Free entry
Sat 8 Aug 2026, 11am - 11pm
Multiple venues
| Monday | Closed |
| Tuesday | 11am–6pm |
| Wednesday | 11am–6pm |
| Thursday | 11am–9pm |
| Friday | 11am–6pm |
| Saturday | 11am–6pm |
| Sunday | 11am–6pm |
About This Event
This event takes place across multiple venues: Whitechapel Gallery, Fredrica’s, House of Annetta, and Spitalfields City Farm.
This event lasts approximately 12 hours.
This event is drop-in and free of charge, but please RSVP using the link on the page to let us know you are coming.
Access to all venues will operate on a first-come, first-served basis. We recommend arriving early to avoid disappointment. Each venue may operate a one in-one out policy as well as sign-up sheets and waiting lists at their discretion.
We are unable to provide British Sign Language interpretation for this event.
We are unable to provide live closed captioning or CART for this event.
To the best of our knowledge, there are no planned disruptions to local transport on the date of the event.
Whitechapel Gallery
Whitechapel Gallery is committed to making all of our events as accessible as possible for every visitor. Please contact access@whitechapelgallery.org if you would like to discuss a particular request and we will gladly discuss with you the best way to accommodate it.
For complete access information about the gallery, please visit here.
Our nearest train station – Aldgate East Underground (1 min) is not wheelchair accessible. The closest wheelchair accessible stations are Whitechapel (15 min), Shoreditch High Street (15 min) or Liverpool Street (15 min).
Free parking for Blue Badge holders is available at the top of Osborn Street in the pay and display booths for an unlimited period. Spaces are available on a first come, first served basis.
Fredrica’s
The garden where the workshop will take place is fully accessible from street level. Accessible toilet on site. For further information of particular requests, please contact info@alvarobarrington.com.
House of Annetta
The building dates from 1705, and has several major limitations to wheelchair accessibility: the step up into the building from the street, the lack of lift to access the upper floors, and the non-accessible toilet. We believe that access to space is a key part of spatial justice – the future repair project will make the building more physically accessible. Read our Accessibility Statement, which includes more information about the space.
Spitalfields City Farm
The farm is on one level and is mostly wheelchair accessible. We have an accessible toilet and ramps leading to all our seating areas. Please note some pathways are narrow or are cobbled/have uneven surfaces. We are working on making our site more accessible and welcome user feedback in this area.
For one day only, Fredrica’s, House of Annetta, Spitalfields City Farm, and Whitechapel Gallery present a free, all-day neighbourhood party, bringing their spaces to life with a multi-disciplinary programme of live performances, workshops, installations, participatory experiences, creative experiments, and more!
The party will culminate in a special takeover of Whitechapel Gallery by creative collective DAYTIMERS, showcasing contemporary South Asian artistry and responding to the question of who holds the power to shape the future of Brick Lane.
Weaving connections across their neighbouring sites, the day-to-night programme celebrates and centres the stories and histories that make up the local area.
Entry is free and open to all, but please RSVP using the booking link to let us know you’re coming!
This event takes place across four venues: Fredrica’s, House of Annetta, Spitalfields City Farm, and Whitechapel Gallery.
Access to all venues will operate on a first-come, first-served basis. We recommend arriving early to avoid disappointment. Each venue may operate a one in-one out policy as well as sign-up sheets and waiting lists at their discretion.
This event is part of Backyard Biennial.
11am – 2pm | Drop-in
The Ropery is a participatory exhibition inspired by east London’s ropemaking heritage created in collaboration with Sanne Visser and including a moving image work from Samara Addai.
Drop in to take part in a special ropemaking session facilitated by Sanne, as well as taking part in the other hands-on processes of making rope, string, braiding and knot-tying.
For all ages.
11am – 9pm | Drop-in
Galleries 1, 2, 3
East of the Aldgate Pump takes its title from the historic water pump that for hundreds of years marked an informal threshold between the City of London and the East End. Associated with movement across borders – social, cultural and geographic – the phrase evokes the crossings, encounters and communities that have shaped East London over centuries. It also gestures towards Whitechapel Gallery’s own history as a site deeply connected to both its local context and wider international histories.
Spanning painting, sculpture, photography, film and installation, the exhibition will respond to the rich and distinctive historic, cultural and creative identity of East London. Recognising East London’s history as a place of creative cross-cultural dialogues, the presentation will bring 12 local, national and international artists together across three galleries.
