After COVID-19, many of us felt wary or uncertain when returning to community activities. The national and local lockdowns of the past years also left us isolated from our support networks, families and friends. Our Resonates programme aimed to address the physical and psychological impact of COVID-19 in our community, as well as supporting people as they made their way back into community life.
Photo by Shirin Naveed
Mehfil Resonates was one of three seasons of Resonates workshops in 2022. Running from September to December 2022, our Mehfil sessions focused on coming together in a safe, welcoming space to explore South Asian and other identities by creating poetry, artwork and a zine.
Mehfil is an Arabic word ( محفل) and is a place where poetry, singing, music and dance is shared. We worked with Daytimers to facilitate the sessions, a collective aimed to amplify South Asian Artistry through music, arts and culture. Across 13 sessions we produced Moods of Mehfil, a 30+ page zine exploring identity, self-expression, community, history and culture, featuring work from 15 participants. Click through the image above to read the zine online.
Photo by Timothy Eliot Spurr
As well as producing the zine, the participants gained first-hand experience of hosting a mehfil, with a party to launch the zine in December topping off months of hard work from everyone involved. This was a first-of-its-kind event for all of us at Rich Mix. The group worked together to produce and host a community sharing event inspired by the mehfil format, and were encouraged to perform the poetry they’d worked on during the weekly workshops, with many taking to the stage for the first time in their lives. On the night they also ran a fundraising campaign to support people affected by the floods in Pakistan.
When the sessions began, participants reported that they’d been experiencing high levels of anxiety, juggling multiple jobs whilst studying or raising children. Through creative activities, the group learnt to regulate and manage stress, gaining strength and comfort from a shared feeling of community.
Photo by Timothy Eliot Spurr
Hearing from our Mehfil participants:
For anyone who may be feeling lost or alone, I would highly recommend getting involved in Rich Mix Resonates. Mehfil wasn’t just a group, it was a community of people who came together from a range of backgrounds, yet the themes and conversations are ones which affected us all in similar ways.
Mehfil Resonates participant
I’d 100% recommend other people to get involved in future Resonates projects, because it gives you a space to feel more connected with yourself and those around you.
Mehfil Resonates participant
I found the project to be a useful insight for me to gain a better understanding of myself. This was aided by being able to interact with many like minded people from similar ethnic backgrounds to me. I think it is important to feel represented and by having group discussions and the opportunity to create was thoroughly useful. I feel like this was the spark for a much bigger fire in terms of my own creativity and gave me the chance to be part of something bigger than myself.
Mehfil Resonates participant
Photo by Timothy Eliot Spurr
It supported and further developed my interest in creative arts. Connecting with other like minded individuals across many generations was brilliant and confirmed my ideas that such meetings and conversations are potentially of benefit for all concerned.
Mehfil Resonates participant
Mehfil has injected a sense of community in my life. As a non-South Asian participant, but as an East Asian one it has emboldened and empowered the strength in our collective assertion in a culture which we’ve all contributed to together.
Mehfil Resonates participant
I got onto the programme at a particularly difficult time, and I have left having accomplished a goal that I have had since I was a child, and I have also left with wonderful friendships that I am optimistic will last well into the future.
Mehfil Resonates participant
I think this programme is very important and necessary. With the support of Rich Mix we were able to facilitate connections between every one of the participants who came through the doors. Mehfil is the idea of building things together, and these workshops really allowed us to do so. Rich Mix is a beautiful hub for community and culture that I feel blessed to be a part of.
Mehfil Resonates participant
Featured photo by Timothy Eliot Spurr.
