The Story of Sikhs in Print

April 29, 2008

Author: Craig Manning

Source: Wirral Globe

http://www.wirralglobe.co.uk/display.var.2233809.0.0.php

ACCLAIMED Wirral artists Amrit and Rabindra Singh are the curators of a new exhibition of Sikh art and heritage that has opened at Liverpool's St George's Hall.

Sikhs In Print - which opened on St George's Day and can be seen until June 20 - is thought to be the first of its kind in the North West. It features more than 100 images from an archive of thousands the Bidston-based twins have built up since 1990, chronicling the years 1837 to 1937.

The London-born twins live in Bidston and attended Holt Hill Convent School, Birkenhead, before going onto Liverpool University. It was during studies that their interest in their heritage began and the seeds for the current exhibition were planted.

Amrit told me: "Part of our post-graduate work was to look into Sikh art, because we're both from the Sikh community, and we were determined to show that we have artistic heritage because we are often thought of as an agricultural community.

"The Sikhs traditionally come from the North Indian district of Punjab, which was known as the breadbasket of India, and were traditionally farming communities.

"We spent a year of research in India doing a scholarship around 1990/91 and were interested really in looking at the images of Sikhs both in painting, which was the area my sister was studying while I was looking at the more contemporary images of printed posters and calendars, that kind of thing."