Friday 14 November 2025 - Monday 25 May 2026
Stories That Made Us – Roots, Resilience, Representation traces the experiences of a South Asian family in Coventry from 1968 to 2010, drawing on Coventry Archives’ Virk Collection and curator & artist Hardish Virk’s personal archive.
Through sound, film, photographs, books, magazines, posters, vinyl records, cassettes and immersive design, the exhibition explores migration, activism and cultural identity across generations.
Coventry is home to a vibrant South Asian community, with 18.5% of the city’s population identifying as Asian or Asian British (2021 Census). Despite this, the stories and contributions of South Asian communities are often underrepresented in public collections and exhibitions. This project aims to address this gap by preserving and sharing the heritage of South Asian migrants and their descendants, ensuring their stories are accessible to future generations.
Anchored by the themes of Roots (the journey of migration and the contributions of South Asian communities to British society), Resilience (the challenges faced and overcome by migrants and their families), and Representation (the importance of telling these stories authentically and without stereotyping), it asks urgent questions: whose stories are preserved, how are they told, and what does it mean to claim space within institutional memory? This is an exhibition about legacy, belonging and narratives that shape our cities.
#StoriesThatMadeUs
Stories That Made Us - Roots, Resilience, Representation
Concept by Hardish Virk (pictured)
Curated by Hardish Virk and Dominic Bubb
I grew up in an inner-city ward of Coventry in the 1970s, surrounded by neighbours from across the globe. But when I turned on the TV, I rarely saw anyone who looked like us. South Asian representation was limited to stereotypes and racist caricatures. Indian cinema offered escapism, but it didn’t reflect my life as a British-born South Asian in a working-class community. So, somewhere in my young mind, I decided: ‘I’ll collect the stories of people like me, the ones missing from the media.’
That idea grew into Stories That Made Us, a collection of artefacts, magazines, films, music, jewellery, books, and photographs. It’s a living archive of South Asian experiences in Britain.
The seed for this exhibition was planted in 1996 during a conversation with a friend about a living museum, a house visitors could walk through, experiencing different decades of South Asian life. In 2020, with support from Coventry Artspace, the project began to take shape. Over four years, with partners including St. Mary’s Guildhall, DESIblitz, University of Warwick, and many artists and advocates, we’ve hosted exhibitions, talks, commissions, and workshops.
Now, Stories That Made Us – Roots, Resilience, Representation brings that vision to life. Using film, theatre, audio, music, graphics, sets, and archival objects, the exhibition tells a family story, my family story, to humanise a timeline that spans 425 years, connecting the South Asian subcontinent to the British Isles. It’s a story of colonialism, partition, migration, racism, and resistance, but also defiance through solidarity and celebration of art, culture, sports and food. This exhibition speaks to our ancestors and our youth. It’s as relevant today as it was when my parents arrived in Coventry in the late 1960s.
‘Stories That Made Us – Roots, Resilience, Representation’ is a celebration of my parents, Jasvir Kang and Harbhajan Singh Virk. It also recognises that my family story is part of a tapestry of stories that exist throughout Coventry and beyond -, stories of migration, home, family, friendship, community and culture as well as resistance, resilience and defiance.
This exhibition is rooted in my family story, a British Punjabi story told through lived experience, memory and research. Artefacts from the Virk Collection, donated by my father Harbhajan Singh Virk to Coventry Archives in 2004, sit alongside my own archive, Stories That Made Us. Together, they form the foundation of Stories That Made Us – Roots, Resilience, Representation.
I’ve worked closely with Herbert Art Gallery & Museum, Coventry Archives, Riverbird Films, Blind Mice Design and Pavenpreet Kaur to curate this exhibition. I’ve been the main voice and author throughout the interpretation. That matters. This is not an anglicised retelling, but a story told by me, supported by my collaborators. It includes my parents’ stories, my own, and those of my sisters, Manjinder and Pavenpreet, who’ve helped bring our family’s journey to life.
This is one story. One British Punjabi family story. Told within a wider social, cultural, political and historical context. There are many others. I encourage more stories from our culturally and ethnically diverse communities to be shared in public spaces. No one person or community owns our social history.
The exhibition map unfolds across four spaces: Passport Control (1960s migration), Living Room (1970s activism), Bedroom (1980s youth), and Radio Station (1990s–2010s broadcasting). At its heart is solidarity, and an invitation to you, the visitor, to find your own story and share it in the Reflection Space.
Hardish Virk
‘Most of my heroes don't appear on no stamps, Sample a look back, you look and find, nothing’
Public Enemy – Fight The Power
‘A race of people is like an individual man; until it uses its own talent, takes pride in its own history, expresses its own culture, affirms its own selfhood, it can never fulfil itself.’
Malcolm X
Definition of South Asian
South Asian in the context of this project refers to individuals and communities of Bangladeshi, Indian, Kashmiri, Pakistani or Sri Lankan heritage and the diasporic South Asian communities of Kenya and Uganda. In all cases the intersectionality and diversity of what it means to be (British) South Asian will be respected and this project also recognises the right for the individual to self-identify as well as identifying as Dual or Mixed Heritage.
Content Warning
To tell the stories with truth, we have not censored the language or narrative, which at times includes descriptions of racism, domestic violence and abuse. We have clearly stated where these descriptions are present.
Concept by Hardish Virk
Curated by Hardish Virk and Dominic Bubb
Archives Assistant: Shaniece Martin
Exhibition Design: Blindmice Design
Exhibition Print: Blowfish Media
Exhibition Films Director: Manjinder Virk (Riverbird Films)
Radio Station Audio Director: Pavenpreet Kaur
Technical Support: Jack Nelson
Exhibition Drone Video featuring commentary by Hardish Virk
© Culture Coventry 2025.
Created for Stories That Made Us – Roots, Resilience, Representation, an exhibition conceived by Hardish Virk and curated by Hardish Virk with Culture Coventry.
Made possible with The National Lottery Heritage Fund.
CC BY 4.0
