The Exiles series recreates scenes from the 1960s in my hometown area, using tales drawn from local folklore, research, and visual inspirations. The first image was an enormous production in 2019 for what was in principle a single shot movie. The remainder of the series was shot in 2022 after a series of pauses due to lockdown.
Using filmic principles — elaborate, large-scale lighting, set builds, and cinematic references — to make an original photographic series, The Exiles creates scenes from the 60s and 70s, when thousands of male economic migrants arrived in Sandwell, a blue-collar region of the Black Country, in the last throes of its industrial might.
A great team got together to make it happen, including many inspired locals. Involving my home community in these kinds of work is rewarding; to go on voyages together into our ancestral lines, to summon our parents' experiences, and honour our lineage as a group — this is the magic we stir.
The title is inspired by the Kent Mackenzie docu-drama of the same name, chronicling a day in the life of a group of 20-something Native Americans who left reservation life in the 1950s to live in Bunker Hill, Los Angeles.
The Five Tableaux
Dayshift
Back garden of a terraced street. The sky is dark and burning, and a group of young men are present but distant from each other and themselves. On the left, a man stirs a pot on a gas fire. To the right is an outhouse, where one man is singing and another stands drunk. In the background, a TV plays a black and white Tom and Jerry cartoon, while men sleep and a neighbour peers through a window.
Seamstress
The central performer is one of many women sewing in a factory. A light pulls her out of the crowd. Her mind is elsewhere, in her unspoken past, as she looks at a picture of Guru Nanak. The performer wore the clothes and jewellery of her late mother who used to work in sewing factories like this when she arrived in the UK.
The Bridge
Mid morning, a milky autumn light. Near ground, a barge is led on a rope by a tall haggard man in dark work clothes. Three Asian men, dressed in trousers and tight jumpers with sleeves rolled up, stand on the bank staring across the canal at something we cannot see. A mysterious item of clothing, a sari or shawl, lies on the bank.
Furnace Men
Inside the furnace roars, casting molten light. Dust motes dance in the air. An English foreman stands on a platform, gesturing with firm conviction. The men before him are exhausted, their faces hidden by grime. They don't listen, they don't understand. The foreman speaks of double shifts and joining unions.
PayDay
Red light bathes the bar, awash in sex, blood, and guilt. Men carouse, it's payday. In the centre, they place their money for the ritual of Cooth, a loan between friends. The banks will not give loans to newcomers, so they must rely on each other. This is more than just a loan — it is a bond of brotherhood, a promise of hope for a better future.
Installation Views
Exhibition at The New Art Gallery Walsall
Large-format photographs installed in the gallery's concrete and steel spaces, November 2022 – February 2023.
"A threshold is an interesting concept, where you're neither in nor out, when there is no return from that point, but the journey still remains incomplete."
— Billy Dosanjh
Production
Behind the Scenes
On location across the Black Country — casting, costume, and set builds for The Exiles photographic series, May 2022.
Film
The Making of The Exiles
A short film documenting the production — from casting and costume through to the large-format shoots across the Black Country.
Critical Writing
In Conversation
Billy Dosanjh in conversation with exhibition curator Melanie Kidd. Originally published in the [Traveller, Your Footprints] exhibition guide, New Art Exchange, Nottingham, 2022.
You've described your fundamental drive as an artist as exploring the harsh and romanticised setting of the de-industrialised Black Country. Tell us more.
I grew up in West Bromwich in the 80s and 90s within a close-knit, working class, Punjabi community, absorbing the stories from my parents' generation who experienced the epic upheaval of emigrating here from India in the 1960s. Their memories of back home, the journey, and the life that followed, some first-hand and some second-hand accounts, coupled with general community gossip and my own observations, formed a complex history and mythology about a people and a place which is little documented. I don't consider myself a politically minded artist, but I'm aware the most political thing you can do is tell a story. I'm fascinated by the history and also the landscape of the Black Country, one which couldn't have contrasted more with the rural landscapes my parents' generation left behind in India. As the global birthplace of the industrial revolution, the Black Country was once the epicentre of the world, yet through the deindustrialisation of the 70s and 80s, my hometown of Smethwick has long been one of the most economically deprived parts of the UK.
Tell us more about the title, [Traveller, Your Footprints].
It's taken from a poem by the 19th century Spanish master, Antonio Machado. His work is introspective and stark and I find it powerful in capturing the themes of the great move. I think I'm drawn to journeys, transitioning and moments of change in life's story arc — epiphanies, in particular. A threshold is an interesting concept, where you're neither in nor out, when there is no return from that point, but the journey still remains incomplete.
Tell us about the five settings: a sewing factory, a factory courtyard, a canal, a pub, and terraced houses and back gardens.
If you're to tell a story about the life of a person or a community, you need to consider the various contexts and spaces they exist within — the domestic space, the work space, the personal space, the social space. In the foundry courtyard, the migrant workers take a break, away from the indigenous workers inside. They listen to their foreman who is asking them to cast their union vote. Due to language challenges, they are lost and confused. Some of these workers would go on to suffer from tuberculosis. The woman reading a letter in Dayshift returns again in the sewing factory. I remember that many of the women in my community worked there and these factories were unscrupulous places in terms of fair payment and health and safety. After work, the men would gather at the pub and drink pints of Mickey Mouse, half bitter and half lager. Due to their newly arrived status, bank accounts and loans were not available, so instead the men replicated the "cooth" banking system from India, where everyone would donate from their weekly wages, and at the end of the month, whoever had the greatest need would benefit.
RBSA Photographic Prize Winner, 2023
"The level of skill and care taken to make these images are outstanding. Birmingham and its surrounding areas have in modern history been built on the back of migration, and Billy's work is fitting in celebrating and sending a positive representation specifically of the South Asian and Panjabi community of Birmingham and the Black Country."
— Jaskirt Dhaliwal-Boora, Judge, RBSA Photography Prize
Exhibition History
- [Traveller, Your Footprints] — New Art Exchange, Nottingham, 23 September 2022 – 7 January 2023. Curated by Melanie Kidd.
- The Exiles — The New Art Gallery Walsall, 11 November 2022 – 6 February 2023
- Earth Photo — Royal Geographic Society, London, June–August 2023
- RBSA Photography Exhibition — Winner of GMC Trust First Prize for Dayshift and Seamstress, 2023
- Earth Photo tour: Lishui International Photography Festival (China), Sidney Nolan Trust, Forestry England sites, Lost Gardens of Heligan