Programme
RUSHES: The Park (Dancing on the Rubble of Empire) Arwa Aburawa & Turab Shah
RUSHES is responsive to Metroland’s curatorial projects, a sharing of initial steps, a way of visualising intentions and commitments, and a method of collaging; displaying ongoing research.
RUSHES: The Park (Dancing on the Rubble of Empire) Arwa Aburawa & Turab Shah Exhibition dates: 21 Nov–20 Dec 2025. Opening hours: Thurs–Sat 12–5pm
Launch date: 20 Nov, 6–8pm
Across its first three presentations, RUSHES considers the notion of ‘processing’ as a shared thread and language – whether as a method, a metaphor, or a material act. ‘Processing’ describes not only the mechanical and chemical stages of filmmaking, or the labour of preparing something for print, but also the gradual, recursive work of organising, of seeking justice, of making sense of loss, and of coming to know a place or a person. Each presentation in the series will attend to different mediums and modes through which resistance has been expressed, documented, and processed. Together, they ask: what does the material of resistance look like – placard, celluloid, photocopy, legal paper?
Rushes 01.2 brings together film, archival fragments and cartographic traces to examine the dismantling of the 1924–25 British Empire Exhibition and the afterlives of empire that prevail in the landscape of Northwest London. The exhibition is centred around The Park (Dancing on the Rubble of Empire), a new moving image work by Arwa Aburawa and Turab Shah. Combining digital video, 16mm film, archival footage and direct animation, the film is shaped by material from Brent Archives and conversations with residents and archivists, and uncovers hidden traces of the Empire Exhibition in the local area on its centenary year.
The exhibition shifts focus from the Empire Exhibition’s spectacle to its residue: buried debris, reclassified paperwork, and a fading recollection among local residents. Playing concurrently in the exhibition will be The Fall of a Great City (1927). Originally filmed as newsreel footage by Topical Budget, it depicts the destruction of the Empire Exhibition’s pavilions, each erected as a stand-in for a colonial territory. Shown here slowed-down and looping, the razing is suspended, holding the pavilions in uneasy stasis, between ruin and preservation, neither demolished nor allowed to decay. Alongside, a selection of reproduced correspondence; rubble transfer records, planning documents and demolition papers – related to the transfer of over 250,000 tons of debris from Wembley to Northala Fields – is presented on multiple paperstocks, tracing the weight and transparency of bureaucracy and the processing of matter across borough lines.
Extending the concerns of Rushes 01.1 — which made visible the entanglement of image-making, labour and resistance through the Grunwick Strike, the Grunwick Processing Lab, and the solidarities formed on its picket lines — this second chapter turns towards other sites of processing. Rushes 01.2 locates two intertwined forms of processing: the demolition, conveyance and burial of imperial material, and the administrative labour that makes such actions appear orderly, neutral, and inevitable.
Arwa Aburawa and Turab Shah are an artist duo based in London. Their work is focused on gathering people together to talk, to learn and to create films. This gathering is facilitated through a project they established in 2019 called Other Cinemas which regularly hosts community screening and discussions at Metroland Studios that centre Black and non-white communities and help build solidarities by connecting struggles. They also run a year-long film school for a small group of Black and non-white artists which encourages them to learn, collaborate, create and build communities outside of institutional structures. This school is now in its fourth iteration. The films Aburawa and Shah create reflect on the forces which shape the communities they belong to, such as displacement, race, environmental harm and other legacies of colonialism. Their films are also guided by questions of justice and how those in the margins create vital spaces for resistance, knowledge production, and alternative ways of being. Their work has been exhibited at LUX, Humber Street Gallery and as part of the Brent Biennial ‘22. Festival screenings have included CPH:DOX, Dokufest, London Short Film Festival (awarded Best Short Documentary ’25) and BlackStar Film Festival (Best Short Documentary 2024). Screenings of their work have taken place at Camden Arts Centre, Mosaic Rooms, Nottingham Contemporary and Framer Framed. In 2025, they were shortlisted for the Film London Jarman Award and selected as Flaherty Fellows.
Aburawa and Shah have been studio holders at Metroland Cultures since 2023.
Aburawa and Shah’s film, The Park (Dancing on the Ruble of Empire), was co-commissioned by Brent Museum & Archives and Film London through Film London Artists’ Moving Image Network (FLAMIN), London’s Screen Archives (LSA) and Film Hub London, part of the BFI Film Audience Network. Supported by Arts Council England, The National Lottery, The National Lottery Heritage Fund and BFI National Archive.
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