Watch – The Art of Belonging: Migration Meets Culture in a Changing UK

“The power of art is that you can understand something intellectually and feel it as well. What we do in art is to tell stories and engage in empathy, to walk in someone else’s shoes. That’s the power of it, and that’s why I think we need it even more so now.”
– Es Devlin

Last month, we held a discussion event at the historic Guildhall in the City of London, exploring how migration has shaped the UK’s art and culture – and what its role in our future cultural landscape could and should be.

It was an insightful and thought-provoking discussion illuminated by a stellar panel of speakers – Professor David Olusoga, Historian, Presenter, and Trustee of the Migration Museum; Es Devlin, Artist and Stage Designer; Indhu Rubasingham, Artistic Director of the National Theatre; and Sathnam Sanghera, Author and Journalist – and chaired by BBC News Presenter and Author Reeta Chakrabarti.

We were delighted to be joined on the evening by some of our friends and supporters, and were extremely grateful to everyone who shared their own migration stories with us, which will now join the 7,000+ story discs in our collection.

We are now pleased to share a video of the event for everyone to enjoy – we hope you’ll find it as inspiring as we did – click on the video below to watch.

Thank you to the wonderful team at the Guildhall for hosting the event and for all of their support.

And we hope that this is a taste of the kind of timely and important discussion events we will be a space for in the future as we build towards our permanent home in the City of London, opening in 2028. Watch this space…

“National stories need a home. They need a front room in which to be enjoyed, expressed and disseminated across generations… When I think about the Migration Museum, I think about children having this wonderful facility… We need a place in which we can not just learn that history, but celebrate it.” 
– Professor David Olusoga

Guildhall event photos: Elzbieta Piekacz
Film: Felix Ursell