Radical History Conference – Queen Mary University

ReachOut mentors and staff are always looking out for new opportunities to broaden our mentees' horizons. This year as part of their history project some of the ReachOut Y10 mentees from Bishop Challoner have been helping with the archiving of a project at Bishopsgate Institute. ReachOut mentee Maryama attended a history conference to speak about the project.  She did a fantastic job and has written a blog about her experience...

Queen Mary University held a Radical History Conference which showcased the works of numerous topics and projects within the city from Picasso’s Guernica to Free University education. I was filled with pride and overjoyed to be representing ReachOut at a special film screening and question and answer session of the ‘Velvet Fist’ choir.

This thrilling opportunity was made possible through the documenting the oral history for the choir by multiple Bishop Challoner students in Tower Hamlets with, Beyond Past, an organisation run by Rosa Kurowska who is currently a ReachOut Project Leader at my school. Over the April half, I was among the four year 10 pupils who filmed and conducted the interviews of four of the ten Velvet Fist choir members.

Now I am sure you are just itching to know what exactly this unique choir is all about.
Velvet Fist was founded in 1983 as part of an arts project organized by the Communist Party. Originally a mixed choir called Artery Choir they later became a women’s group and changed their name to Velvet Fist. They have sung at many festivals and for political campaigns for human rights, equality and social justice such as the Various Voices Festival at South Bank in 2009, the National Portrait Gallery in 2010, and a concert in support of Palestinian women in Camden in 2010. As a strong believer in equality and freedom and pioneer of moral values in society I was more than happy to take part in the conference this July.

Once the conference began, Rosa gave a PowerPoint presentation on Velvet Fist and the importance of oral history. The film screening was played and lasted 20 minutes, as it came to an end the audience were filled with though provoking queries. They were posed by academics and members of the general public. To give you a flavour of their thoughts, my most memorable question which I was asked was ‘how were the dynamics between working with the former choir members’. To my amazement, over the past few months I was intrigued to find that there were many similarities between us, the pupils and the senior choir members. This ranged from our love of feminism to our political views of the EU Referendum.

This experience in particular strengthened my presentation skills and channelled my voice to standing up to atrocities which are taking place in our world and speaking out against the fundamental rights of others. I’d like to leave you with this lasting quote by Suzy Kassem an American author, filmmaker, philosopher:
                                ‘Stand up for what is right even if you stand alone.’