A South Asian heritage exhibition exploring stories of protest and identity will launch on Friday 19 July 2024 at the 700-year-old Grade-1 listed heritage building, St. Mary’s Guildhall in Coventry. Taking place during South Asian Heritage Month, this is the second time St. Mary’s Guildhall are working with artist, activist and curator, Hardish Virk after the successful South Asian textiles exhibition, ‘What We Wore’ in 2023.

‘Stories That Made Us: Protest & Identity’ is part of St Mary’s Guildhall community engagement programme, which is funded by the Heritage Fund thanks to National Lottery players.

‘Protest & Identity’ is inspired by the archive ‘Stories That Made Us’, which includes thousands of artefacts documenting the South Asian experience in Coventry and beyond managed by Hardish Virk in partnership with Coventry Artspace.

‘Protest & Identity’ have been part of the South Asian narrative in the UK for decades and generations. For many South Asians who migrated to cities like Coventry, making a home and raising children in sometimes a hostile environment required resilience which would sometimes be an unspoken protest. On other occasions members of the same community would mobilise onto the streets campaigning for equal rights and a stop to racist attacks. Organisations such as the Indian Workers Association would become a political movement for these campaigns. British born South Asians would go onto forming the British Asian Youth Movements of the late 1970s/ early 1980s challenging racism on the streets of Birmingham, Bradford, Sheffield, Southall and other major cities. Another narrative emerges amongst the British born South Asians during this time, which continues to resonate today – where do they belong? When they are born to parents of South Asian heritage but only know Britain as their place of birth – one that sometimes rejects this new generation of South Asians due to racism and inequalities. The British born South Asian identity narrative is a universal story resonating with many children of migrants who are born in a different country, culture and context from the ones that their parents were born into. This journey began for Hardish Virk in the 1970s, as a British born South Asian; specifically Coventry born to parents of Sikh heritage and Punjabi culture, who were both activists and artists.

This exhibition addresses these themes whilst exploring different types of protest – identity can also be a form of protest. What you wear, music you listen to, relationships that are developed, groups you belong to and movements you follow can become a part of ones’ identity which can also act as a protest – challenging the status quo, societal rules and stereotypes – carving out an identity based on the individuals heritage, experience and relationships. Photos, leaflets, artworks, books, magazines, objects, artefacts alongside sound and video in the exhibition are designed to ignite a conversation about the role of protest and identity in history as well as today.