11am – 9pm | Drop-in, no booking required
Gallery 5 & Foyle Reading Room
OITIJ-JO Collective – a Bengali arts and heritage organisation based in East London – present TUFAN.
Drawing inspiration from the Bangla word for storm, the exhibition and live programme symbolise sudden change, powerful energy, disruption, and the possibility of renewal. Inspired by Begum Rokeya – pioneering author of the feminist sci-fi short story Sultana’s Dream (1905) – OITIJ-JO Collective explore TUFAN as a process: a movement from turbulence to transformation, from rupture to regeneration.
Participating artists include Rukia Begum, Puer Deorum, Laisul Hoque, Jannat Hussain, Shumaiya Khan, Rezia Wahid MBE, and Anisah Yaminah.
Fozia Ismail: A Song for the Xeedho – The Knot Makers
11am – 9pm | Drop-in, no booking required
Mezzanine Studio
A Song for the Xeedho (Hey-ro) is an interactive installation that centres the Xeedho, a wedding basket made by Somali nomadic women which has become endangered due to the climate crisis.
Created collectively through weaving, ropemaking, and intricate knot-work, the basket is placed inside a cloth tensioned with knots that become a key part of the wedding ceremony. Ismail explores knots as objects that bind, create tension, conceal, and resist being undone, while also representing a survival skill essential to nomadic life.
Gabriel Chaile: Archaeology of Memory
11am – 9pm | Drop-in, no booking required
Gallery 4
Whitechapel Gallery presents a new commission from Argentinian Lisbon-based artist Gabriel Chaile (b. 1985, San Miguel de Tucumán, Argentina). Archaeology of Memory (Arqueología de la Memoria) offers audiences a significant opportunity to engage with Chaile’s work, following his shortlisting for the Fourth Plinth (2024) and presentation at Studio Voltaire (2023).
3 – 6pm | Drop-in
This drop-in session will bring together materials from collections across East London to invite participants to reflect on Whitechapel’s multi-layered histories of education, migration, activism, upheaval, and creative expression. Co-facilitated by writer and researcher M. Syd Rosen and Archivist Aiden Chan, this session will explore how diverse cultural collections can help us to make sense of the past and thereby help to shape the future of our communities.
At the heart of this session will be objects from the former Whitechapel Public Library – known to locals as the University of the Ghetto – alongside records held by the Whitechapel Gallery Archive and items gathered by the partners of Backyard Biennial. These materials will be placed in dialogue in order to surface the hidden networks and connections generated by cultural collections.
All are welcome to come by and share their experiences, reflections, and speculations.
Across the Whitechapel Gallery building – full times and spaces below.
The party will culminate in a special takeover of Whitechapel Gallery by creative collective DAYTIMERS, showcasing contemporary South Asian artistry and posing the question of who holds the power to shape the future of Brick Lane.
Featuring a constellation of live music, performances, workshops, talks, poetry, films, pop-up market stalls, food, and more.
Please note: our spaces have limited capacities. Entry will operate on a first-come, first-served basis. We recommend arriving early to avoid disappointment as pre-booked free tickets do not guarantee entry if the building reaches maximum capacity.
All activity in Assembly Room is drop-in.
6 – 7.45pm | Nāda Sonics—IRL: Listening Session
This will be a Nāda Sonics—IRL: Listening Session, a 2-hour deep listening session where we will explore Bengali artists and their impact on the raga music scene. Nāda Sonics will be joined by Ranjana Ghatak, a friend and student of Ajoy Chakrabarty (one of the foremost senior exponents of raga music alive right now!).
8 – 8.45pm | Soumik Datta – Sonic Sanctuary
Multi award-winning sarod player Soumik Datta and tabla player Shahbaz Hussain, two of the UK’s most acclaimed Indian classical musicians, spin deep night ragas into cyclical rhythm loops, wrapped in shimmering ambient drones that hum in your chest.
This is a late-night sonic sanctuary lit by acoustic virtuosity, where centuries-old ragas collide with immersive, otherworldly sound design. Come drift. Come glow. Family friendly – bring everyone, sit back, and let the strings do the rest.
9.15 – 10pm | BISHI
British Bengali artist, composer, producer, sitarist and cult figure BISHI performs highlights from her recent acclaimed album MAYA: The Birth of a Superhero and a sneak preview of material from her forthcoming tour. Fusing Hindustani and Western classical traditions with bold electronic experimentation, the live set is a cinematic journey through sound, weaving together BISHI’s four-octave vocal range and electric sitar to draw us into an immersive cinematic soundscape.
