Project Launch: Reimagining Industrial Migratory Receives HLF Funding
We are delighted to announce that Reimagining Industrial Migratory has been awarded £100,000 by the National Lottery Heritage Fund to document the post-war labour diaspora of the Black Country.
We are delighted to announce that Reimagining Industrial Migratory has received a grant of £100,000 from the National Lottery Heritage Fund.
This funding will allow us to undertake a comprehensive photographic and oral history project documenting the lives and contributions of the tens of thousands of workers who migrated to the Black Country between 1945 and 1980 — from South Asia, the Caribbean, Ireland, and beyond — to power the region’s foundries, steel works, and chain shops.
What the Funding Enables
The grant supports:
- A series of large-format photographic tableaux produced with direct community involvement
- A permanent open-access digital archive published under CC BY 4.0
- A touring physical exhibition with accompanying educational materials
- A full oral history collection, transcribed and publicly accessible
A Note from the Artistic Director
“These communities built post-war Britain. Their labour is in every piece of steel, every chain, every forged component that left the Black Country in those decades. This project is about putting their faces and their voices back at the centre of that story.”
We will be sharing regular updates on this site as the project develops. If you or a family member were part of the Black Country labour migration and would like to be involved, please get in touch.
This project is supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund.