The Strike at Imperial Typewriters - Recap

This year B3 Media co-produced and co-curated ‘The Strike at Imperial Typewriters’ with Divya Ghelani (writer/ researcher).

The inspiration for our latest project was the story of how, in May 1974, migrant workers at Leicester’s Imperial Typewriter factory discovered their workmates earned more than them simply because they were white. Some put up with this discrimination. But a group of 39 staff, mostly South Asian women, decided to act. They went on strike and were soon joined by hundreds of others who also demanded equality.

The project concept for the exhibition was initially developed through B3‘s TalentLab. The exhibition, co-curated by Divya and produced by Marc Boothe, successfully opened last month to a capacity audience at Newarke Houses Museum, Leicester.

In Jan 2019, the team started to plan and prepare for the exhibition by reaching out, location scouting and finding creative collaborators, as well as researching and developing.

Upon deciding we wanted to capture oral histories of what it was like to live through that time, we began to catalogue interviews with academics from the 70s for the exhibition.

The exhibition launched 14 June to a great turn out by the community. The opening hosted an extended programme of talks, seminars and workshops around the exhibition, giving visitors a chance to immerse themselves in 70s Britain, the political tensions, community spirit and the emergence of the Women’s Rights galvanising local support for the original Strikers.

‘The Strike at Imperial Typewriters’ was open for five months for free to the general public. During our time at Newarke Houses Museum, we held events, seminars and workshops to give visitors a chance to engage with the exhibition. Our sessions included guided walks, talks ‘Protest - Then and Now’ and ‘Women’s Resistance’ , a Typewriter in Residence installation by Mark Selby and Kajal Vinay Tailor, and a Kajal workshop in collaboration with the Gurwara Center.

We aimed to capture a crucial moment in history and commemorate the struggle of those brave Asian pioneers of 1974. The exhibition has had a wonderful response from the local community and those interested in learning about the history of civil protest.

Testimonials include:

Thank you to everyone for visiting the exhibition! We’ll be working on maintaining the legacy of this project - if you want to stay up to date, please keep an eye on B3 Media’s website or social media, or on The Strike at Imperial’s website.

Exhibition Credits:

• Marcia Chandra (photographer/videographer/mentor) – worked with students from the DMU as part of our oral histories project as part of the Imperial Typewriters project during Spring – Summer  2019.

• Kajal Nisha Patel (visual artist) – Banner Making Workshop project led by artists working with women from the Gurdwara Center, Leicester.

• Mark Selby (Interactive Designer) & Vinay Tailor (Programmer) – Typewriter in Residence installation.

Oral Histories contributors:

Amrit Wilson, Anthany Fall, Avtar Brah, Balbir Kaur, Carlton Howson, Chandulal Karsandas Thobhani, Denis Wycherley, Dyal Singh Bagri, Eric Hudson MBE, Gloriana Daley, Gordon Tiley, Gulamabbas Khimji, Heather Rawling, Indira Chandulal Thobhani, Ishvar Rohit, Lalit Sudra, Lalita Mistry, Leo Ismail, Mohinder Singh Farma, Prabha Pankhania, Raj Surani, Sujata Aurora, Tariq Ali, Yuri Prasad.

Film Team - Oral Histories 

• Marcia Chandra - Director of Photography

• Shazad Khalid - Director of Photography/ Editor

• Jah Jussa - Editor 

• Marcelina Hrynkiewicz - Camera / Assistant Editor

• Gemma Price - Camera/ Assistant Editor

• Reece Taylor - Camera

Oral Histories Volunteers

Chris Edwards, Jim McCallum, Paul Conneally, Prabjeet Kaur, Sylvia Joan John.

Community Artist
Kajal Nisha Patel

Exhibition Programme Speakers

Amrit Wilson, Claire Wood, Leah Bassel, Pippa Virdee, Poulomi Desai, Sujata Aurora.

Archives

African Caribbean Centre, Birmingham Central Library, Bishopsgate Institute, British Library, Institute of Race Relations, Maz of Leicester, Leicester City Council, Leicester Mercury, Leicester and Leicestershire Record Office, Leicester University Archive, Report Digital, Media Archive for Central England (MACE), Race Today, Red Mole newspaper, Socialist Worker Archive, TUC Library Collections at London Metropolitan University, Warwick University Modern Records Centre.

Highfields Community Centre:

Ahmed Osman, Pat Gardner, Priya Thamotheram

Leicester City Council:

• African Caribbean Centre
  Marcia Brown, Junaid Khalifa, Atul, Shaka Palmer

• Leicester Museums
  Chris Kirby, Heather Southorn, James Hickford, Linda Harding, Nick Toms, Stefanie Tyler-Divine

• Walk Leicester Festival
  Isabelle Bavenstock, Sara Coy

Nottingham University

Prof. Steve Benford - Horizon Digital Economy

Phoenix Arts and Cinema

Chris Tyrer, Sean Clark (Interact Digital Arts)

Sikh Community Centre (Guru Teg Bahadur Gurudwara)

Jagdip Kaur, Meena Patel, Jaswant Kaur Bains, GTB Management Committee, SCC Management Committee, Trinjan Group Ladies

The University of Leicester:

• Dr. Corinne Fowler – Associate Professor of Postcolonial Literature

• Dr. Claire Wood – Lecturer in Victorian Literature 

• Dr. Simon Dixon – Head of Archives and Special Collections at the University of Leicester

• Dr. Jonathan Taylor – Associate Professor in Creative Writing
  Colin Hyde - East Midlands Oral History Archive
  Aditi Premnath, Emma Probett, Isabelle Staniaszek 
  

We wish to acknowledge support from: 

• De Montfort University

• Film and Media School

• Stephen Lawrence Research Centre
  

Project funded by: 

HLF logo, Arts Council England, Leicester City Council

With support from:

Horizon/ MRL

We would also like to thank the volunteers, museum staff and the community of Leicester for their support and inspiration.

A project by - B3Media
B3 Media is funded by - Arts Council England