Where Paper Remembers: South Asian Stories – A model for regional engagement

The Herbert Art Gallery & Museum's recent exhibition, Stories That Made Us – Roots, Resilience, Representation, highlighted South Asian lives in Coventry and was supported by a series of wrap‑around activities led collaboratively by museum staff. As Archives Assistant for the project, Dr Shaniece Martin supported the South Asian Ambassadors Scheme, which produced the South Asian Voices display in Coventry Archives, and delivered workshops on the Virk Collection, one of the two archive collections featured in the exhibition.

As part of the wider programme, The National Archives worked closely with Coventry Archives to design a day‑long workshop, Where Paper Remembers: South Asian Stories, which offered participants the opportunity to explore national and local records and take part in a creative activity. Here we explain how we went about it.

{'image': {'id': 4022, 'uuid': 'b505849f-f91e-41c7-a7e5-b4d739d95909', 'title': 'Participants at the Where Paper Remembers: South Asian Stories outreach workshop', 'description': 'Four people of different ages are engrossed reading copies of historical documents around a table.', 'jpeg': {'url': '/media/images/20260.max-900x900.format-jpeg.jpegquality-60.bgcolor-fff.jpg', 'full_url': 'https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/media/images/20260.max-900x900.format-jpeg.jpegquality-60.bgcolor-fff.jpg', 'width': 900, 'height': 600}, 'webp': {'url': '/media/images/2026.max-900x900.format-webp.webpquality-70.bgcolor-fff.webp', 'full_url': 'https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/media/images/2026.max-900x900.format-webp.webpquality-70.bgcolor-fff.webp', 'width': 900, 'height': 600}, 'transcript': None, 'translation': None, 'copyright': None, 'alternative_format': None}, 'caption': ''}

Local and national perspectives

The National Archives’ collection provides both the national and local picture around 20th‑century nationality and immigration debates relating to the arrival and settlement of communities from Britain’s former empire. It includes legislation, media coverage, police and civil service reports, and correspondence with those representing migrant communities.

Alongside this, Coventry Archives holds an expanding set of local records, particularly the Virk Collection, documenting South Asian migration, settlement stories, family histories, community activism, and experiences of racism and exclusion. The aim of the workshop was to bring these two perspectives together and draw out connections and contrasts with a public audience.

At times the records spoke directly to one another. For example, photographs of the Indian Workers’ Association (IWA) from the Virk Collection were shown alongside a Home Office file containing an MI5 report on the IWA Great Britain, and minutes of a meeting between members of IWA Coventry and the Home Office.

Image 1 of 2

Image 2 of 2

A 1957 Coventry police report provided a bridge between the interwar and post‑war years, referencing merchant seamen, inter‑racial relationships, passports, housing, employment and education. Participants also engaged with a 1966 speech by Roy Jenkins, which reflected the tensions between anti‑racist efforts and immigration control.

• From our collection

  HO 344/122

  Title

  Reports from various police forces on the effects of immigration and attitudes towards immigrants across the country

  Date

  1957 to 1958

By the end of the morning, the group had absorbed a wide range of insights.

Reflection through creativity

Increasingly, The National Archives' Outreach team has been working with records in ways that allow participants not only to explore the ‘facts’ but also to process what they have read, seen or heard. Creative activities have become an important way of opening space for audiences to reflect on the emotions and ideas archives can evoke.

For the second half of the day, Dr Shaniece Martin led a blackout‑poetry workshop, using photocopies of selected records from the morning’s envelopes, including immigration posters and community newsletters.

{'image': {'id': 4023, 'uuid': '24ce64ab-8e98-49f2-bad2-4ddc8c3885ae', 'title': 'Participants at the Where Paper Remembers: South Asian Stories outreach workshop', 'description': 'Three people gather round a laminated copy of a newspaper article, reading it closely.', 'jpeg': {'url': '/media/images/20260_OXes5jf.max-900x900.format-jpeg.jpegquality-60.bgcolor-fff.jpg', 'full_url': 'https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/media/images/20260_OXes5jf.max-900x900.format-jpeg.jpegquality-60.bgcolor-fff.jpg', 'width': 900, 'height': 735}, 'webp': {'url': '/media/images/2026_tvXCjDL.max-900x900.format-webp.webpquality-70.bgcolor-fff.webp', 'full_url': 'https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/media/images/2026_tvXCjDL.max-900x900.format-webp.webpquality-70.bgcolor-fff.webp', 'width': 900, 'height': 735}, 'transcript': None, 'translation': None, 'copyright': None, 'alternative_format': None}, 'caption': ''}

Blackout poetry is a simple creative technique where you take an existing piece of text and block out most of the words, leaving only a few visible to form a new poem. In the process, hidden voices, overlooked details and unexpected stories begin to surface, allowing participants to reclaim and reimagine the original material in powerful and often surprising ways.

After a short introduction to the technique and an example poem, participants created their own blackout pieces, reinterpreting the archival material through redaction, emphasis and creative arrangement. Optional writing prompts encouraged further reflection on themes such as memory, migration, identity, archival silence and intergenerational connection. The session concluded with participants sharing their poems or discussing the records that inspired them.

Outreach projects like this are shaping our model for future regional engagement, bringing national and local collections together, exploring complex histories, and offering creative or mindful activities that help participants reflect on the feelings and insights archives can generate.

With thanks to Mike Bevan, Hardish Virk, Michael Mahoney, Kevin Searle, Liz Haines and Chloe Lee.