Paper short abstract:

Responding to school plays performed by children from migrant backgrounds in supplementary schools and at the Museum of London, this paper considers how visual research techniques used by the ethnographer move between modes of embodied engagement and retrospection.

Paper long abstract:

This paper examines the embodied ways in which children from migrant backgrounds acquire their cultural heritage through school plays rehearsed in supplementary schools and performed at the Museum of London, and visual techniques used by the ethnographer to research, document and inhabit heritage on the move.

In a cosmopolitan city as heterogeneous and diverse such as London, it is easy to overlook the works of supplementary schools and their visions. Supplementary school are typically set up by groups of migrant parents from the same country of origin in order to teach their children, raised in the UK, mother-tongue, art forms and cultural practices that connect them with their parents' home-countries. The schools help develop children's transcultural identities and understanding of their heritage.

My research observes how migrant histories are made tangible and felt though school plays that cross boundaries between past and present, the private spaces of supplementary schools and the public arena of the museum, linking London with transcultural aspects of their identities.

Ephemeral in nature, performances pose a challenge for the visual researcher of how to adequately observe, document and respond to transient visions. Using mixed visual techniques and modes of engagement, my visual ethnography tests ways of interacting, participating and understanding the embodied ways of acquiring cultural heritage in migration.