With support from UK’s prestigious Heritage Lottery Fund, South Asian Cinema Foundation on 9 December 2019 started another exciting community heritage project entitled: “Selective Inclusion: African and Asian Celebrities in London’s Vanity Fair magazine 1868-1914”.
What’s it all about?
This Heritage Lottery funded project aims to unravel and highlight African and Asian celebrities featured in London’s prestigious Vanity Fair magazine in the late 19th and early 20th centuries during the heyday of the British Empire.
In all, 28 important celebrities from Africa and different parts of Asia who were featured in Vanity Fair between 1868-1914 will be included in the Project.
What will we do?
- The Project will locate all the caricatures and texts on celebrities from parts of Africa, India, Malaysia, Thailand, Japan, China and Korea featured in London’s ‘Vanity Fair’ magazine during the period covered by the Project.
This will reveal fascinating bits of our shared Anglo-African, Anglo-South Asian, Anglo-South East Asian, Anglo-Chinese and Anglo-Japanese heritage in Britain.
It will also highlight prevailing British social attitudes and the nature of public interest in the ‘Other’, i.e., in people from other parts of the world. - The Project will collate background information from various other sources to find out why they visited/ settled in Britain, where they lived, how they interacted with British people and also highlight their importance and contribution.
- It will search and locate artifacts, books, films, historic buildings and monuments built / associated with the personalities included in the Project.
- Where possible, the Project will record oral history interviews of descendants of or experts on the celebrities included in the project.
How will SACF share Project findings with the public?
To share Project findings, SACF will:
- Organise free public exhibitions of heritage material /facts gathered by the Project
- Organise Power Point presentations/talks on key personalities in the Project
- Record and share Oral History interviews with identifiable descendants/experts
- Produce a film on key Project personalities
- Produce an e-book and print limited copies of an illustrated booklet on the 28 celebrities included in the Project.
Who will SACF work with? - We will fulfil the Project’s aims by involving and empowering 15 community volunteers. These volunteers will benefit from the project by receiving Training in various areas related to the Project and its outcomes.