10 – 11pm | Farook JOI (DJ set)
Farook JOI will bring the takeover to a close with a set rooted in the genre-defining and distinctly British Bangladeshi sound that helped soundtrack the Asian Underground movement. Expect a set interweaving sounds from JOI’s upcoming album and a catalogue of influences, from Bengali folk traditions, dub, and reggae, to hip hop, soul, breakbeats, and drum and bass.
Visualisers accompanying performances by Nāda Sonics, Soumik Datta, and Farook JOI have been designed by Ace Rahman.
All activity in the foyer is drop-in.
11am – 4.30pm | pop-up local and grassroots campaigning stalls
Stop by and find out more about local, grassroots organising and campaigns with pop-up stalls from Buy Back Brixton, Freedom Press, ROT Collective, South Asians 4 Palestine, and more.
7 – 8.30pm | SHIR.IN (DJ set)
Expect a sonic journey flowing between deep dialogue and carefully selected sounds—ambient, jazz, soul, R&B, hip hop—the downtempo rhythms that shape thinking and fill personal spaces, alongside heavier club sounds that celebrate resistance and spatial justice.
9.30 – 10.30pm | Cockney Sikh rare vinyl set
A Cockney Sikh rare vinyl set spanning 1960–2026, from Punjabi folk, Bollywood, reggae, soul, and rock to rare Bengali, Pakistani, and Gujarati vinyl and sounds from the Asian Underground.
“Mum’s kitchen in our house in Princelet Street E1 was our home it was four floors up. We had three e1 gas cookers, because at one time we had fifty people living there. I loved talking to Mum when she was cooking lentil dal in big pots, brewing masala tea with milk on the gas ring and making roti. It seemed nothing ever burnt or boiled over. She had mastered it to a art the size of the gas flame. We always spoke in punjabi whilst listening to records on our record player that Dad had found from Brick Lane flea market.” – A Modest living: Memoirs of a Cockney Sikh, Suresh Singh aka. The Cockney Sikh
6 – 9pm | Pop-up art market
Drop-in
Curated by DAYTIMERS, this pop-up market is a celebration of contemporary South Asian creativity and local artistry, rooted in community and collective imagination. Reflecting the ethos of the takeover, the market brings together selected artists, makers, and independent voices.
6 – 8pm | Late Poetry! Presented by Off The Chest
Drop-in
Off The Chest returns with DAYTIMERS and Whitechapel gallery for another instalment of Late Poetry!
Starting from 6pm, all are welcome to drop in to hear cutting-edge poems from featured London poets, soon to be announced. Sign up to our open mic so that you too can perform your own poetry in this beautiful, chilled out setting. All hosted by East London’s very own Iftikhar Latif, co-founder of Off The Chest.
Note: open mic sign up is on the night itself and limited in space, so be sure to be on time. Max 3 mins per performer so we can keep to time (this is Late Poetry… but not too late!)
6 – 7pm | Save Brick Lane panel talk with Nijjor Manush
Drop-in
The Save Brick Lane campaign is a grassroots movement fighting to protect one of London’s most iconic and culturally diverse areas. Brick Lane is more than a street; it’s a living record of migration, resilience, and community, shaped over centuries by Huguenot, Jewish, Bangladeshi and Somali communities. Today, that history is under pressure from rapid redevelopment, rising rents, and gentrification, threatening the independent businesses, cultural spaces, and local residents that give the area its identity.
Save Brick Lane brings together campaigners, historians, artists, traders, and local people to challenge development that puts profit before place. The campaign argues that regeneration should not come at the cost of displacement or the loss of cultural heritage. Instead, it champions a future where growth respects history, supports local communities, and preserves the character that makes Brick Lane unique.
At its core, Save Brick Lane is about more than saving buildings. It’s about protecting the stories, cultures, and everyday lives that make the neighbourhood what it is. It asks an important question for cities everywhere: how do we embrace change without losing the people and places that define us?
7.30 – 9pm | film programme curated by Najrin Islam
Drop-in
7 – 8.30pm | Asha Bhosle listening room with the Cockney Sikh and DAYTIMERS
Drop-in
An intimate listening and reading room dedicated to Asha Bhosle, bringing together rare Bhosle vinyl from the Cockney Sikh’s personal collection, alongside a selection of printed materials and books curated by DAYTIMERS.
