Grant Award for Migration Study

Shetland Museum and Archives are delighted to announce that they have received a Leverhulme Trust Artist in Residence award, to work with writer and artist Raman Mundair. The prestigious grant of £15,000 is one of only six awarded each year to academic and artistic institutions in the United Kingdom.

Raman will work with Archives staff on an interdisciplinary creative project called ‘Incoming’. The aim is to use resources available at the Archives about migration to Shetland – the Norse, the Scots, Scottish East Coast fisher families, etc. - to contextualise the stories of recent migration: Burmese, Thai, Chinese, Pakistani, Indian and East European people who have settled here.

Raman will meet people who have settled here from various parts of the world. She will interview them about their life journeys which have led them to Shetland, and their hopes and visions for the future. Sound recordings of these interviews will be added to the collection in the Shetland Archives.

Raman will create an archive of oral history, photographic and text portraits of people, to be held in the Archives. Her research will also inform a series of new short stories focussing on the theme of ‘incoming’ in Shetland.

Raman said: ‘This is an excellent opportunity to make visible Shetland’s diverse and dynamic community. I am looking forward to speaking to people, and will be interested to see how the process informs my own work.’

Archivist Brian Smith said: ‘The Shetland Museum and Archives is very pleased to be hosting the project. We will be collecting material about people who sometimes do not feature in the archival record, and we welcome that opportunity very much.’

‘Incoming’ is an innovative project that will portray Shetland’s unique and varied community in a new way.