Storytelling project run from suitcase caravan

People are being invited to share their memories in an upcycled vintage caravan as part of a story-gathering project in Bradford.

Storywala is a "living archive" led by Bradford South Asian Festival (BSAF), which is travelling around the city in a suitcase shaped caravan powered entirely by the sun.

The project is being launched at Bradford Arts Centre on Saturday alongside a programme of events celebrating South Asian heritage.

Festival co-director Rahila Hussain said the idea for a suitcase caravan had been inspired by immigration stories.

"When I was a kid, my parents had this suitcase. I remember time and again opening this beautiful suitcase and inside it was this gorgeous blue colour and just all the little bits and pieces and the old photographs that they had and old things that they brought with them from Pakistan," she said.

"It was amazing, those suitcases contain stories and we were thinking about how we could get that out of our imagination and into something concrete and real, and the way that we came up with it was to have our Storywala caravan, which is a ginormous suitcase."

The caravan has already visited the National Science and Media Museum, BD Festival and Bradford City Mela.

It also contains stories from the festival's previous projects: Spill the Chai and Shadmanny!, which was about wedding traditions.

"We've got an awful lot of traditions, and those traditions can sometimes get lost if you don't do that sharing and storytelling," explained Hussain.

"We know traditions change and that's fine, but they're always rooted somewhere in the past. So it's wonderful to make new traditions and I think that's right and proper of course but let's pay homage to the past as well."

During the BSAF launch, visitors can explore the Storywala caravan and watch live performances, creative writing, calligraphy, family cooking workshops, and arts and crafts.

BSAF lead producer Aamta Tul Waheed said the project was about retaining links to culture and heritage.

"That's the most important thing to me, telling stories but also keeping them close to your heart," she said.

"It's just a human thing because all of the people that come to our festival, they're all from Bradford and they share with us and they love to tell their stories and how do we appreciate that and how do we hold that with grace and poise."

The project is part of Bradford City of Culture 2025's legacy, said Alex Corwin, Programme and Artist Development Manager at Bradford Arts Centre.

"There's still energy in Bradford and that passion for delivering cultural events and really celebrating the different cultures and everything that is in this fantastic city.

"The City of Culture was amazing but it was one year, Bradford's cultural life existed before that and it's going to keep existing," she said.

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