Becoming Brent is organised in the centenary year of the British Empire Exhibition, a grand celebration of imperial power that was held in Wembley Park in 1924-1925. Over the next two years, the borough will be given a chance to pause, reflect and redress the legacy of the British Empire through a series of newly commissioned artworks and community events.

Arwa Aburawa and Turab Shah will be researching a new project which explores the material remnants and cultural memory of the British Empire Exhibition. Following the demolition of the original Wembley Stadium (formerly known as Empire Stadium) in 2003, rubble from the site was transferred to Northala Fields, a new park in Ealing. Now buried beneath the park’s landscaped hills, the rubble forms a sound barrier against the nearby motorway. By examining the physical and archival traces of the British Empire Exhibition, the artists hope to reveal how colonial histories have been hidden, forgotten or masked.

The new work will be presented as part of the Becoming Brent programme in mid-2025. Film London will be supporting the project through the combined expertise of the teams in the Film London Artists’ Moving Image Network (FLAMIN) and London’s Screen Archives (LSA), who will support the research, development and production of Aburawa and Shah’s project. It is hoped that this artist residency will encourage people to donate material to Brent Museum and Archives to increase representation of the borough’s diverse community within the collections.