“Asha Bhosle Ji-was so dear and family brought over vinyl records from India. I borrowed vinyl records from Whitechapel Music and Art Library and it was a five-minute walk from our house (they called it the University of the Ghetto).
The voice Asha Bhosle was a comfort to my family especially her singing on the 1954 film ‘Boot Polish.’ You will hear me play six tracks all sung by Asha Ji alongside other rare songs all on rare Indian vinyl.” – The Cockney Sikh
11am-6pm | Sonic Culture of the South Asian Underground – Shirin Naveed
Drop-in
Shirin Naveed presents audio-visual installation Sonic Culture of the South Asian Underground.
The installation draws on the visual and sonic languages of the subcontinent: the intricate patterning of gota fabrics, kala rassi and tassels referencing the Dhol, and the vivid colour palettes of the soundsystems of West Bengal and India.
Projected in portrait onto a screen fitted to the speaker, the accompanying experimental film takes the form of a protest banner scaled to a phone screen — a nod to how we encounter music, media, and movements today, and to the soundsystem as a site of resistance: a tradition rooted in Black music culture, carried through the UK’s migratory histories, and one the South Asian underground moved alongside and learned from. Combining archival footage, moving image and a dreamlike tabla soundscape, it traces the evolution of the South Asian underground in the UK — from Bhangra, Bollywood edits, Dominion Cinema, Defiance and dub culture to pubs, clubs and Glastonbury. Drawing from historical and current archives, the film pays homage to the South Asian Underground of the 70s/80s and draws parallels with today’s revival scene, its protest and its politics — asking not only where this culture has been, but where it’s going.
6 – 9pm | Collaborative mapping workshop with Halima Akhtar
Drop-in
Join Halima Akhtar for a drop-in, collaborative mapping workshop to explore drawing as a process of path making, allowing for tactile connection to how we experience space through feeling and movement.
In this session, we will journey through the layers of the local landscape, responding to sensory prompts and layering marks. Feel free to come and go to see how the artwork grows and develops through communal participation.
11am – 11pm | Alba Caffé
Main café space & foyer
Alba Caffé will be open all night serving drinks and nibbles. Eat and drink your fill in the main Café space or find them at the pop-up bar.
6 – 11pm | Dishoom
Assembly Room and Clore Creative Studio
Complementary mango lassi and chai from Dishoom will be on offer all night (or until stocks last)!
Buxton St, London E1 5AR | 10am – 8pm
Drop-in
Stay and Play at the Ram and Magpie
10am – 1pm | Drop-in
Take a seat and watch your little ones play outdoors. We’ll have play equipment, sensory elements and trikes available all day for children to enjoy in the Ram and Magpie garden and den building materials for older kids in the grass walkway area.
Family Workshop | Paper Process Lab
12 – 4pm | Drop-in
Connecting with themes of material history in the local area, this workshop asks how can we transform wastepaper through playful exploration?
Children and families will be invited to test out different material processes in a hands-on papermaking lab, mashing paper pulp, making egg box putty, moulding paper clay, and twisting paper ropes.
Working with artist educator Sadie Edginton, children will be invited to participate in building a collective play structure out of paper rope, riffing off the local histories of rope making, which inform The Ropery exhibition at Whitechapel Gallery.
Community Recipe Book Build
From 12pm | Drop-in
Bring along your recipes to add to our Spitalfields City Farm recipe book!
Inspired by the Coriander Club growing group established by community gardener Lutfun Hussein, House of Annetta and Slow + Dirty Press have created riso-printed recipe book pages for visitors to fill out, decorate, and embellish to build a collective recipe book to take home.
Weaving Workshop with Rezia Wahid MBE
2 – 4pm | Drop-in
Rezia Wahid MBE is an artist, weaver, and educator. She will be bringing the farm’s large loom back to life, inviting visitors to contribute to a collaborative woven cloth and explore the craft of weaving, using natural materials gathered from the farm including plants, wool, and even donkey hair.
Baler Twine Weaving
From 2pm | Drop-in
The farm tries to run as a circular system, creating as little waste as possible and reusing wherever we can. One thing that’s hard to recycle is the brightly coloured plastic twine which binds hay bales together. We get through so many bales (most of our animals eat hay) that we are always looking for creative ways to use all the pink, orange and yellow string. Join us for an experiment to see if we can weave with baling twine on our vintage upright loom.
