Jagdish Patel is a socially engaged artist who has spent much of the past decade producing work within working-class communities. These have included projects with people from the Gypsy community, Asian football clubs, Northern Soul fans, victims of racial violence, Muslim Was Veterans, and Punjabi bar owners in the Black Country. He was previously I was the Deputy Director of the human rights charity, the Monitoring Group, and continues to work with anti-racist groups across the country.

He is currently a PhD candidate at Coventry University where his research seeks to conceptualise the interconnections between anti racism

and socially engaged art by exploring their shared histories in the Midlands. The research is a practice based conducted through both oral history inquiry with individuals and organisations who were involved in past struggles in the Midlands and through making new new artwork and developing a public program to engage others in this history in a gallery space.

The research is seeking to understand the different genealogies of both anti racism and socially engaged art and consider how anti racism activists have used methodologies from artistic practice to challenge existing hegemonies, build alliances, care for, speak to and listen to its community. Jagdish will talk about his research and some of the material from the archives.

Jagdish works across a collection of different archives from the National Archives to local archives (Nottingham, Birmingham) to family archives. The histories and material is scattered, and part of the process is assembling. Given that socially engaged art centres the participant, do we get a different perspective on for example antagonism in art practice when assembling an archive that explores the narrative from activists, rather than institutions?