Exhibition comes down atPenair School

Exhibition comes down at Penair School, Truro. Mike Matthews, volunteer extraordinaire, helps me pack it. Brian Andrew and Craig Williams (pictured) load it up and take it home to Praze.

A photogallery of work at Penair School

All the photos in one place - with captions.  Taking I Packed This Myself to Penair School, Truro.

A private view at Penair and a world premiere

A Private View of I Packed This Myself at Penair School, Truro. Some nervousness beforehand. How many people would come? But sumptuous food. Lots of people. Students who greeted guests and gave informed and engaging guided tours of the exhibition. A tremendous atmosphere even before a bus arrived from Leedstown with workers from Southern England Farms (SEF) who had made a film of their lives, The Hidden Life of a Cornish Farm.
Quite an emotional moment - it seemed such a breakthrough that they were able to come and see the first screening of the film.  Inga Riaukaité, Andrius Riauka, Domantus Plusciauskis and Valius Icontrimas pose here by photos by Tom Pilston of migrant workers in west Cornwall.

And viewing the photos...













An old friend - Ross Tibbles of University College Falmouth with work created for I Packed This Myself when it opened in Camborne, March 2009.

And work created by students at Penair, using the flat pack suitcases we have created to go alongside the exhibition.

This only happened due to the work of a large number of people - too many to mention, as always, but Carmel Henry and Tanya Davies at Penair really took the project to heart. As did Ruth Morecock, Head of Art and Joan Smith, ESOL teacher at Southern England Farms, Leedstown. The film could not have been made without the backing of SEF and Jane Richards.  And of course nothing at all would have been possible without funding for all the materials and workshops from the Migration Impacts Fund.

Final touches at Penair and daffodil pickers working later

To Penair School, Truro, to put the final touches to I Packed This Myself, the exhibition opening there tomorrow night. We will be screening a film by four Lithuanian workers alongside work by artists on the theme of migration - as well as work by students.  Ewa and Waldek Cimochowscy help set everything out with Carmel Henry and Tanya Davies, the teachers who have worked so hard on the project. Their efforts have really borne fruit. Fantastic art  by students and very thought-provoking suitcases.

 

Ewa, Waldek and I have a meeting afterwards to discuss bookings for next term. We are keen to target schools with greatest needs and plan different strategies for different age groups. 

It is nearly dark by the time I near home - but the daffodil pickers are only just finishing. Can hear voices calling across the fields as the bus gets ready to drive everyone back to base.

A trip to Leedstown and the new film

Down to Cornwall again for the start of the week - and a trip to Leedstown to see the Lithuanian workers at Southern England Farms (SEF) who have made a film of their lives. We plan to show it at the launch of I Packed This Myself at Penair School, Truro, on Tuesday. The filmmakers (Inga Riaukaité, Andrius Riauka, Domantus Plusciauskis and Valius Icontrimas)  have done a brilliant job. Jane Richards of SEF who has kindly given permission for the filming comes to see it too.
Everyone is happy.

Migration of the species

In my solicitor's waiting room find an article about the migration of species in a glossy magazine.
Lots of photos but it doesn't really talk about the interesting part - the mystery of it all. How do birds know the routes to take? Which part of the brain stores this knowledge? Is it the cerebellum? I can't remember.
There are photos of polar bears, who don't migrate (two children at workshops last week asked if polar bears come from Poland).
But two books, possibly, to add to our Journeys reading list - The Snow Goose by Paul Gallico and A Single Swallow by Horatio Clare, a producer and journalist. Clare followed the flight of swallows from South Africa to his childhood home in Wales, travelling 6,000 mile across two continents and 14 countries.
"It's quite something to live life as swallows do," he is quoted as saying, "on the wing, taking perpetual risk. It's not just how they live, it's the emotional way that they live: their fearlessness, their joie de vivre and their adventurousness that I love."
It would be nice to think that swallows are filled with joie de vivre, but I wonder whether they are in fact.

Perhaps I am not in the best of moods.

Behind the burger ...

