under experimentation by the NGO Abhivyakti - Nashik, Pune). |
| First Year Of Impact | 2023 |
| Sector | Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software),Culture, Heritage, Museums and Collections |
| Impact Types | Cultural,Societal |
| Description | Conference and Roundtable (India) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Study participants or study members |
| Results and Impact | The event was held in the city of Pune (India) and was an academic conference The event involved also practitioners (archivists) in the filed of archival studies in India. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | http://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2022/06/06/archives-of-indian-cinema-methodologies-creativi... |
| Description | Digital exhibition (online) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | This is a digital exhibition final output of the project/ It groups together ideas and understanding of digital archives. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://www.artsteps.com/view/6399e547ebf04d44652047de |
| Description | Film Exhibition and Masterclass (Leicester) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | The event was a film exhibition based on the material included in the archive. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDy5J6wZJ7I |
| Description | Multisite Training Programme (India) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | A number of selected students took part to a 15 days training on archives and Indian cinema collections. The training included also learning of digital storytelling |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| Description | Sandpit - June 2022 (Online activity) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Sandpit among practitioners and academic in the creative industries and heritage sector |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |