How artist Miki’s heritage exploration led her to create poignant exhibition
MIDDLESBROUGH-BORN artist
Miki Rogers became interested in immigration after exploring her Irish and Scottish heritage.
Both strands of her family moved around the UK before settling in Middlesbrough in the early 1900s.
While looking back through her family’s history, Miki also began to examine the history of her hometown.
The discovery of Eston iron ore in conjunction with the birth of the railways and the development of Port Darlington resulted in Middlesbrough’s labour requirements soon exceeding the size of the local working population.
People were drawn to the ‘Ironopolis’ from all over the UK and Europe. Many of Middlesbrough’s founding fathers had migrated from Eastern Europe and predominantly Wales. From 1845, a new workforce arrived fleeing poverty, famine and religious intolerance from Ireland.
Miki is able to trace her Middlesbrough roots back to her great grandfather, but it is the second wave of mass immigration into the town from the late 1940s that has inspired her latest art and history project at Kirkleatham Hall.
Britain needed to rebuild its infrastructure and economy following the Second World War.
In 1948 Parliament passed the British Nationality Act hoping to fill the gaps in Britain’s depleted workforce by incentivising people to relocate from the old British Empire.
Last week marked the 75th anniversary of the arrival of
HMT Empire Windrush, the first large migrant ship from the West Indies to dock in Tilbury.
The increasing demands of Teesside’s steel and chemical industries were met by South Asian workers caught up in the consequences of the 1947 Partition of India. Many of the young men shared a single room and often a bed between day and night shifts.
The new Commonwealth policy also applied to Ireland and, once again, families made their way via Liverpool to the North-East coast of England.
Last summer, Miki asked the people of Middlesbrough and Redcar and Cleveland what they would pack in one suitcase if they had to leave their hometown indefinitely?
Some could answer this question from experience, remembering perhaps packing a suit, photographs, religious items, or a keepsake. Others used this opportunity to reflect on the idea of leaving one’s home, possibly for the final time, with only minimum luggage to carry into the unknown.
Mika, with the help of the loan of some treasured possessions, has transformed the answers she received into a thought provoking and poignant art installation.
Patrick Finern has created a soundscape to add to the experience. The three-month exhibition will also be part of September’s Festival of Thrift and Middlesbrough’s Art Weekender.