"I'm not a slave, I just don't speak English" - life in the meat industry

A friend sends a link to an article in the Guardian on the appalling conditions in some sectors of the meat processing industry in the UK. It's based on a report by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC). One third of workers in the meat processing industry in this country from overseas. In Cornwall, a large proportion of the several thousand Portuguese migrant workers are employed in meat processing.
I stopped eating fast food burgers after watching Fast Food Nation by Richard Linklater.

Books for factory workers

Maureen Twose of Cornwall Libraries (who has been a staunch supporter of the project from the start) emails with good news. Callington is a small town in north Cornwall,near a food processing factory Ginsters, which employs a large number of workers from overseas.
She writes:

"Callington Library is negotiating a small satellite library in Ginsters that will be accessible to all, including the night shift. It will include a small number of foreign language books.

Also, we plan a European reading promotion later in the year (European authors translated into English). It all helps to bring down barriers and hopefully unite us."

Books for the night shift sounds a great idea.

Ewa's cheesecake recipe

This has been requested several times since our workshop at Truro Library in February. It is surprising that culinary vocab is so challenging! Folding in! Crumbling! Quite a lot of technical terms about rather subtle techniques. But here it is. It is extremely good.


BLACK AND WHITE CHEESCAKE
by Ewa Cimochowska

Cake:
- 0.9lb/400g of flour
- 6 tablespoons of sugar
- 3 teaspoons of vanilla flavouring
- 0.45 lb/200g  of butter 
-  teaspoon of baking powder
- 1 tablespoon of cocoa
- 2 tablespoons of sour cream 
cheese mixture :
- 2.2 lb/1 kg of Quark soft cheese
- 1.5 cup of sugar
- 4 tablespoons of melted butter
- 5 eggs ( yolks and whites separetly )
- 1 tablespoon of custard powder

Preparing a baking form: Butter the tin. Then dust the entire buttered surface with fine, dry bread crumbs (the kind you can buy at the supermarket or you can make them yourself) by turning the tin on its side and slowly rotating it. Invert the tin and shake out excess crumbs.


Mix cake ingredients together with your hands until well blended . Form into two balls and put into the refrigerator for half an hour. During this time prepare cheese mixture. Mix the egg yolks with sugar. Add cheese, melted butter and custard powder. Beat (on low to to low-medium speed) thoroughly, until completely smooth. Beat egg whites until stiff. Fold into the cheese mixture.   (You can also add a few raisins, if you wish.)


Crumble one of the dark cake balls coarsely into the baking form and spread evenly to create a base for your cake. Pour cheese mixture and crumble another dark ball of cake on the top. You can gently press the top dark cake into the cheese mixture so that they mix a little.


Preheat the oven to 180ºC/350ºF/gas 4 . Put the cheesecake in the centre of the oven and bake for about an hour. The cheesecake is done when the middle layer is firm.  Let it cool completely on rack. It can be served after two or three hours, but ideally is left until the next day.

Last workshop of the week and pickers on a spring evening

Our last workshop of the week  - at Penryn College. 15 workshops this week with nearly 2,000 students. Waldek and Ewa reckon that we have 'reached' one in two students i.e. really made them question their attitudes. We review the week in the cafe at Asda, Penryn...and plan workshops and strategies for after Easter. Ewa is keen to get going again! Though have been surprised at the levels of hostility towards migrant workers and lack of knowledge of 1. the work they do 2. their importance in the local economy.
Daffodils are coming out fast now - though it's cold. Mother's Day is fast approaching. Pass a field almost covered with pickers.

Torpoint Community College and a day of workshops

 

At Torpoint Community College all day, where we deliver ten workshops in all - two teams working simultaneously. It's a long drive from west Cornwall. Plymouth and the dockyards are visible across the river. Lin Martin, who has invited us, describes it as a monocultural area, despite the proximity of the city. We work with groups of year 7 and year 8 students during the day. This is the Year 7 classroom.

Lots of interesting - and eye-opening attitudes. What are migrant workers? What do they do? We encounter the kind of remarks that we've heard elsewhere: 'They're here taking our jobs.'  'They're here because it's safer than in their own country'.  Etc.

One thing that surprises me greatly - out of the 100 or so students that I work with during the day, only one recognises a photo of St Michael's Mount. The teacher tells us that the children don't tend to travel - they don't know Cornwall.  I've heard similar things elsewhere, but not paid too much attention. But this really strikes me today.

