Modus Arts – Tape Letters Project

Modus Arts are looking for dedicated volunteers to:

1. Research and record memories about cassette tape recordings associated with the practice of sending “tape letters” between Pakistan and diasporic communities.
2. Support the planning and delivery of reminiscence events for the British Pakistani community.
3. Archive recordings and photographs gathered during the project, ready for incorporation into the Bishopsgate collection.
4. Support the creation and presentation of exhibitions to share the recordings in a unique way with a range of local communities.  We want to recruit a diverse group of volunteers of different ages, backgrounds and levels of experience.
   Project
   TAPE LETTERS is an oral history project aiming to identify, collect and archive messages sent on cassette tape in the 1960s through to the 1980s by families who migrated to the UK from Pakistan between 1950 and 1970. The project seeks to unearth, archive and represent a portrait of the cultural heritage of Punjabi (specifically Potwari dialect) speaking Pakistanis who settled in Britain, and will comment on family life via the informal and intimate conversations recorded and sent between families here (in the UK) and abroad.

The project will run for 18 months, and is funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund. It will create an archive of cassette tapes and related artefacts, including contemporary oral histories of Potwari-speaking British-Pakistanis, to be held at the Bishopsgate Institute in London, and a range of high-quality outputs including a mobile app and sound art installation.