Political and social connotations of our existence

The artists featured in i‘Homelands’ show courtesy British Council, being exhibited across India, are Angus Boulton, Fabien Cappello, Lisa Cheung, Nathan Coley, Jeremy Deller, Suki Dhanda, Jimmie Durham, Paul Graham, Graham Gussin, Mona Hatoum, Anthony Haughey, Tim Hetherington, Susan Hiller, David Hockney, Anthony Lam, Langlands & Bell, Richard Long , Rachel Lowe, Haroon Mirza, Raymond Moore, Bob and Roberta Smith, Cornelia Parker, Martin Parr, Grayson Perry, Zineb Sedira, George Shaw, David Shrigley, and Gillian Wearing.

Capturing plight of homeless people

Angus Boulton’s project documents the plight of more than a thousand homeless people who sleep in temporary shelters or ‘bashes’ across London on any given night. Policy changes in the benefit system for the unemployed appeared to have led to a sharp increase in the number of homeless between 1995 and 2000. The photographs focus on the environment and the traces of transient inhabitation instead of using people as the central subject.

Mapping indigenous creative practices

Six designers and practitioners including Fabien Cappello worked together on a project that responded to the city of Lisbon, with its particular location and identity. The focus was on supporting local and indigenous creative practices and skills. Artists engaged with communities through conversations and physical actions.

Search for identity and religious motifs

Lisa Cheung asserts her identity by exaggerating a gesture which is commonly used as a negative racial slur. She subverts this notion through a series of posed photographs of her friends which are transferred on to found china plates. Nathan Coley is deeply interested in religious architecture and produced Urban Sanctuary, a commission that stemmed from the refurbishment of the Stills Gallery's Edinburgh premises.

Tracing brass bands tradition

In 1997, Jeremy Deller engaged one of England’s leading brass bands, the Williams Fairey Brass Band, and persuaded the musicians to play specially arranged acid house music, resulting in Acid Brass, a fusion between two cultural traditions that emerged in specific socio-political conditions in industrialized England.

Understanding mindset of minority groups

Shopna, a 15 year old Bangladeshi-British girl, was photographed with her friends and family by Suki Dhanda over the course of a year in order to explore nuances of the public and private lives of British-Muslims in the UK. Through individual experiences, broader political and social realities of minority groups have been explored.