Everyone - without exception - is delighted to meet Valdek, who I am working with.  One boy asks - rather tentatively - if Valdek knows K***. We ask who K*** is. We are told he is a Polish boy who had to leave the school because of bullying. He liked apple juice and the boy tells us people teased him and squirted apple juice in his face.  Valdek says he doesn't know him ....

We look at items brought to Cornwall by migrant workers from Portugal ....

 

Then Waldek shows a selection of things he brought with him to this country. A sandwich box (he always carries a packed lunch)

A Terry Pratchett book - this caused mild amazement.

 

His lucky elephant - which needs to point to the window when he takes exams and tests.

And most exciting of all... a CD of Waldek's band. It turns out that he is an extremely accomplished saxophonist. We just have time to play one of the tracks. Everyone is rivetted. And several of the boys shake Waldek's hand and thank him as they leave.

 

 

The road home borders the river. 

St Austell, a brief stop at St Clement then stunning suitcases at Richard Lander

An early start to the day with a workshop at Cornwall College St Austell - with Art degree students and ESOL learners. An interesting discussion on treasured possessions. Jewellery figured high on many people's lists.

Then a pause before the next workshop. By the river at St Clement, just outside Truro - near Malpas, where Tristan carried Iseult across the ford in Arthurian legend. Had not realised that the channels in the mud could be so deep. (An important journey for Iseult - an elaborate trick that saved her life.)

In the churchyard at St Clement - a standing stone dating from around 600 AD with a Roman inscription. Its history unclear.









Plenty of clarity though at Richard Lander School,  Truro, with the class of very motivated and engaged children we met two weeks ago. A variety of excellent suitcases that they have created with their journeys.

Emily Irwin has drawn her journey eight years ago, from Maidenhead to Cornwall. She's now 14.

Miles Cooper has drawn a memorable journey to Primary School some years ago in a snowstorm, when his intrepid father had a minor accident and hit the bank. He found his sister and brother had built two snowmen by the time he got home.

 

Megan Mason has drawn a journey of dreams - her planned career and passage through life.

Rebecca Water, 14, drew a very delicate map with key symbols in her life - a palm tree on the left from the Caribbean island where her mother was born. The London Eye - top right (she was born in London).

Rihana Davey, 13, drew all the places that have been significant in her life so far - from the maternity wing where she was born, to the play group she attended, to her home and school now...

The class hard at work, imagining themselves migrant workers far from home, and writing postcards home. A very rewarding place to work - we are returning after Easter to do some assemblies.

An icy start to the day but an exhilarating workshop

A cold start - takes a while to scrape the frost off the car windows. And very icy in the valley.
But a great workshop at Helston School.

120 Year 11 students who are engaged, ask questions and really help take the project forward.
Again, am quite moved by the notion that this was where I went to school - and in one sense set off in life.

Waldek comes along to support Ewa in questiontime. He is still working at the medical supplies factory in Newquay, that she has now left.
And  - how heartening is this - more than one student in the Evaluation form said 'It changed the way I thought about migrant workers'.
Later a meeting at Pool with Ola Paluch, to think of ways of working with children there, whose parents are migrant workers.

First workshop of the week and daffodils during the day

Daffodils, left by my mother, to start the day.

Then to Helston School  for the first of two workshops on consecutive days this week. An engaging discussion with 120 students (Y11), and Ewa. The teacher here - point of contact, Joe Stuteley - has said that students could have knee-jerk tabloid-fuelled attitudes towards migrant workers. And that is what we need to combat. We give a presentation at the start: they go off to their classrooms. Then return for a plenary discussion. No sign of prejudice - in particular. But it's quite an hard audience to warm up. The hall is freezing - perhaps that is part of the problem. Also on a personal level find it very strange to be back in this school. It was my old school.

Then talking to possible assistants for future workshops - in Helston and Camborne.

Heading home, quite late in the afternoon, am surprised to see the pickers still picking. It is already growing dark. 

But this is the peak season. Mother's Day - the absolute pinnacle of the daffodil season - isn't far off. So the tractors are still at work until well into the evening.