Studio Orta

Lucy Orta’s Portrait Gallery Traces: Stories of Migration pays homage to the migrant communties that live in London's East End. Local residents joined workshops organised in partnership with Making for Change, The Portal Centre for Social Impact. Through story telling, oral testimonies and textile-making, stories were brought to life through textiles. People described the complexity of making a home in a city marked indelibly by mobility and constant change. For some, coming to East London was a promise of opportunity, of new adventures and discovery. For others, an unspeakable experience involving trauma, nostalgia and loss; a process of leaving behind lives, families and memories.

Over two years Lucy recorded the stories each story has been carefully and attentively brought to life in the Portrait Gallery drawing on specialist and traditional embroidery and textile skills. The practice of portrait making, with its roots in nationalism, class and power, is profoundly challenged in the context of this project. Here, these portraits represent a collective social experience, providing a deeply meaningful testament to the fact that London is, in fact, a city made up of many global trajectories. It is always on the move; it has no boundaries and its history belongs to us all.