Border Native included an evening of live music and conversation celebrating music as a catalyst for integration, advocacy and social change in collaboration with Amnesty International.

For The Showroom’s Collective Intimacy live programme, singer Bumi Thomas presented Border Native, an evening of live music and conversation celebrating music as a catalyst for integration, advocacy and social change in collaboration with Amnesty International. This special live performance was a part Bumi Thomas’s series Border Natives hosting immersive evenings of live music and interdisciplinary discussions, with performances from Bumi Thomas & Special Guests – including Max Andre Rademacher on Ngoni and Ayo Odia (YUNG Afrika Pioneers) on Sax.

There is very little documented about Border Natives (people born in the UK/ any other country but not automatically considered citizens). This ongoing series encourages people to speak out and ask questions about the complexities they are facing as they experience the immigration process. It is an opportunity to define this grey area, highlight evolving identities, cultural liminality and transformation. To raise awareness and have an open dialogue about the current intergenerational challenges UK born commonwealth citizens and descendant of the Windrush generation and Europeans are currently face as a direct result of the hostile environment policy.

The following themes are explored:

• Evolving Identity
• Collective Memory
• The power of the archive
• Lived Experience + the importance of peer to peer sharing
• Proactive kindness
• Accessing community + support networks

A ‘Border Native’ is a term referring to children of Citizens of the Commonwealth Born in the UK on or after January 1st 1983. subject to the enforcement of the British Nationality Act 1981. which states that children born to parents from the former colonies were no longer entitled to automatic citizenship.

• Why wasn’t the public properly informed of these changes at time?
• Why are there people in Britain today who are still unaware?
• How do we bridge the information gap?
• Why are people born in the UK after 1983 are being treated like refugees in their country of birth?
• What hope is there for more humane changes to hostile environment Policy

Interdisciplinary Dialogue:

• The challenges of Integration
• The consequences of displacement
• Community building
• Support systems
• Mental Health and releasing trauma
• Healing and transformation
• Understanding the Migrations landscape
• Raise ethical standards
• Ensuring that safeguarding at the heart of the solution
• Support more people
• Challenge public attitudes
• Reshaping policy
• Understanding Human Rights
• Justice and the importance of experienced legal representation

The ‘Border Natives’ Concept + Experience is curated and conceived by Bumi Thomas