Viewing A group show exploring the impact & legacy of migration on the South Asian diaspora 

Project Art Divvy is an exciting platform for South Asian art, promoting the practices of artists working in the region and as part of its diaspora. Their latest endeavour is an exhibition at Shahnaz Gallery, where thirteen artists explore experiences of migration and the indelible mark these journeys have, even generations on.

The joys and traumas of navigating new cultures are evoked, for example, in poetic films by Sophia Balagamwala, a Karachi based artist, who looks to children’s books and animations to explore Pakistan’s history. A poetry and sound piece by Akanksha Kamath, meanwhile, delves into her grandmother’s experience of India and Pakistan’s partition in 1947 and Kamath’s own experience of home. Family and national histories intertwine too in the work of Bangladeshi artist Palash Bhattacharjee, who focuses on the Kalurghat bridge in Chittagong, a site with a long history of crossings, dating back to prehistoric times, later a point for troops of the Burma Front to cross the river during World War I, and an important location in the Bangladesh Liberation War.

The exhibition also takes a critical approach to objects themselves in stories of migration and displacement – included are several antique objects that have traveled across continents and through time carrying with them their own narratives. Legacies of Crossing is a contemplative and engaging deep dive into a global subject from perspectives rarely seen and heard in the UK.