22 May – 15 Jun 2025
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Tape Letters
Modus Arts
An exhibition that explored migration on tape.
Lost and found: we heard messages recorded and sent back to Pakistan by new arrivals at this special exhibition.
Tape Letters looked back on life in Bradford for new arrivals in the days before technology connected us all in an instant. This free exhibition unearthed the practice of recording messages on cassette and sending them to friends and family, popular with Pakistani migrants to the UK from the 1960s to the ’80s – and gives us a unique insight into this long-lost method of communication.
The project began when artist Wajid Yaseen discovered his own family’s history of sending personalised cassette tapes to relatives in Pakistan. Initially focused on the north, Tape Letters has now sourced cassettes and completed oral history interviews with people from right across England and Scotland – including Bradford, the focus of this exhibition. In the gallery space visitors could listen to original cassette recordings, hear oral histories, read transcripts, see portraits – and journey back decades to a very different world.
With thanks to the archive contributors who participated in Tape Letters England, made possible by The National Lottery Heritage Fund and Arts Council England.
Full project credits available at tapeletters.com/credits
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