Mymona Bibi, Ali Khan: In the Classroom
About the Micro-Commission
This is a long, free-written poem. The story of this poem is about a child who is going to school and studying history. The child is around 12-14 years old, so in the early years of secondary education. As the history lessons progress, the child feels something is missing. It appears there are aspects of their own history lost in the narrative. The poem explores the emotional effect this loss can have on young people.
The story is very personal to me as a Bangladeshi I did feel a great gap in the lack of my own history present in the British History curriculum. This poem draws on the confusion and identity issues that a one-sided historical narrative can have on young people and the problems this can cause in their adulthood and their perception of the world and its past.
About the Artist
Mymona Bibi is currently studying an MA in Art Gallery and Museum Studies at the University of Manchester. She is also a freelance creative and critical writer with a particular interest in cultural identity, decolonisation and dual identity. This is primarily inspired by her own personal experiences as a British Asian. She grew up in different places such as London, Newcastle, Sharjah (UAE); so place and identity are important themes in her work with inspiration stemming from these various, multi-diverse spaces.