Beekeeping at the East London Mosque – in conversation with Bushwood Bees
2 – 4pm | Drop-in
Salma Attan from Bushwood Bees will be talking us through her experience of keeping beehives on the roof of the East London Mosque, their relationship to her faith and community, and also the incredible social structures of a honeybee colony. Salma will also be selling local raw honey and other hive products on the day.
This session will include a chance to look safely into the farm’s own honeybee colonies (weather depending!) using our glass observation hive.
Fashion life drawing with Reuben Harris x DAYTIMERS
3 – 5pm | Drop-in
Come and be artistically inspired by the present moment with artist and designer Reuben Harris and their relaxed afternoon of fashion life drawing – accessible for all artistic abilities!
Set in and amongst the foliage of Spitalfields City Farm, this free-flowing activity places emphasis on being in the moment through drawing from live observation. Reuben’s striking designs make for a stimulating visual reference encouraging creativity and imagination.
25 Princelet St, London E1 6QH | 11am – 5.30pm
Drop-in
The party will continue at House of Annetta with workshops and craft, making homes for insects from scrap wood, and sampling teas from plant brews. Addressing the Void, curated by Anusha Alamgir and Fawziyah Rahman will feature suitcase-sized works from the Bengali diaspora. At the end of the day, we’ll walk together with our new habitats for bugs down Brick Lane to join the bonfire at Spitalfields City Farm.
Featured artists include Faiza Farooz, Sujatra Ghosh, Tamim Hossain, Lekhnessa Khushi, Shimul Paul, Taiyeba Muskan, Arinjoy Sen, Jannat Hussain, Puer Deorum, Fahmidul Hassan.
Addressing the Void
12-5pm | Drop-in
Group show by artists from the Bangladeshi diaspora invite you to bravely look into our shadow selves.
Herbal Brew
12-2pm | Drop-in
Come and sample teas and infusions made from locally grown and foraged plants.
Insect House Making
2-4.30pm | Drop-in
Get hands on and make habitats for bugs using scrap wood. Learn how to drill, nail and cut!
Walk down Brick Lane to Spitalfields City Farm.
5.30pm
179-181 Whitechapel Road | 3 – 6pm
Drop-in
Join in Fredrica’s garden for an afternoon of drawing. This gathering invites participants to make work inspired by the artist’s garden and will feature seasonal plants and flowers sourced from the nearby Spitalfields City Farm.
Children are welcome to attend but must be accompanied by an adult at all times. Refreshments will be provided.
Founded in 2020, DAYTIMERS is a creative collective born on the internet during the global pandemic lockdown. The name pays homage to the daytime parties of the 1980s and 1990s, when young British Asians would skip school to dance to bhangra, garage and jungle in community spaces. In just a few years, DAYTIMERS has grown from an online idea into one of the most exciting voices in UK music and culture. At its heart is a mission to uplift South Asian artistry and platform talent.
DAYTIMERS events are consistently among the most exciting and well attended, from grassroots fundraisers and packed club nights to festival stages across the UK and The collective’s impact also reaches further still through initiatives like SAATH, their community-run club, DAYTIMERS Football Club, as well as radio shows, streams, releases and partnerships that carry their message beyond the dancefloor.
All of this allows DAYTIMERS to stand at the forefront of a new wave in music and cultural programming. Their wide-ranging projects and collaborations have nurtured a diverse roster of talent spanning DJs, producers, poets, artists and organisers, each channelling their heritage in innovative and personal ways. Always evolving in how they operate, who they platform and how they build, they continue to disrupt an industry in need of change while staying true to their collective and grassroots foundations.
Fredrica’s is Alvaro Barrington’s studio dedicated to artistic and cultural production.
Since their inception in 1818 and 1895, the buildings at 179-181 Whitechapel Road in London were home to educational facilities. The Davenant School was the first occupier of the building, followed by a youth centre until 2017. Continuing the spirit of learning embedded in the history of this space, Fredrica’s reimagines education through the act of engaging with arts and crafts within the context of an artist’s studio.
House of Annetta is a space for learning about the ways in which ownership of land shapes our lives and the world around us. We build infrastructure for movements, cultivate radical imagination and practice cultures of care. The project is a building site in the former cybernetic home of beekeeper, artist, activist and publisher Annetta Pedretti.
