South Asian creativity blossoms in new London show by CommonGround&
Coinciding with South Asian Heritage Month (18 July – 17 August) the inaugural show by new art collective CommonGround& champions the next generation of South Asian creatives
![Hanging shoes on a wall](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/QCC7BbbZqGZCQ2vYejgGi6-415-80.jpg)
South Asian Heritage Month is in full bloom. In London, a new exhibition is blending community, creativity and South Asian talent. Art collective CommonGround&’s inaugural exhibition, which it dubs a Summer Show, spans art, photography, film, textiles and graphic art and will be on view until 1 August at Peckham’s Copeland Gallery in Copeland Park.
‘Showing and expressing work and practices of South Asian creatives feels important right now for this generation, who are ready to self-actualise, step into their own space and be seen and heard,’ says London-based CommonGround& founder Mehala Ford, who was born in Sri Lanka. For her, CommonGround& ‘represents the place from where we all originate and also what we all have in common among our creative interests and work’.
Muvindu Binoy, Self-Portrait
The collective’s first show is an opportunity for established and emerging artists to showcase experimental work. Artists were selected by a South Asian creatives group set up by Spandana Gopal of production design studio Tiipoi, and ceramicist Lubna Chowdhary, who also selected three artists from Saskia Fernando Gallery in Sri Lanka. Despite the show’s distinctive approach, it has no set theme, allowing the artists freedom to play with ideas, explains Ford.
Artists featured in the exhibition include Muvindu Binoy, Abdul Halik Azeez, Ranura Edirisinghe, Liaqat Rasul and Vivek Vadoliya. Photographer Taran Wilkhu will also showcase a series of prints, alongside copies of An Opinionated Guide to London Architecture (2019), a book he collaborated on with authors Rosa Bertoli and Sujata Burman, published by Hoxton Mini Press.
Top and above: spread featuring Coal Drops Yard by Heatherwick Studio, and image of the Hoover Building by Wallis Gilbert & Partners (1933), renovated by Interrobang (2018), from An Opinionated Guide to London Architecture, by Rosa Bertoli and Sujata Burman.
Though Covid-19 continues to present challenges, it has led to Cultural Recovery Funding for Copeland Park, a twist of fate that enabled the exhibition to come to life. Ford is putting the boost to good use by drawing attention to creativity from the South Asian diaspora in the UK and beyond: ‘I hope that people get a snapshot of the creative output, energy and attitude created by our artists and enjoy an experience which reflects the work and mood of the current generation.’
Looking ahead to the future of CommonGround&, the team aim to hold the Summer Show annually. Eventually, they hope the event can morph into a festival, incorporating an even more diverse range of creative disciplines – from fashion, music and live performance to food.
Liaqat Rasul, Togetherness
Muvindu Binoy, Skating Socrates, 2021
Ranura Edirisinghe, Batik print
Nina Smale
INFORMATION
The CommonGround& Summer Show will run until 1 August at Copeland Gallery, London, commongroundand.com
ADDRESS
Wallpaper* Newsletter + Free Download
For a free digital copy of August Wallpaper*, celebrating Creative America, sign up today to receive our daily digest of inspiration, escapism and design stories
Copeland Gallery
Unit 9I, Copeland Park
133 Copeland Rd, London SE15
-
Postcard from Paris: Olympic fever takes over the streets
On the eve of the opening ceremony of Paris 2024, our correspondent shares her views from the streets of the capital about how the event is impacting the urban landscape.
By Minako Norimatsu Published
-
The Mercury Prize nominees for 2024 have been revealed
Charli XCX, The Last Dinner Party and Beth Gibbons are amongst this year's nominees
By Charlotte Gunn Published
-
Tour the Natural History Museum’s new gardens, a Jurassic lark in London
The Natural History Museum in London has unveiled two new gardens, with resident dinosaurs, after a transformation led by architects Feilden Fowles
By Bridget Downing Published
-
‘Mental health, motherhood and class’: Hannah Perry’s dynamic installation at Baltic
Hannah Perry's exhibition ’Manual Labour’ is on show at Baltic in Gateshead, UK, a five-part installation drawing parallels between motherhood and factory work
By Emily Steer Published
-
Francis Alÿs plots child play around the world at the Barbican
In Francis Alÿs' exhibition ‘Ricochets’ at London’s Barbican, the artist explores the universality of play, even in challenging situations
By Amah-Rose Abrams Published
-
At Glastonbury’s Shangri-La, activism and innovation meet
Glastonbury’s south-east corner is known for its after-dark entertainment but by day, there is a different story to tell
By Rhian Daly Published
-
‘I am almost an anti-sculptor’: Dominique White on her Whitechapel Max Mara Art Prize show
The artist mines the ocean to explore Afrofuturism in ‘Deadweight’, opening at London’s Whitechapel and detailed in a new film
By Amah-Rose Abrams Published
-
Remembering Rusty Egan's Blitz Club: a place to 'avoid the mob and the homophobes', where the New Romantics were born
As he releases new vinyl boxset, 'Blitzed!', Wallpaper* meets DJ Rusty Egan to talk about London's scene-building Blitz club – the antidote to the late 70s punk scene and a hot-bed of experimental fashion
By Craig McLean Published
-
Suzannah Pettigrew's 'tender and ghostly' new show at Surrealist photographer Lee Miller's former home in East Sussex
London-based artist Suzannah Pettigrew's photographic stills create a snapshot of her Sussex coast childhood, conjuring up a hallucinatory world of memory
By Mary Cleary Published
-
The body, pleasure and play: Beryl Cook and Tom of Finland united in London
Tom of Finland’s homoeroticism meets Beryl Cook’s female-oriented camp as Studio Voltaire unites work by the two artists in a London exhibition
By Hannah Silver Published
-
Zanele Muholi celebrates South Africa’s Black LGBTI communities in LA and London
Zanele Muholi's portraits and sculptures are currently on show at Southern Guild Los Angeles and the Tate Modern, London
By Hannah Silver Published