Request Line at The Manchester Museum
Come along to the launch of the True Form vinyl archive ‘Request Line’ installation in the South Asia Gallery performance space. This is the opening event for South Asian Heritage Month, and as well as the installation, which consists of videos, animations, archival imagery, and listening stations, the launch night will also include talks and music.
Request Line’ is the first exhibition of the True Form Projects vinyl archive. The 3000 records and other artefacts were rescued in 2017 from the Oriental Star Agencies store in Balsall Heath, Birmingham by Faisal Hussain before it was forced to close. The records were initially played at BBC Radio WM at Pebble Mill by Mohammed Ayub, Anita Bhalla and Farah Durrani as part of the ‘East in West’ radio show. As part of this exhibition, we are playing and showing some of the vinyl covers and the requests people sent in throughout the 1980s to the presenters.
Faisal will be talking about how he went about saving the archive and what has been discovered in the collection so far, what the future holds for the project and it’s various outcomes including a selection being shown in the new South Asia Gallery projection space as part of South Asian Heritage Month.
The talk will be followed by a Q&A session.
DJ Rizmi will be playing her own selections in the museum’s Main Hall, and complimentary house chai is provided by Dishoom.
