South Asian Heritage Month to be celebrated at One Garden City in Letchworth

Reeln Ltd is curating an exhibition at Letchworth’s Museum in One Garden City, the world’s first Garden City, to tribute local South Asian contributions. The showcase coincides with South Asian Heritage Month, which this year is themed as ‘Stories To Tell’ and is taking place from 15th July until the end of August. The independence days of both India (15th August) and Pakistan (14th August) will also be commemorated.

The wall display exhibition features the stories of South Asian Letchworth residents. They share an introduction to their story highlighting the invaluable contribution they have made to the world’s first garden city specifically to the Arts, Community/Society, Industry and Sports in Letchworth, nationally and internationally putting Letchworth Garden City on the map in these respective fields. The primary focus will be on The Twilight Players, Singh Sabha Football Team, Employees of factories such as GEO W KING and FERMARK LTD and Local Community Ambassadors. 

South Asian Heritage Month runs from 18th July to 17th August each year. It celebrates South Asian culture and identity, commemorates important dates in South Asian history, and aims to educate wider society about what it means to be brown in Britain today. South Asian Culture has made a significant impact on Britain in various aspects, such as food, clothing, music, words and the overall ambience of our towns and cities. It’s a beautiful display of the rich and proud South Asian heritage that has blended into the British way of life, contributing to the diversity of our nation. 

Observing South Asian Heritage Month provides an excellent chance to embrace and celebrate the history and identity of British South Asians. For more information about South Asian Heritage Month and this year’s theme please visit southasianheritage.org.uk

 Josh Tidy, Heritage Manager at the Museum at One Garden City said, “We’re so excited to start to share these stories about South Asian heritage in the town – we want the Garden City Collection, and the micro museum, to be reflective of all the different communities in the town, so everyone sees themselves in Letchworth’s unique history. It’s been fantastic working with Aman to begin to explore this heritage.”

The intention of the exhibition is to pay homage to each story and taking each one to develop an individual exhibition to document this history. This will result in posterity as future generations will be aware of the South Asian community’s vast contribution to the town.

Opened in June 2019, the vibrant Museum at One Garden City explores Letchworth’s social history. The museum space combines a variety of photographs, furniture, household objects, toys, textiles, smells and interactive exhibits to immerse visitors in the pioneering story of how the world’s first Garden City developed. The museum is designed to appeal to everyone from local children and families to first-time visitors to Letchworth. The Garden City Collection looks after over 250,000 objects from books, bicycles to corsets and cinema seats.

ReelN are expecting to hold a number of film screenings of partition documentary, A Thin Wall, as part of the exhibition closing event on Saturday 26th August at Museum at One Garden City, Letchworth. Both the exhibition and screenings will be free to attend
For further details please visit https://reeln.co.uk/ and the ReelN Ltd social media pages.