Tonight (Thursday 7th Feb) is the exhibition preview and book launch of photographer Sonia Audhali‘s ‘Little Yemen’, a sensitive portrait of a West Midlands community in transition:
“As a British Yemeni born and raised in England, Sonia Audhali‘s photographs exhibit not only an image of one nation and its culture integrating with another, but also a trace of autobiography. Audhali’s identity as both British and Yemeni instinctively influences her approach to capturing a dual heritage of which there is little in the way of published evidence in the UK.
The photographs in this exhibition show life in the home, at work, during prayer and at leisure. They capture the importance of food, religion and the social gathering. And they provide a valuable record of the contemporary British Yemen at a point where generations converge; as the aging population of migrant Yemenis in the Midlands gets fewer, Audhali recognises that the opportunity to capture this particular perspective on the Yemeni experience lessens too. Little Yemen is motived by this; a compelling need to preserve the meetings of one nation’s heritage with another before they merge inseparably.”
The show is free, and is on for 9 weeks from Saturday 9th February in the arena gallery.
We’re going on a ‘CiB day trip’ to the mac on Saturday to take a look at this show, we urge you to do the same!