Opportunity to be the new Project Coordinator for the Tape Letters Scotland Project

This is a guest news post by Modus Arts.

Modus Arts is seeking a Project Coordinator for the Tape Letters Scotland Project which highlights the practice of recording and sending messages on cassettes as an unorthodox method of communication by Pakistanis who migrated to and settled in Scotland between 1960-1980.

Drawing directly from first-hand interviews and from the informal and intimate conversations on the cassettes, the project seeks to unearth, archive, and re/present a portrait of this method of communication. To stay in touch with family members abroad, early Pakistani migrants adopted various communication methods, including written letters, telegrams, and telephone calls but also used the audio cassette tape as an additional mode of communication - applied essentially as a long-distance audio messaging system.

A number of factors drove the use including poor telecommunications networks in Pakistan and the high cost of making phone calls from Britain. Poor literacy rates, especially amongst women from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, also drove the practice as they were usually unable to write letters. These audio cassettes were used to convey a variety of messages – from deeply private messages between partners or remote long-distance parental guidance, to everyday conversations about the British weather and an unfamiliar climate.

We have found that surviving 'tape letters' from this period are rare as cassette usage, and sending audio messages through them, died down in the late 1980s. However, some do still exist, and relationship building with the British-Pakistan community by the Modus Arts team has enabled access and unearthed information regarding the locations of several of these cassettes.

These surviving cassettes contain rich oral histories and deeply human stories, which can be considered significant artefacts both as objects and as aural moments in a crucial time for the migrant Pakistani community. Building on the success of our previous NLHF-funded project and in response to demands from the community, we intend to focus on the Pakistani-heritage community in Scotland, seeking out surviving ‘tape letters’ and preserving them in perpetuity at the National Library of Scotland.

We will also recruit a team of local staff and volunteers from the target communities to support a programme of recorded interviews with members of the Scottish-Pakistani community, in order to better understand the use of the cassettes and the migrant experience. This will give us the opportunity to explore notions of identity in Scotland and understand the difference between the imposed British-Pakistani identity and the elective Scottish-Pakistani identity.

At the end of the project, the contents of the cassettes, the interviews and the analysis of the material will come together to create a series of gallery-based exhibitions fusing sound recordings, photography and interpretation boards, serving to share the outputs of the project with the communities from which they are drawn. Project outputs will also include a smartphone app offering free access to project materials, a series of videos, and a WebXR exhibition about the project, shared across a range of free-to-access platforms and ensuring wider engagement with the project.

The project is funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund, and initial project partners include the National Library of Scotland, The Scottish Oral History Centre, Edinburgh Council, and various community groups in Glasgow.

Deadline for applications is Friday 3rd February. Please see the role specification for details.