Interview: Hetain Patel on Culture and Identity

Interview: Hetain Patel on Culture and Identity

20 September, 2010
by: Naima Khan

Hetain Patel talks to Naima Khan about exploring identity, culture, and belonging via art and theatre.

Visual artist Hetain Patel presents his long awaited theatre piece at Rich Mix this month before he takes it on tour around the UK. His new work, Ten, explores identity, culture and belonging through movement and dialogue. He took some time out to visit our offices where we discussed a few theories on what it means to be Indian.

Music, he explains, is a starting point: "The title comes from the ten beat rhythm cycle from Indian classical music, which forms a backbone of the piece. Some of the greats of Indian classical music claim that the key to being Indian is Indian rhythm, and to gain a familiarity with Indian rhythm is to get an insight into the Indian mindset or Inidan thought. So that forms a premise for the theatre piece."

Hetain has spent the last seven years mostly in the visual arts creating photography exhibitions, video and live pieces. Ten marks his first foray into theatre. The idea behind his theatre piece is, as he puts it, "to look more specifically at what it means to be born in the UK and to have parents who are from elsewhere. I'm interested in looking at how it's possible (or not) for me to reconnect to the Indian side of my heritage."

The potential for change in aesthetics and voice go hand in hand with the change in medium, Hetain explains: "In my visual artwork, and with earlier photographs, they're very staged. In the theatre I'm interested in exposing things.” The relationship that an artist can establish with a theatre audience is also behind his choice. “I was thinking of how an audience engages with your work. The things I do in galleries have an abstract nature to them. If you have a photo or a video piece, they can stand there and look at it or they can ignore it and walk away. So I liked that in the theatre people sit down and they stay there and watch".

Hetain believes theatre also has one up on general, journalistic media when it comes to the issues of identity and culture: "Your engagement with art is different to your engagement with the media or the news or a debate. You operate differently when you're presented with art. When watching the news, a lot of people rightly or wrongly assume it is factual information coming through. If you're in an art gallery or a theatre, you're more in a frame to be stimulated intellectually or be entertained without necessarily being told something. I'm interested in being able to present something to somebody or engage somebody whilst their mind is a bit more open. And offering them questions or ideas rather than feeding them information."

So with his audience's attention and their minds open, what will Hetain show us with Ten? “That I don't present something exotic. Over the past few years, if I exhibit a work and it's a photograph or a video piece of a brown body with henna over it, it looks very exotic. Even in live pieces in galleries when I've used the tabla drums, from feedback afterwards there tends to be an assumption that my father taught me how to use them or that they've been in my family for years. There's an assumption about the authority that you have over it and I'm keen to challenge that."

The last major influx of people from the Indian subcontinent occurred between the 1950s and '70s and African Indians made their way over following the expulsion of Ugandan Indians in 1972. But almost 50 years on, the topic remains current and with Ten, Hetain explores it globally. "It's something that doesn't just address an immigrant community or culture, it's relevant for people to talk about identity full stop. What makes us want to belong? The starting point is a very personal story of how I grew up and how I feel about this, but as the piece goes on it's more outward looking and offers something to everybody – not just people from my cultural background. With such a globalised society, there's less of a feel of where you come from. Generations previously pinned into you a notion of belonging: you belong with this family, or this culture, or this language or this football team, and now that's all up for debate. I don't necessarily feel like I'm getting closer to a definition of what my identity is but I am getting more closer with not having to pin it down."

Ten by Hetain Patel is produced by Dance 4 and runs at Rich Mix on Saturday 25th September and at Greenwich Theatre on Sunday 26th September.

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Naima Khan