[ISEA2004] Artists Statement: Samina Mishra, Renu S. Iver & Mrityunjoy Chatterjee — Home and Away: Growing Up as British Asians in London

Artists Statement

Geopolitics of Media

Home and Away is an audio-visual document exploring the world of British Asian children. Home, for them, is a unique combination of London’s physical space and the Indian subcontinent’s culture. If London is home, it is still distant and away. And if the subcontinent is away, it is still home to much of what makes up their identity.

Home and Away is a multi-layered work exploring the dynamics of defining one’s identity. The children in Home and Away are second and third generation British Asians from families that traveled to Britain from across the Indian subcontinent: India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. An unfamiliar land was filled slowly with the familiar: objects, sounds, smells. For the first generation, it may have been easy to identify themselves as the Indian diaspora, with a comfortable division between a home left behind and a new home, between a nostalgic past and a pragmatic present. But for the children of that generation, this is the only home they have ever known – a unique combination of London’s physical space and the subcontinent’s culture.

Home and Away is made up of digitally produced panels which integrate large single images, as well as selected strips from contact sheets with text containing excerpts of interviews and the author’s narrative. The exhibit is bound together by a soundtrack using voice, music and sound effects. In one corner, a computer displays an HTML presentation which combines all the elements of the exhibition but is a stand-atone work that allows the viewer interactive freedom.

  • Samina Mishra (IN) is a documentary filmmaker and media practitioner based in New Delhi. Her work includes Stories of Girlhood, three films on the Girl Child in India, and Hina in the Old City, a book on the Walled City of Delhi for children. Home and Away is her first new media work.
  • Mrityunjoy Chatterjee (IN)
  • Renu S. Iver (IN)

Full document (PDF) p. 103