Corner shops and tigers
Chila Kumari Singh Burman: Chila Welcomes You at IWM North | HOME's new artist development hub | Latest NW arts news
It’s always great to see large arts venues supporting artists’ development in a useful and genuine way. This week, HOME in Manchester unveiled its £3.5 million artist development hub in railway arches along Whitworth Street West. Including co-working areas, rehearsal spaces, and a custom-built public exhibition space, it will support local creatives by 5,000 hours of free making, studio, and development space each year.
Half of the space is dedicated to artists from underrepresented groups, including members of the Global Majority, d/Deaf and disabled artists, and those from lower socio-economic backgrounds.
Arch 2 has been named after Sir Bob Scott, in honour of one of the gallery’s key supporters, and who - if you can cast your minds back - led the successful bids to bring the 2002 Commonwealth Games to Manchester and European Capital of Culture 2008 to Liverpool.
One of my first roles when I started out in journalism at the Liverpool Daily Post was to report on the city’s Capital of Culture bid, which is one of the things that led me to becoming an arts writer. I interviewed Sir Bob on many occasions and was impressed by his respectful way of dealing with a young, female reporter (you can imagine the mansplaining I had to put up with in those days, even though that wasn’t yet a word).
He knew the value of having the media on side when trying to get a whole city behind an idea that back then seemed like a pipedream. That bid - which had local people at its centre - was a masterclass in community engagement. There can have been few people at the time unaware of what the city was aiming for, and, as I remember it, everyone was keen to win.
The being treated with respect thing is an even bigger deal than it sounds considering that around the same time I was kept waiting for two hours for an interview with New Labour spin doctor Alistair Campbell during a visit to the North West, and when he finally became available he excused himself to go to the gents. Fortunately, Phil Redmond offered to fetch him for me and I got to ask a single question (Me: “How would you spin Liverpool? Him (paraphrased): “I wouldn’t, it’s great.” We got a splash out of it - you could do a lot with a little when you were under pressure for a front page story). This record was beaten by Engelbert Humperdinck who took even longer to come out of his hotel room for our prearranged interview - before being bear-hugged by Stan Boardman mid-answer - but that’s a story for another time.
A warm welcome with an undercurrent of defiance

Chila Kumari Singh Burman’s new exhibition at Imperial War Museum North is at once domestic and fierce. The gallery walls are decorated with her own wallpaper design but also with tigers whose unflinching eyes meet your gaze. There are cases displaying household ornaments, clocks and packs of bindis alongside a passenger manifest bearing her father’s name from when he dared to leave his birth country of India in search of a different future.
Her depiction of her mother’s clothing shop in Waterloo, Merseyside, is done in LED neon lights - a joyful rendition in fluorescent reds, pinks, greens and blues with a sign that says “BURMANS” above the door, and another in the window switching between “OPEN” and “CLOSED”.
“The exhibition feels joyful and it also feels quite defiant,” says Rebecca Newell, head of art at IWM North. “That's very typical of Chila's work. She wants the space to feel welcoming. That's why it's called Chila Welcomes You. By offering up her story, she's saying this is a space where you can think and reflect on your own family histories.
“And there are nods throughout the space to deeper histories. She's included statements on the wall like ‘Self defence is no offense‘, which of course has been used by lots of activist groups and in resistance against racism and discrimination throughout history.”
When Burman started working on the exhibition around 12 months ago, her starting point was A Way of Life, an enormous glass case of found objects that include some of her own possessions and items she bought in Southall, London, where there is a large South Asian community.
The show expanded out from that piece - an eclectic mix of media, styles and subjects that reflects her diverse practice. Her conversation is like a butterfly fluttering from leaf to leaf before finally choosing one to rest on. She runs through the works in the order she made them - her first tapestry, a video piece made with emerging artists from Manchester’s School of Digital Arts, iPad drawings projected on the floor - before settling on a subject.
It’s her father, whose influence is all over this exhibition. The van from which he sold ice cream on Freshfield Beach features in the video work Disobey, and his smiling face appears in Our Dad The Magician Eating a Lightbulb, a print of him performing a magic trick that Burman has embellished and placed on a lightbox.

