Mehndi day…

Another busy week including Tuesday spent at the South Asian Arts Forum at MMU in Manchester, where I was reminded that 2014 will be the third Asia Triennial Manchester (ATM14), the only Asian Arts festival outside of Asia! So what better year to choose for our first year of Different Moons!

Then today was the final session for Habiba and Shamshad (top photo) at the Rossendale Valley Islamic Supplementary School. It was a session that focused on the young people each translating one of their moon poems into mehndi, henna-painting, and experimenting by painting onto a white circle in the form of a paper plate.
The older of todays’ groups got together for a photograph. These sessions have been really encouraging for our project, despite each being only an hour in length.  Tomorrow we do a final check through our application to the Heritage Lottery Fund, and then the bid sails off into the ether, and we all wait…