Faith, Place and Migration is a practice-led research exhibition developed in collaboration with the Muslim Association of Nigeria UK (MAN UK), exploring the tangible and intangible cultural heritage of London's oldest Nigerian Muslim community. The project brings together two expanded moving-image installations produced through a five-year partnership with the congregation of Old Kent Road Mosque, examining how film documents lived religious practice, preserves embodied memory, and supports community-led heritage interpretation.
The first installation, Assembly (2024), records and reactivates the final Jumu'ah (Friday) prayer before the mosque's closure. Originally filmed and presented within the mosque, the work returns the congregation's movements to the site through a large-scale floor projection. For the exhibition at Staffordshire St, the projection creates a shared environment in which congregation members and new audiences encounter the choreography of prayer together, positioning representation as a space for collective reflection rather than documentation alone.
The second installation, Virtual Assembly (2023), presents an interactive 3D model of the mosque created from LiDAR scans undertaken prior to demolition. The model hosts recorded stories and personal accounts from congregation members, enabling visitors to navigate the building and access community-authored narratives. The platform functions as an experiential archive, preserving spatial memory while testing how digital environments can sustain cultural continuity when physical sites are lost.
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A public programme, co-curated with Shahed Saleem, extends the research through structured dialogue and knowledge exchange. The Past and Future Workshop brings together congregation members, councillors, planners, and architects to discuss histories of migration, future aspirations, and the role of faith spaces within urban redevelopment. These conversations position the community as experts in their own heritage and inform discussions around planning and conservation practice. An Open Iftar further tests how exhibition spaces can operate as temporary civic and devotional environments. The gallery is adapted for collective prayer and a shared meal, welcoming congregation members alongside local residents and first-time visitors. This event demonstrates how cultural institutions can host faith practices respectfully and inclusively, creating shared spaces of encounter across religious and social difference. This research demonstrates how collaborative, site-responsive film and digital methods document embodied heritage, support community-led storytelling, and inform more inclusive approaches to cultural preservation, planning, and public engagement.