Most poignantly, his voice can be heard in the piece Mr Burman’s Story, a sound recording of him recalling the events that led him to emigrate to the UK in 1954 and what life was like for him in his new home.
“There was a girl living next door in Formby who was doing a degree in sociology and she interviewed my dad for her dissertation,” says Burman, who was born in India and grew up in Bootle and Formby.
“He went from Punjab to Calcutta because that's where a lot of work was. He worked for Dunlop, making clothes for them or making tyres, I’m not entirely sure but he did make clothes for the Indian armies.
“He felt he was being bossed about by the bosses at Dunlop and I think he just said ‘send me somewhere else’. I didn't think he knew he was going to go to Dunlop in Liverpool. So he's on a ship next with my uncle.”
He got the idea for an ice-cream van from a man he met in the pub: “Then three uncles came over to Liverpool and opened the ice cream factory opposite Liverpool Biennial. So my dad said to people in the villages in India come and sell ice cream here and 10 or so families came over, and we put them all up.”

Burman hopes that by sharing her own story, visitors will feel a connection with the exhibition.
“I hope there’s a familiarity, from stuff they've got in their homes, stuff they had in India. That they feel at home and relaxed,” she says.
“It's got a homely vibe, it’s not like high art, like seeing something at Tate. They could be like, ‘oh, look, that's some of our stuff there, we've got that in the house’ They could feel like they could have done this instead of me.”
Chila Kumari Singh Burman: Chila Welcomes You is at IWM North, Salford, until Sunday, August 31.
Latest arts news
🖼️ Kirkby Gallery‘s 21st Open Art Exhibition showcases 364 works by people living, working, studying or volunteering in the borough of Knowsley, including 162 by local school pupils. It includes painting, print, photography, collage and 2D sculpture, much of which is available for sale. Open Monday to Friday 10am-5pm (last entry 4.30pm) Monday-Friday, and 10am-1pm (last entry 12.30pm) on Saturdays. Ends Saturday, April 12.
🍪 Bobby Baker's radical sculptural installation An Edible Family in a Mobile Home will be hosted by The Whitworth, Manchester, from Friday, March 7 to Sunday, April 20, to accompany the gallery’s Women in Revolt! Art and Activism in the UK 1970-1990 exhibition. Unseen for almost 50 years until the first restaging of a replica in 2023 outside Tate Britain, the work was originally created in Baker’s prefabricated East London house in 1976. It contains five life-size sculptures of family members made from cake, biscuits and meringues, which will be steadily eaten by the public.
🎧 Something About Lennon - The John Lennon Story, a new celebration of his life and music, will tour the UK this spring/summer visiting 26 locations including St Helens (Tuesday, May 27) before travelling to New Brighton (Wednesday, May 28), Southport (Saturday, May 31), Blackburn (Thursday, June 12) and Sale (Thursday, June 26).
👸 St Helens Theatre Royal’s half term panto, Beauty and the Beast, will run from Wednesday, February 5 to Sunday, February 23, with colourful costumes and sets, as well as plenty of comedy and songs.
🐍 Warrington will mark Lunar New Year on Saturday, February 8 and Sunday, February 9, featuring a blend of traditional and modern performances. Liverpool’s Hung Gar Kung Fu School will present their iconic lion and dragon dance alongside a high-energy martial arts demonstration. There will also be live music, K-Pop dance displays and a performance by Movema Dance Company, as well as workshops. Full listings here.
In case you missed it
Opening this week

Between the Earth and the Sky at the University of Salford’s New Adelphi Exhibition Gallery brings together contemporary printmaking, photography and video artworks reflecting nature’s transitional and transformative moments.
Works by celebrated contemporary artists including Christiane Baumgartner, Darren Almond, Jessica El Mal and Liang Yue invite visitors to consider themes of light, tides, mist, reflections and natural rhythms. Ends Friday July, 25.
Thank you for reading the 115th edition of Stored Honey. If you enjoyed what you read then please hit the ❤️ button as it helps to get it shown more widely.
I’m off now to play a boardgame with my daughter. In the meantime, you can get hold of me on Instagram, on Bluesky, in the comments or by replying to this email.
Have a great week,
Laura