2026/02/18 by Mahenderpal Sorya, Janpal Basran, Niharika Batra · 1 voice
Arts and Humanities · Social Sciences · #Art Education and Development #Indigenous and Place-Based Education #Literacy, Media, and Education
paper · doi:10.14324/herj.23.1.04
openalex publication_date 2026/02/18 · openalex created_date 2026/02/25 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/07
The Young Voices project supported primary and secondary school children across Southall, West London, to learn about the unique local history of the town, in particular its history of migration and anti-racist activism. This reflective article explores the project’s community driven, place-based and interdisciplinary approach to teaching local history, highlighting the use of local community spaces and material cultures as sites for learning. In the 2023/24 school year, history and visual art workshops were delivered collaboratively, predominantly to Year 6 (key stage 2) and 7 (key stage 3) children, both in classrooms and at local sites, by local community charity Southall Community Alliance, anti-racism organisation The Monitoring Group and a visual artist and lecturer from Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London. The workshops focused on the experiences of migrant communities in the 1960s and 1970s, exploring pivotal events of the time, such as the murder of Gurdip Singh Chaggar, the Southall Uprising and the death of Blair Peach. On 23 April 2024, marking the anniversary of the 1979 anti-racism demonstration, all artworks and the project film were displayed at a major exhibition at one of the participating schools, attended by several hundred children. A curated selection of works was later exhibited at two local museums.