Exhibition celebrates South Asian heritage

The exhibition includes a living room based on the home of a South Asian family in the 1970s

A new immersive exhibition inspired by the experiences of a Coventry family will explore the impact of South Asian heritage on modern Britain.

Stories That Made Us – Roots, Resilience, Representation, opens on 14 November at Herbert Art Gallery and Museum.

It invites visitors to step through a series of rooms depicting key moments in time as South Asian communities adapted to social, political and cultural changes in the UK over five decades.

The "living exhibition" has been created by Coventry artist and curator Hardish Virk and includes photographs, music, magazines, posters and family memorabilia as well as oral histories and film.

The journey begins in a 1960s passport control room filled with family photographs and newspaper cuttings before moving through a 1970s living room, 1980s teenager's bedroom and a radio studio celebrating the work of Mr Virk's late mother, poet and broadcaster Jasvir Kang.

Mr Virk said the exhibition, which runs until May next year, showed "one family's journey that acts as a catalyst to share a bigger story about Britain's relationship with South Asia over the centuries".

"Through that personal lens, we're inviting everyone, whatever their background, to connect, reflect and find their own story in what they see," he added.

"We are proud to host this extraordinary exhibition at the Herbert," said Marguerite Nugent, cultural director at Culture Coventry Trust.

"It's an immersive, emotional and vital celebration of South Asian heritage – and of Coventry's history as a city of migration, creativity and solidarity."

The exhibition, supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund, will also include an engagement programme designed to strengthen links with South Asian community groups in Coventry and beyond.