02 Aug URONTO @ Manchester in the Rickshaw Art Project

British Council is working in partnership with Glasgow Life, Manchester Museums and Galleries Partnership, UK Youth and heritage partners in Pakistan, India and Bangladesh to deliver Our Shared Cultural Heritage: a project that tests and evaluates new sustainable models for heritage organisations to better engage young people (particularly young people of South Asian descent) with cultural heritage and their organisations.
Our Shared Cultural Heritage (OSCH) will explore new ways for heritage sites, museums and young people to come together. Through OSCH, heritage sites will become better places for young people to explore identity and connect with others from the past and the present.

The South Asia Gallery (in partnership with the British Museum) will be an exceptional new space (350 m²) creating the first permanent gallery in the country dedicated to exploring the stories, experiences, cultures and contributions of South Asian diaspora communities in the UK.

Presenting a dynamic, contemporary take on South Asian and British Asian culture, it will bring world-class material from the British Museum to Manchester, to be displayed alongside the very best of Manchester Museum’s own South Asian collections and those of some of our partners across the city. The South Asia Gallery will have significance far beyond Manchester. It is an unprecedented opportunity to work with communities of South Asian heritage – regionally, nationally and internationally.

Manchester Museum came in collaboration with Uronto Artist Community two mentor in the process of collecting and designing two Rickshaws in the South Asian Gallery, Artists from Bangladesh and the UK will co-develop and co-create the designs for the rickshaws which aim to represent British Asian identity. This will be accompanied by a programme of mentoring and workshops on rickshaw history and art. The project will take place between June 2022 and March 2023.

Uronto will bring in traditional Rickshaw painters at Manchester Museum along with other contemporary artists to co-create the Rickshaws and co-design the narrative through a collaborative practice involving South Asian Gallery Collective, Artists, curators and mentors.