Being Brent

Brent Museum and Archives are leading a community project, aiming to improve local people’s wellbeing by connecting to Brent’s astonishing heritage.

Led by Brent Museum and Archives, Being Brent presents a diverse programme of events and opportunities, throughout the year.

See our new film, Being Brave

Look out for the Heritage Wellbeing Fund community projects kicking off soon, and Coal, Dole and Dinner Ladies immersive theatre in September 2021.

In the autumn, an Artist in Residence will join the project to create digital artworks with local significance over a 5-month residency.

Keep an eye out for the digital walking tour, Harlesden Trailblazers, which will celebrate local people and places.

There are exhibitions to explore on the second floor of The Library at Willesden Green:

• From the Ground Up
• Icons of Colour: Portraits of Brent's Change Makers

Being Brent is supported by a Steering Committee made up of local community members, Brent Council staff and a Brent councillor.

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Sponsors

  

Find out about the 12 funded community projects

The Heritage Wellbeing Fund projects will reach and involve a large cross-section of people in Brent and help improve health and wellbeing through engaging with heritage. Brent Museum and Archives will work with the awardees to increase the visibility of Brent’s history, ensuring more people will be involved in heritage and have a greater sense of wellbeing.

Keep an eye on this page for updates, and make sure to follow the groups on social media to find out how you can get involved.

Ashford Place – Shared Memories of Immigration: Brent West Indian and Irish

Shared Memories of Immigration will capture and celebrate the history, heritage and experience of Brent’s Irish and West Indian immigrant communities by recording the memories of their elderly members. A resulting film will explore how the two communities have supported each other and contributed to Brent’s culture and history, and will be a valuable resource that can be used in dementia cafes. The project will create opportunities for shared learning between the elders in these communities and the wider Brent population working with partners such as the Irish World newspaper and a historian from the West Indian community to ensure full participation in the project. 

Instagram: @ashfordplace | Twitter: @ashford_place | Facebook: @AshfordPlaceCricklewoodNW2

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Barn Hill Conservation Group – The Gaderbrook

The Gaderbrook project will restore the Gaderbrook stream in Fryent Country Park, its main catchment ditch and surface water source, to a near natural state. Fryent Country Park has provided a restorative green space for the residents of Brent throughout a difficult twelve months. The project is for both working participants and visitors. It aims to involve members of the community in practical enjoyable work outdoors that will improve the wetland and wildlife value of the Gaderbrook and its main tributary.   

Instagram: @barn.hillconservationgroup | Facebook: @BarnHillConservationGroup

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Fly Girls wellness – Flying From Brent

The Flying From Brent project will celebrate the notable aviator Amy Johnson, telling her story through an assembly performance for school pupils delivered by an actor playing Johnson, followed by creative writing workshops. A video recording of the performance will be created and shared. The project will also include a walking tour for adults focusing on notable places in Kingsbury related to the aviator’s life. 

Instagram: @FlyGirlsUK | Twitter: @FlyGirlsUK

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Friends of Paddington Old Cemetery – Paddington Old Cemetery Heritage Trail

The Paddington Old Cemetery Heritage Trail will highlight the history and stories of the diverse range of people buried at the cemetery. It will include information boards, leaflets, and a downloadable audio description and trail guide. Alongside the good, great and bad, are memorials to local people and others from across the world. They include scientists, early sports stars, an infant Indian princess, explorers, Empire and military officials, many war dead, an infamous fraudster, a famous courtesan, missionaries, artists, composers, a Prime Minister’s sister, a pioneer of women’s trade unions, and Paddington Bear's creator, Michael Bond.

Facebook: @PaddingtonCemetery

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Irina Porter and Caroline Bourne with Willesden Local History Society – Brent Heritage Walks and Trails

Learn more of Brent’s juicy historical secrets with Local History Walks! Friendly in-person guided tours, fun do-it-yourself downloadable history trails and inspiring how-to workshops will show you how to step into the stories behind Willesden's busy high road, the quiet recreational spaces of Queen’s Park and the rural idyll of the Welsh Harp. Free activities for all ages throughout the year will encourage local residents to get everyone out and inspired about the area around us.

