TL England 11. Behind the Project - Suna Afshan - It was there in the Potwari for Me to Find

The poet Suna Afshan was commissioned by Modus Arts to produce a body of text in response to five cassettes selected from the Tape Letters archive held at the Bishopsgate Institute library. She adopted a poetry as a word-for-word translation approach, and the work is directly informed by the messages and languages on the cassettes, with the aim of reifying speech into ink.

A Modus Arts Production. Audio Production and Sound Design by Oliver Sanders, Producer Leona Fensome, Executive Producer Lucia Scazzocchio, Funded by National Lottery Heritage Fund and Arts Council of England.

What is Tape Letters?

Tape Letters shines light on the practice of recording and sending messages on cassette tape as an unorthodox method of communication by Pakistanis who migrated and settled in the UK between 1960-1980. Season 1: Tape Letters England. Season 2: Tape Letters Scotland. This series features original tapes collected from families in Pothwari, Punjabi, Urdu, and English, as well as oral history recordings and behind-the-project interviews with the people involved in collecting this body of work.