
Uncovering hidden histories
ARTS ASIA
Arts Asia is a voluntary organisation committed to promoting the shared history of the UK’s diverse communities.
With active community engagement we research archival materials and museum collections and conduct oral history interviews to bring hidden histories to life. We specialise in developing multi-media exhibitions incorporating story telling, dramatisation, music and text.
Projects
The Maharajah’s Well
This exhibition includes a dramatised film of the story of The Maharajah’s Well in Stoke Row, artwork created by local schools, interviews and selected objects from Reading Museum’s collections.
Oxasians
Inspired in design by Oxford college architecture, this installation brings to life, a relatively unknown side of the selected personalities, highlighting key incidents and anecdotes of their time spent at Oxford.
It is both engaging and entertaining, combining dramatizations by actors with life-size hologram style projections, exclusive film interviews with historians, biographers, and peers and in some cases, the Oxasians themselves, alongside archival material.
Liberté
Liberté – The important stages of Noor’s spy training have been imagined in a multi- media exhibition, which trails the SOE journey linking geographic locations in London, and the South East of England, including Beaulieu and Tangmere. This vibrant, poignant illustrated exhibition includes a double panel that includes exclusive family photographs never before seen by the public, o extend further application and understanding of Noor’s story, a compelling half hour dramatisation forms an integral part of the exhibition. This unusual reconstruction sees actors playing out sections of Noor’s life interjected with especially created illustrations, poetry and music portraying a lively re-telling of Noor’s published children’s story “Snowdrop” which strangely foretells and echoes her own destiny.
In Court with Queen Victoria
In Court with Queen Victoria, inspired in design by the Royal thrones of Britain and the Punjab and a ‘Munshi’s’ (Teacher’s) chair, this exhibition brings to life, a relatively unknown side of Queen Victoria’s reign. The dramatised installation provides an engaging insight into Queen Victoria, Empress of India, and her extraordinary experience of India, and all things Indian, without ever setting foot on Indian soil.