Punjab to the Potteries
2022 - 2023
Getting to know stories of migration and the people behind them.
Punjab to the Potteries was a project inspired by the journeys of people whose families began their story in the Punjab region before settling in The Potteries – the area that includes Stoke-on-Trent and Newcastle-under-Lyme and is world famous for its ceramics industries.
The idea behind Punjab to the Potteries came to life when Appetite’s then Director, Gemma Thomas, met Val Bansal in 2017 during Settling by Sam Ivin. Settling is an archive photography exhibition delivered in partnership with GRAIN Projects, which documented through personal photography the stories of those who have migrated from around the world, including South Asia, to establish lives in the Stoke-on-Trent area.
Val shared that while he had been in the process of sorting through old family photographs to digitise, he realised he had a lot of questions about what it must have been like for his father, Baldev, to move from a small village in the Punjab to work in Stoke as a teenager in the ‘60s.
What was the journey like?
How did it feel to leave family behind?
How difficult was it to adapt to an entirely new culture?
That meeting sparked a relationship that went on to build on Appetite and the New Vic’s work with the communities in the area. During a period of relationship building and co-creation, members of the Punjabi community in Stoke and Newcastle have taken pride in and ownership of Punjab to the Potteries.
What came next
In 2023 two new short plays were commissioned, being inspired by the conversation and memories that had been shared by the community. The plays were read in the auditorium at the New Vic during a joyous celebration event; a photographic exhibition was staged of some of the people whose input inspired those plays; and a series of creative workshops and talks took place at Keele University in collaboration with ArtsKeele.
Since Punjab to the Potteries, Appetite and New Vic’s commitment to programming for the wider local South Asian communities has continued and Sensasian - a festival of South Asian arts and culture - debuted in 2024.
