STRIKE AT IMPERIAL - 2019 LEICESTER EXHIBITION REMEMBERS 45th ANNIVERSARY OF STRIKE

www.strikeatimperial.net

Researching, Co-Curating, & Engaging The Local Community

My 2014 short story, ‘An Imperial Typewriter’, and the historical research I undertook in order to write it, was the inspiration behind this 2019 exhibition at Newarke House Museum. I worked with Marc Boothe, founder and director of B3 Media, on the project’s development and subsequently applied for and won an ACE-funded Research & Development grant for a further Archival and Oral History Project entitled Typewritten Tales. For Typewritten Tales, I researched in six archives across the country and conducted oral history interviews with former strikers and non-strikers alike, with a focus on Leicestershire’s BAME elder communities. This research meant Marc Boothe and I were in a good position to apply for and win a Heritage Lottery Fund Grant for an exhibition at Newarke House Museum in Leicester.

I became Lead Researcher, Writer, and Co-Curator on the project. Marc Boothe co-curated and produced the exhibition with a carefully selected team. Our local partners included The Stephen Lawrence Centre, De Montfort University, The University of Leicester, and more. The exhibition was a huge success, beloved by the local community and beyond.

Conducting Interviews and Hosting Events

I interviewed activists, intellectuals, and thinkers like Tariq Ali, Avtar Brah, Amrit Wilson, Dr. Carlton Howson, Sujata Aurora, and Yuri Prasad (who kindly advised Marc and I on the exhibition project). Events I hosted with B3 Media included the highly successful and sold-out “Women’s Resistance: Voice, Agency, and Protest” which featured Dr. Leah Bassel, Amrit Wilson, Sujata Aurora and me in conversation with a vibrant audience in Leicester.

Arts Council-Funded Oral Historian and Archival Researcher of the 1974 Strike at Imperial Typewriters

A large component of this exhibition was based on research I conducted during the course of my Arts Council Research and Development Grant, Typewritten Tales. These were twenty or so audio recordings I painstakingly collected with former factory workers, strikers, and non-strikers alike, as well as other community members (now elders) who witnessed the strike unfold.

Below is the ACE-funded call for Striker Stories via my Typewriter Tales Project

PASSIONATE ABOUT LEICESTER STORIES & HISTORY?  

Volunteer for Typewritten Tales! 

BECOME AN ORAL HISTORIAN & LEARN THE HIDDEN STORY OF LEICESTER’S HISTORIC TYPEWRITER STRIKE

Typewritten Tales is an Arts Council supported Oral History Project about the 1974 Typewriter Strike at Imperial Co. on East Park Road. Participants will learn to conduct interviews with former factory workers. These oral histories will form the inspiration for a dynamic series of local flash fiction events called Typewritten Tales and will culminate in a chapbook publication in partnership with the University of Leicester.

The project kicks off with an Oral History Collection training session led by the University of Leicester’s Oral Historian Colin Hyde. Colin runs the East Midlands Oral Histories Archive and will be training brand new oral historians on October 17th 1-4pm in The Seminar Room 3-5 Salisbury Road. You’ll learn about life on the factory floor, race relations in 70s Leicester, and how the strike affected workers from the city’s settled working class community and newly arrived immigrant workers. We welcome a diverse pool of applicants! 

PRE-BOOK this FREE Oral History training with Colin Hyde by emailing typewrittentalesproject@gmail.com