Instagram: @brentheritagetours | Facebook: @ToursandTrails/p>

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LEAP London – GRoe Green

The GRoe Green project is a participatory gardening project that will focus on the importance of the heritage of natural habitats. Children from Roe Green Primary School, Kingsbury, will create a garden in an unused, overgrown area within the school grounds. Taking inspiration from the local, award-winning Barn Hill Conservation Group, the children will create a vegetable patch, plant flowers that bring wildlife back to the area and sow wildflowers that previously existed in the local grasslands in order to restore the biodiversity to what it once was.

Twitter: @CarolineDSouza6

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Mahogany Carnival Design – Wonders of Carnival:Through the eyes of our carnivalists   

The Wonders of Carnival project will work with young people on archiving Mahogany’s carnival collection, learning traditional carnival skills, improving access to the studio, and devising interactive talks. The project aims to shine a light on the contributions and lives of Brent’s black community, inspiring the next generation of creatives.

Instagram: @mahoganycarnival | Twitter: @carnivaldesign | Facebook: @MahoganyCarnival

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Preston Community Library – We Are Preston! Voices from Metroland

We are Preston! will explore the built heritage and the local environment of Preston, expanding awareness of our local history through looking at the buildings we pass every day. The project will collect memories from long-established residents and share them with the younger generation. The project will also produce a photographic record of buildings and open spaces in the area, resulting in an exhibition with an introduction for schools and interpretive performance.  

Twitter: @PrestonLib | Facebook: @PrestonCommunityLibrary

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RootPrints Theatre – Reaching out after shielding in: Exploring Brent Parks history      

The Reaching Out project will develop drama workshops for adults with learning disabilities and/or autism to explore the heritage of Brent’s parks using different art forms. Participants will create a series of responses inspired by this heritage. Park visitors will thereafter be able to interact with these creations, which will be displayed in the parks through QR codes on posters. Visitors will be encouraged by the group to look at the parks in a new way, and reflect on their personal relationships with Brent’s green spaces.

Instagram: @rootprintstheatre | Twitter: @RootPrints

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Roy Mehta – Reflections on the Past, Present and Future. Revival, London 1989-1993

The Reflections on the Past, Present and Future project will be about the people who feature in the photographs in Roy Mehta’s recently published photobook about life in Brent, REVIVAL, LONDON 1989-1993. He will be following up on the lives of some of the people whom he photographed thirty years ago and re-photograph them in similar locations. Roy will also make a short film so that we can hear their experiences of living in the borough.There will be an exhibition of his documentary work made in Brent back in 1989, opening in The Exhibition Space at The Library at Willesden Green in March 2022.

Instagram: @roymehta | Twitter: @roymehta2

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Society for the Advancement of Black Arts (SABA) – The Brent Black Musical Co-Op Heritage Project;

The Brent Black Musical Co-Op Heritage Project celebrates the contribution the iconic BBMC building has made to Brent’s community for over 35 years. The project will invite BBMC members and Brent residents to contribute their memories and recreate music to return community cohesion and promote wellbeing.

Website: bbmcfamily.net | Instagram: @bbmcfamily | Facebook: @BBMCFamily

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Warren Reilly and the Mixed Museum – By the Cut of Their Cloth

By the Cut of Their Cloth is a collaborative project between Brent artist Warren Reilly and The Mixed Museum that will explore Brent’s rich multiracial and mixed-race history. The project will conduct an open call to the local community for personal photographs that will encourage residents to explore and celebrate Brent’s and their own multicultural and mixed race past. Practical workshops in visual research, photography, illustration and image making will uncover family histories and contribute to existing archive collections, for future generations to study and enjoy.

Instagram: @wr.designs / @themixedmuseum | Twitter: @MixedMuseum | Facebook: @warrenreillydesigns / @TheMixedMuseum

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Being Brent

The Heritage Wellbeing Fund is part of Being Brent – Heritage for Health and Wellbeing, a project funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund and delivered by Brent Museum and Archives.

The community groups, non-profit organisations, charities and individuals from Brent have been awarded £5,000 each to conduct their project between August 2021 and March 2022.

Follow us on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook, and use the hashtag #BeingBrentHeritage.

