Hetain Patel returned to the National Festival of Making in 2026 with an ambitious new commission exploring British Asian futurism, family, and myth-making.
Drawing on references ranging from science fiction and myth-making to family archives and contemporary portraiture, We Are Alloys used 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. The project 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.
The work was presented alongside performances of Patel’s acclaimed work Mathroo Basha (Mother Tongue in Gujarati), which saw him choreograph movement to recorded interviews with women from his family, learning and embodying their words almost like prayer.
Presented within the architecture of The Exchange, a fictional martial arts dojo met retro-future house of worship, creating an environment shaped by ideas of gathering, ritual and transformation. Referencing both sacred and civic architectures, the installation considered how spaces hold community and imagination, constructing a fictional world suspended between memory, myth-making and futurism.
The commission opened up a place of experimentation for Patel: testing visual languages, characters and atmospheres across multiple media to develop proposals for feature film development.
This Project was a Co-Commission with Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council and the University of Lancashire.
About Hetain Patel
Hetain Patel is an artist and filmmaker based in London. His films, live performances, paintings, sculptures, and photographs have been shown worldwide in galleries, theatres, and on iconic public screens including Piccadilly Circus, London and Times Square, New York. His works have been presented at Tate Modern, Venice Biennale, Ullens Centre for Contemporary Art, Beijing, Sadler’s Wells and BFI London.
Patel’s work exploring identity and freedom, using choreography, text and popular culture, appears in multiple formats and media, intended to reach the widest possible audience. His film and performance work online have been watched over 50 million times, which includes his TED talk of 2013 titled, ‘Who Am I? Think Again’.
Credits & Thanks
We Are Alloys was a co-commission with Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council and the University of Lancashire.
We would like to extend our thanks to speakers in the panel discussions accompanying We Are Alloys, including Jane Millichip, Chief Executive Officer of BAFTA; Zoe Watson, Contemporary Curator at Lowry; Dr Paul Jones, Nottingham Trent University Academic; and Jamie Holman, Artist and National Festival of Making Board Member.
We are also grateful to One Voice Blackburn for facilitating connections with some of the participants who consequently featured in We Are Alloys.