We Are Alloys, 2026 Painting

Patel returns to the National Festival of Making with an ambitious new commission spanning moving image, painting and performance, exploring British Asian futurism, family, and myth-making, alongside performances of his acclaimed work Mathroo Basha.

For over two decades Patel has collaborated closely with members of his own family across film, sculpture, animation, painting and performance, resulting in his live performance work Mathroo Basha, (Mother Tongue in Gujarati), in which Patel choreographs movement to recorded interviews with women from his family, learning and embodying their words almost like prayer.

Alongside performances of Mathroo Basha, the commission marks an early development stage in Patel’s ambitious feature film work set in Blackburn, presenting new works that reimagine the town and its British Asian communities within a speculative cinematic universe. Drawing on references ranging from science fiction and mythology to family archives and contemporary portraiture, the project uses photography, painting, film and moving image to give shape to Patel’s cinematic world-building.

As part of the development process, Patel worked with women from different generations within Blackburn’s British Asian communities, inviting conversations around identity, heritage, memory and cultural transformation, resulting in these painted portraits. 

Presented within the architecture of the Cotton Exchange, a fictional martial arts dojo meets retro-future house of worship, creating an environment shaped by ideas of gathering, ritual and spaces of becoming. Referencing both sacred and civic architectures, the installation considers how spaces hold community and imagination, constructing a fictional world suspended between memory, myth-making and futurism.

The commission opens up a place of experimentation for Patel: testing visual languages, characters and atmospheres across multiple media to develop innovative and unexpected proposals for feature film development.

Photographs courtesy of National Festival of Making.
Photos by Jules Lister.