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In September and October, Brent Museum and Archives welcomed audiences to Coal, Dole and Dinner Ladies. This immersive theatre event told the story of how Brent residents supported the miners’ strike in the 1980s.

The Miners’ Strike:

In March 1984, the National Coal Board announced it was to close 20 mines in the UK. Miners and their families were terrified of what the job losses would do to their villages and communities. Yorkshire miners called for a national strike, supported by the National Union of Mineworkers. Miners in Kent, South Wales and Durham joined the strike, but Nottinghamshire miners did not.

In the summer, a group of Kent miners marched to Nottinghamshire to convince the miners there to join the strike. On the way they stopped in Brent. With the Grunwick Strike fresh in many locals’ minds, Brent was quick to rally around the miners. Residents housed the miners in their spare bedrooms. They also collected money and food for the hungry travellers.

The Kent miners visited Aylestone School (now Queens Park Community School) for a union meeting. The dinner ladies and caretakers at the school greeted them with a hot meal and a standing ovation.

Brent Museum and Archives worked with local theatre company Useful Productions to bring this important event in history to life. The show was based on real events and people uncovered in the Trades Union archive held by Brent Museum and Archives.

Coal, Dole and Dinner Ladies was hosted at The North London Tavern in Kilburn. Trades unions had used the pub as a meeting point. Brent Trades Council kindly loaned historical objects to decorate the set. Audience members met and heard from Pat Thomas, a local dinner lady and Keith Taylor, a Kent miner. Pat and Keith gave personal accounts of the miners’ strike and Brent’s response. After the performance, we invited our audience to join us for tea and pudding. In true school dinner fashion, desserts on offer included chocolate cake and jam roly poly, with custard on top of course!

We also held a special performance for students at Queens Park Community School. One student wrote an article about the experience, saying: 'The sense of cohesion and unity is what made Coal, Dole and Dinner Ladies so heart-warming and unique, leaving me happily strolling away with the Coal not Dole sticker stuck firmly on the side of my backpack.'

A whopping £1000 and 15 bags of food was collected for Mutual Aid Food Willesden, through ticket sales and additional donations.

Coal, Dole and Dinner Ladies was part of Being Brent, an ongoing project that aims to improve the wellbeing of the community by connecting local people to Brent’s history.

The new short film Being Green looks at how local people in Brent connect with the wonderful natural heritage around them. You will see and hear from community members of Barn Hill Conservation Group, Queens Park Harriers running club and Friends of Welsh Harp. They discuss how Brent’s environment and green spaces have changed over time and how they have developed community connections through nature.

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The new short film Being Alive looks at various faith communities in Brent. You will see and hear from members and representatives of The Central Mosque of Brent, The BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir and St Mary’s Church of Willesden. The film celebrates how the diversity of beliefs in the borough makes Brent a rich place to live.

Part of the Being Brent community project from Brent Museum and Archives. Funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund.

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The new short film Being Brave looks at three young artists based in Brent who explore themes of home and identity in their work.

You will see and hear from Yasmin Nicholas, Magda Kuca and Warren Reilly.

Part of the Being Brent community project from Brent Museum and Archives. Funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund.

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Brent Museum and Archives are delighted to announce the final piece, Present Past by Digital Artist in Residence, Kinga Markus. Kinga has created an animated film using over four thousand charcoal drawings, each frame is hand drawn in charcoal on paper.

Kinga is interested in the fine details that shape us. She used the collections at Brent Museum and Archives as inspiration, as well as her own memories. The film evokes interwoven narratives and the variety of diverse lived experience in a place like Brent.

Kinga studied Fine Art at Ruth Prowse College of Art in Cape Town and at The Art Academy in London, where she went on to teach painting and drawing. In 2013, she appeared in Sky Arts’ Portrait Artist of the Year where she painted the actor, Robert Lindsay. She has exhibited and sold work in numerous shows in London, including at The Mall Galleries and Cork Street.

Part of the Being Brent community project from Brent Museum and Archives. Funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund.

You can follow Kinga on Instagram and Twitter @isabellkinga, or on Facebook @isabellkingamarkus. 

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