Spitalfields City Farm, founded in 1978 on a former railway goods depot in Tower Hamlets, is one of London’s most cherished urban green spaces. Created by local residents seeking allotments, it has since grown into a 1.3‑acre community hub, home to a variety of animals and productive growing spaces. A registered charity since 1980, the farm now welcomes around 18,000 visitors each year, offering educational activities, volunteering opportunities, and seasonal events. Just steps from Brick Lane, it provides vital access to nature in one of London’s most densely populated areas, fostering a safe, welcoming environment where people of all ages can learn, play, and connect with animals, plants, and each other.
Halima Akhtar is a multidisciplinary artist based in South East London working across drawing, print and kinetic experimentation. Her practice foregrounds drawing as both a constructive methodology and a spontaneous form of making that responds to place, experience and material relationships. She extends her studio work into dynamic processes that investigate how mark-making can generate movement, transformation and expanded forms of engagement.
Working with The Line across 2 years, Halima has developed creative learning sessions with staff and students at Harris Chobham Academy Primary in Newham. Here, learning has been led through processes that call on sensory exploration of space, intuitive play and collaboration to develop approaches to world building and story-telling. As part of this engagement, she has also co-delivered teacher workshops, produced resource material and guided art walks along the Line to integrate playful looking and abstraction into classroom practice.
Her community-engaged work sits alongside other creative interventions and collaborations with Tate, Outhouse gallery, Drawing Room, South London schools and organisations such as Stitch School with supporting their public programmes for Brixton Design Trail x Brixton Library and residency with Dulwich Picture Gallery.
BISHI is a London-born, British-Bengali artist, composer, producer, electric sitarist and technologist working at the intersection of sound, heritage and innovation. A cult figure embraced by the style press, her work spans music, film, TV and immersive media, combining sitar, a four-octave vocal range and innovative performance technology. She has released three albums and several EPs via her label Gryphon Records and has collaborated with artists including Tony Visconti, Sean Ono Lennon, Jarvis Cocker, Daphne Guinness and Manish Arora, as well as ensembles such as City of London Sinfonia, Royal Northern Sinfonia, London Symphony Orchestra and Kronos Quartet. A vocalist and multi-instrumentalist trained in both Western and Hindustani classical music, she studied sitar under Gaurav Mazumdar, a senior disciple of Ravi Shankar. Her first television score, Defiance: Fighting the Far Right, aired on Channel 4 in 2024 followed by her first full original score for MAYA: The Birth of a Superhero. She collaborated with the University of Sheffield on the development of an AI composer tool and created a voice model with Neutone AI. Her audiovisual installation Reflektions was commissioned for Coventry City of Culture and exhibited internationally. BISHI was also the first artist to have her work projected onto the Greenwich UNESCO World Heritage Site. She sits on the board of In Place Of War, Featured Artists Coalition and is a member of Brian Eno’s Hard Art Collective. In 2025 she was Artist-in-Residence at the Pete Townshend Studio at the University of West London, and in 2026 she serves as Module Leader in Global Popular Music at City St George’s, University of London.
Suresh Singh AKA The Cockney Sikh was born in 1962 in Princelet Street, Spitalfields. During the 1970s, at the when the National Front were active in the area surrounding Brick Lane, growing up Suresh experienced racist violence and harassment both at school in Bethnal Green and elsewhere, Suresh went on to become one of the first Punjabi punks, playing the drums for Spizzenenergi on their single “Where’s Captain Kirk?’ on Rough Trade Records and joining their tour with Siouxsie and the Banshees and The Cure in 1979. Later he studied architecture at UCL Bartlett School of Architecture and worked on the restoration of a number of Georgian houses in Spitalfields. Suresh Singh is Author of A Modest living: Memoirs of a Cockney Sikh, published by Spitalfields Life. Suresh tells the candid and sometimes surprising story of his father Joginder Singh who came to Spitalfields in 1949. Joginder sacrificed a life in the Punjab to work in Britain and send money home, yet he found himself in his element living among the mishmash of people who inhabited the streets around Brick Lane.
Winner of the Aga Khan Award for Music, Soumik Datta is a visionary musician with the ability to cross boundaries, cultures and art forms. A sarod virtuoso, composer, TV presenter and Artistic Director of the Soumik Datta Arts charity, his work embraces traditional and contemporary art forms to address the urgent issues of our times.
All-day bar-café. From Bombay with Love.
