Redeye's Photo Histories: Apna Heritage Archive

Redeye's Photo Histories is a new strand of events that looks at some of the many histories that photography can uncover. The strand features photographers, archivists, scholars and historians exploring some of the lesser-known and under represented histories of photography.

For the first of our Photo Histories we are thrilled to welcome Anand Chhabra, who founded The Apna Heritage Archive in 2017. The project addressed an issue within Wolverhampton’s City’s archives; as recently as 2016 not a single image of the city's population of over 40,000 Punjabis was available. Over 2000 images were scanned and digitised from participants' family albums to ensure that the city’s archive is representative of the whole population of the city.

In this talk Anand will take us through the context of this post war period of migration, political opposition from local politicians in the Black Country, and the positive impact of the migration into the life of the city. The Apna Heritage Archive gives a valuable insight into the work, business, social life, traditional and cultural life of the Punjabi population and wider community of Wolverhampton.

Photo Histories are delivered in partnership with The Photographic Collections Network.

For more info and a link to book, click here!