Sarah Guzman, the curator at Islington Museum, on the museum’s latest exhibition, Sanctuary and Solidarity: a showcase of art from refugees and migrants, in collaboration with artist and activist Salma Zulfiqar 

What does being curator at Islington Museum involve?  

My job is to tell Islington’s stories through exhibitions and to make sure our collections stay safe. We have a great collection of objects, and Islington has a fantastic history full of radicals, artists, and everyday people who worked hard to make a difference, which makes my job exciting. Our new learning and engagement manager is planning an exciting new programme of events, and we are starting to ramp programming up again.

Great to see it up and running again! Tell us about the current exhibition, Sanctuary and Solidarity. What can visitors expect?  

We’re steaming right ahead and have a lot of exhibitions on this year! Sanctuary and Solidarity is on for the next three weeks. It’s part of the Migration Blanket Project, which was founded by artist and activist Salma Zulfiqar. She works with refugee and asylum seekers and supports them in creating art about their experiences and hopes for the future for life in the UK. It’s amazing work. The stories shown through the art can be upsetting, as you can clearly see the pain and hardship, but it is also hopeful. It also looks at the climate crisis and how it impacts current refugees and will do in the future. We’ll also be showing two documentaries, which won several awards, made by Salma as part of the Migration Blanket Project.  

How were refugees and migrants involved in creating the exhibition?  

We had two workshops on two Saturdays in February and we have one more on 29 March, which is open to anyone to come along. It involves working with Salma and creating a canvas together, which will go on display later. We have two already, and are displaying a new canvas that was made with refugees and migrants living in the King’s Cross area. It’s a really good opportunity to create community connections and allows people who might otherwise not be able to tell their stories to express themselves, by creating art together.  

How did the exhibition come about? 

Migrant Help, which is an organisation that operates locally and nationally, got in touch with us. Salma has exhibited her work across the UK and she really wants to create bases within local communities – she prefers working with local authorities and community centres for that reason. Migrant Help asked if we’d like to do a mini display. All of us here like to champion people’s lived experiences and offer a platform for people to talk about them and we had a gap in the programming, so we wanted to put something bigger on. 

How did you go about putting the exhibition together?  

I had a look at Salma’s artwork and talked to her about her mission – why she’s doing what she’s doing and how she works with groups. I then selected the works that we wanted to display and could put up within limitations on space and size, then we worked together to write the information panels for each artwork.  

It is divided into men’s, women’s and Salma’s stories, then there is a section on climate. We also have vintage postcards on the wall for people to write about their own stories or share how migration has impacted their communities. We really want to drive home the point that refugees and migrants are very much part of our community.  

Are there any pieces that particularly stand out to you?  

One canvas that struck me was made by men who are Afghan refugees, many of whom identify across the LGBTQ+ spectrum. There is a woman in it, staring directly out at you from the canvas. She is wearing a niqab and it seems to be saying “we are here, I am here”. It’s got a lot of sensitive material, but it’s a great piece.  

What’s next at Islington Museum? 

We’ve got two major exhibitions this year. One is Undercurrent: Islington’s Lost Waterways, which will run from April until August, looking at the history of two of London’s now-lost waterways and Islington’s ‘healing’ wells, as well as how pollution negatively impacts our land and our lives.  

The second is a showcase of the artwork from the Bunhill Fields project that will be on display from October – you might remember the installation that was on display in Bunhill Fields a couple of years ago. We’re hoping to create a new installation with local people, too. We also have a month-long exhibition with Club Kali in August. It’s the first LGBTQ+ south Asian night club in Islington. We’re partnering with them as part of their 30th anniversary celebrations.  

One of the benefits of being a local council-funded museum is that we can highlight all these local voices. Our hope is to be the first and best point for people in Islington to experience local culture.   

Find out more about the Sanctuary and Solidarity exhibition, including museum opening times.