Ranjana Ghatak is an experienced teacher and workshop leader and has been teaching for the last 18 years and runs workshops across the UK including the Barbican, Southbank Centre and Kings Place.
After hearing her favourite vocalist – Padmabhushan Pandit Ajoy Chakrabarty perform in London as a teenager, she decided to pursue her passion and learning for singing by going to train in Shrutinandan, Ajoyji’s singing school in Kolkata. Since then she has continued to study and visit the school and has taken part in a teacher training course in Leeds run by Ajoyji that was based on his key approaches to teaching Indian Vocal music.
She launched a Vocal learning membership titled Swaranjali in March 2024 – a space to learn and develop your voice with like minded individuals.
@ranjanaghatak
Reuben George Harris (b. 2003, Stockton, UK) is a designer and artist currently studying fashion design at the University of Westminster. They utilise textiles, design and fine art processes to examine society, identity, and culture in relation to the current day. With joyful provocation at the forefront; recurring themes of Reuben’s work come from a distinctly British-Indian and queer perspective. Blurring the line between fine art and fashion Reuben is developing a signature style portraying their own fashion works through fine art portraits. Reuben’s recent solo exhibition ’All That You Have Is Your Soul’ saw a 12 look fashion collection accompanied by corresponding artworks and a fashion film. In 2024 Reuben received a scholarship from British Fashion Council supporting his BA work.
Shahbaz Hussain is a renowned and accomplished tabla virtuoso. He is considered one of Europe’s finest players, known for his dynamic and intricate performances in Indian classical music and fusion projects. Shahbaz regularly travels across the world to present performances, including throughout Europe, North America & the Asian subcontinent. He has performed in many prestigious venues, including the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., Lincoln Centre in New York, and London’s Royal Albert & Queen Elizabeth Halls.
Najrin Islam is a film critic and curator based in London. She has bylines in several publications, including ArtReview Asia, Sight and Sound, Ultra Dogme, Talking Shorts, Yanco, and ASAP Connect. She has curated film programmes for London Indian Film Festival, London Short Film Festival, Queer East Festival, and Go Short Film Festival. In 2025, she was selected to take part in the BFI Critics Mentorship Programme and the Talking Shorts/END European Workshop for New Curators #2. More recently, she presented her ideas on decolonial film programming at the Eye International Conference 2026, held at the EYE Filmmuseum, Amsterdam. In both her critical and curatorial work, Najrin is interested in the intersection of moving image histories, archival politics, and narratives of repair
JOI is the pioneering British-Bangladeshi musical project founded by brothers Haroon and Farook Shamsher, whose innovative fusion of Bengali traditions with reggae, hip hop, soul, dub, and electronic music helped shape the global Asian Underground movement.
Growing up in London’s Brick Lane after moving from Bradford, the brothers blended the sounds of artists like Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan with Western dance music, creating a distinctive cross-cultural sound. From their legendary East London club nights to acclaimed releases including One and One Is One and We Are Three on Real World Records, Joi earned widespread critical praise and international recognition. Their music has featured in film, television, and advertising, while their electrifying live performances have captivated audiences worldwide.
Following Haroon’s passing in 1999, Farook continued Joi’s legacy, celebrating their shared vision of cultural unity through music. More than a band, Joi represents a lasting commitment to breaking musical boundaries and bringing communities together through creativity and collaboration.
Iftikhar Latif is a British-Bangladeshi writer, performer and producer from the East End of London. His work explores social relationships, self and belonging through the lens of growing up as a working-class Bengali in Tower Hamlets. After studying at the University of Oxford, he immersed himself in London’s live poetry scene before co-founding the poetry organisation Off The Chest in 2019 with writer Ella Dorman-Gajic. Since then, the organisation has delivered events and workshops across England and published the community anthology Spaces of Significance (2024).
Off The Chest has been creating spaces for poetry since 2019. Formed by poets Iftikhar Latif and Ella Dorman-Gajic, our mission is to give a platform to poets of diverse backgrounds and celebrate original voices in the UK poetry scene. We do this by holding poetry events and workshops across England and online. We’ve brought our poetry nights to venues like Rich Mix, Omnibus Theatre, Canada Water Theatre in London, and to venues outside of London such as Komedia Brighton and Hyde Park Book Club in Leeds. Our poetry events offer audience members a chance to perform their own poems as part of our renowned open mic, plus features from at least two highly acclaimed poets. Follow us on Instagram via @offthe_chest for more information.
