Moving Pictures: Reusing Cinemas as Places of Worship in the Diaspora explores how migrant faith communities in England transform former cinemas into vibrant, sacred spaces. As part of the wider project, a survey and database of 101 adapted former cinemas across England is created in collaboration with architectural historian Kate Jordan, documenting their reuse by a range of faith groups. Yet these acts of creative agency, rooted in ceremony, ritual, spatial transformation, and everyday practice, remain largely unrecognised within mainstream heritage systems. At the heart of Moving Pictures is the site-integrity methodology, which collaborates closely with faith communities to capture this living heritage from an emic perspective. Through co-created, site-specific film installations, the project challenges traditional notions of "British Heritage," reimagining it as dynamic, plural, and inclusive, aligning with Stuart Hall's (1999) vision of evolving social identities.
The residency at the Zoroastrian Centre for Europe in London (the former Grosvenor Cinema) focuses on two key ceremonies: the Jashan and the Boi. Through workshops and reflective feedback sessions, bespoke filming and projection devices are iteratively developed in collaboration with the congregation to record and re-present these practices within the architecture of the former cinema. In the Zartoshty Brothers Hall, the former auditorium, a projector retraces the original camera path at a 1:1 scale, aligning filmed ritual precisely with the existing structure. In the Setayasht Gah, housed in the former projection room, overhead footage of the sacred fire ritual is mapped back onto the fire itself. The film operates as a performative research tool, moving with the ceremony and returning it to the site. Image-making becomes part of the ritual's unfolding, embedded within its gestures, rhythms, and spatial orientations.
Informed by Sara Ahmed's concept of orientation, the camera traces how bodies align with and inhabit space, treating movement as a form of spatial knowledge. Working in close proximity to the ceremony—what Trinh T. Minh-ha describes as "speaking nearby"—the film operates alongside congregational practice, creating a shared field of attention between worshippers, image, and architecture. Built form and spiritual practice are experienced simultaneously, enabling collective reflection on memory, devotion, and the building's layered histories.
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The expanded installations create space for the congregation to reflect on their own practices as familiar rituals are encountered anew, experienced as both immediate and mediated. Congregational feedback describes strengthened sensory and emotional connections to the space. As one member reflects,
"As the light is going all around, it's like the aura of the prayers… it shows that Ahura Mazda is moving around, coming from the Jashan, through the priest, and then around the space."
The project also invites wider publics into the site. Screenings through the London Migration Film Festival connect the work with migrant and community audiences, situating the centre within broader conversations around migration, belonging, and cultural continuity. Workshops and discussions bring congregation members together with heritage practitioners, representatives from Historic England, and faith leaders from other congregations occupying converted cinemas. These exchanges share strategies for adapting listed buildings for worship, improving accessibility, and recognising the value of intangible religious heritage.