Nijjor Manush is an independent socialist organisation for Bangladeshis, as well as Bengalis, based in Britain.
Sway Of The Verses is a radio presenter, DJ, graphic designer and artist. His residencies on NTS, Voices Radio and Sister Midnight FM have specialised in raga based music, diving into a mix of ghazals, qawaali, Punjabi folk, Indo-Jazz, lo-fi ambient music from the South Asian Diaspora, and more club orientated vibes. His dj sets vary from very considered long-form ambient sets, to crafting genre and bpm fluid explorations across ambient, jazz, hip-hop, dub and the many forms of electronic music; and has performed some standout sets at We Out Here, Dancing Family Festival, Daytimers Festival, Tate Lates, as well club sets all over London.
Shirin Naveed is an interdisciplinary artist, spatial designer, DJ and creative producer. Working across drawing, fabrication, craft, film and sound, Naveed is interested in the relationships between material, memory, labour and migration – exploring how belonging is made, negotiated and felt through the reciprocal relationship between communities and the spaces they inhabit. Grounded in co-design, workshop facilitation and community engagement, the artist builds social infrastructures alongside material spaces and objects. Shirin is a core member of DAYTIMERS and holds a Master’s in Architecture from the Royal College of Art.
(b. 1999)
Punjabi/Pakistani and German heritage.
Sapna Patel is a Gujarati Fashion Designer and Textile workshop facilitator based in NW London. She runs her namesake label, By Sapna, which celebrates and honours sustainability and South Asian Textile Craft. She highlights her experience of being a part of the South Asian Diaspora through traditional craft, such as embroidery, Block-printing and weaving, combined with Upcycling materials that already exist. Sapna also facilitates textile workshops to bring awareness to these centuries old heritage crafts, and to encourage connection through creativity.
I’m Anis Rahman working under the alias Ace, a Manchester-raised, London-based. British-Bangladeshi artist. I run MADEULOOKSTUDIO. A mixed-media design and art studio that started as a digital sketchbook documenting my experimentation which has grown into a community.
My work draws from elements of pop-culture, folklore and internet culture – falsifying symbols and objects and in turn preserving them as artefacts to archive personal and collective experiences. To create interdisciplinary works that span across sculpture, digital media, installation and fashion. I’m interested in how human culture evolves through cyclical process of online to offline.
A core value around my interactive practice is the process of traditional archival and craft practices as well as accessible tools, rather than systemic AI and the limited life span of trend-based technology to create authentic work with sustained messages.
Fatima Rajina is one of the founders of Nijjor Manush and an academic looking at themes of race, racism and Islamophobia with a focus on British Muslims.
M. Syd Rosen lives in London, where he writes about fame, fantasy, and radical politics. He is the author of International Freak: Robin Farquharson and the Dream of Psychedelic Revolt (Strange Attractor Press, 2026) and the editor of Harry Fainlight’s collected poems, forthcoming with New York Review Books. Alongside his writing, Rosen is the co-founder of Jargon, a non-profit dedicated to diasporic culture.
ROT are a radical ‘south asian’ collective – creating space for resistance, solidarity and transformation towards collective liberation.
Sanne Visser is a Dutch designer and researcher based in London. Her studio takes a systemic approach to material innovation and future thinking. Specialising in regenerative design and sustainable solutions, her work aims to uncover the complexities between social, ecological and technical domains.
Sanne is internationally recognised for her groundbreaking work with human hair as a material resource, developing yarns, ropes, textiles, composites and open-source tools, often through interdisciplinary collaborations. She uses ancient techniques like spinning and ropemaking to turn this abundant material into high-quality objects such as bags, swings, and mirrors. Her participatory and community-led approach to material design has been central to her practice for over a decade. Since graduating from the MA Material Futures at Central Saint Martins in 2016, she has collaborated with leading institutions and brands including the Design Museum, Science Gallery, TextielMuseum, Nike, Horniman Museum, British Council, V&A and Newham Council.
Alongside her practice, Sanne is a Researcher and Associate Lecturer at the University of the Arts London, where she recently submitted her PhD in Systemic Material Innovation. Since 2025, Sanne leads HairCycle, a community-led initiative in the London Borough of Newham that turns human hair into innovative materials with local communities. In 2022, she was named one of UKRI’s ‘101 Jobs to Save the World’.
