Ben Uri Research Unit

Born: 1961 Nakuru, British Kenya (now Kenya)

Year of Migration to the UK: 1967

Biography

Artist, curator and arts administrator, Symrath Patti was born to Jaswant Kaur Virdee and Jaswant Singh Bhatti in Nakuru, British Kenya (now Kenya) in 1961. She recalls arriving in London, England on 20 February 1967, during a very snowy, cold winter, and living in Shepherd’s Bush and Hanwell with relatives until they moved to Southall. The family became known as ‘Patti’ at this time, emerging from spelling mistakes made on official UK documentation (Ben Uri correspondence). She studied Foundation Art and Design at East Ham College of Technology, London (1979–81) and Fine Art (BA Hons) at Leeds Polytechnic (1981–84). Having experienced significant racism at Leeds, Patti moved back to London and became an Asian Women’s Arts Development Officer for the Greenwich Asian Women’s Group and set up Greenwich Citizens Gallery in Woolwich, south east London. She was later headhunted to become Assistant Manager at the Dominion Centre for Community Programmes, bringing arts education to Hounslow and Hammersmith communities in west London (Correia, 2021). Alongside these roles, Patti became a force in the artworld, developing her own artistic practice, exhibiting widely and organising and curating ground-breaking exhibitions featuring Asian artists.

A notable example of Patti’s curatorial work for the Greenwich Asian Women’s Group is Jagrati: An Exhibition of Work by Asian Women Artists, held at the Citizens Gallery in 1986. Initially conceptualised to focus on the issue of domestic violence, the exhibition evolved to encompass the broader experiences of Asian women artists, making the show accessible to the wider Asian community by reflecting their experiences, developing a dialogue and providing a forum for artists to ‘debate issues relating to their practice and creating a space for positive criticism and practical support’ (Rodrigues, 1986). The largest exhibition of its kind until that point, Jagrati featured works by Zarina Bhimji, Sutapa Biswas, Chila Burman, Bhajan Hunjan, Mumtaz Karimjee, among others. Two years later, Patti co-founded the Panchayat collective with Hunjan, Shaheen Merali and Allan deSouza, who all came together to establish a collaborative and supportive network for South Asian arts practitioners in Britain. Meaning ‘group of five’, Panchayat took inspiration from systems of Indian village governance, acting as a local council with educational, curatorial and archival objectives. Panchayat organised exhibitions such as Crossing Black Waters, held in 1992 at City Gallery, Leicester, touring to Cartwright Hall, Bradford and Oldham Art Gallery (Correia, 2019; DeSouza and Merali, 1992).

Patti exhibited her large-scale photographic installation The Complete Promise at the Centre Space, part of Hounslow Library, in 1991. Made up of 16 panels suspended from the ceiling, the work tackled femininity as currency, being on the periphery, and dismantling racism through self-exploration. A pivotal career moment, the work was exhibited again at the 1994 Havana Biennial, which she co-organised, bringing together artists such as Keith Piper and Mona Hatoum in order for their works to be critiqued, highlighted and addressed in a way that was not being done in the UK (Correia, 2021). Between 1993 and 1994, Patti exhibited in the group show Transition of Riches, part of the larger South Asian Visual Arts Festival organised by Juginder Lamba, held at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery and touring to Southampton City Art Gallery and The Smith Art Gallery and Museum, Stirling. Art critic Tania Guha described Patti’s work in the show as ‘a complex, multi-layered installation that examines fissures between represented and real femininity’ (Guha, 1993). Her installation included a video piece of gay men exploring femininity, and a bowl of rotting mangoes that caused a sensation in the press, questioning the viability of decomposing fruit as art (Harrison, 1993; Chalmers, 1993). The many racist responses from the tabloids caused Patti to take step back, and she found it hard to produce art for a while (Correia, 2021).

Patti later exhibited in group exhibitions, Phantasm: Objective Reality as Perceived and Distorted by the 5 Senses at The Tabernacle, London (2013); Queen Victoria Bicentenary Exhibition, Kensington Palace, London (2019); and her archival materials were included in the Women of Colour Index (WOCI) display, collated by artist Rita Keegan, at the South London Gallery (2021). The Complete Promise was shown at the Rutherford Building, Goldsmiths, University of London in 2018, and a solo exhibition was held at Muse Gallery, London in 2022. In 2021, she delivered a seminar on ‘Feminist Rethinking’ at the University of Oxford, and from 2021-22, she undertook further studies at Dartington Art College. Patti lives and works in Ladbroke Grove, west London. Her artwork is not currently represented in UK public collections. The Panchayat Special Collection is held by Tate Library, and other papers related to Patti’s work are held by WOCI.

Related books

Eddie Chambers, Black Artists in British Art: A History Since the 1950s (london: I.B. Tauris, 2014), pp. 91, 103
Symrath Patti, 'Interactive Moving Images', in Amal Ghosh and Juginder Lamba eds., Beyond Frontiers: Contemporary British Art by Artists of South Asian Descent (London: Saffron Press, 2001), pp. 218-221
Sonali Fernando, Hair of the Dog?, in Amal Ghosh and Juginder Lamba eds., Beyond Frontiers: Contemporary British Art by Artists of South Asian Descent (London: Saffron Press, 2001), pp. 108-125
Pratibha Parma, Colour of Britain, film, 50 mins, colour, 1994
Sonali Fernando, 'Symrath Patti', in Quinta Bienal de la Habana', exhibition catalogue, Havana: Wilfredo Lam Centre, 1994, p. 98
Julian Stallabrass, 'Renegotiations: Class, Modernity, and Photography', Art Monthly, No. 116, May 1993, pp. 21-22
John Roberts ed., Renegotiations: Class, Modernity, and Photography, exhibition catalogue (Norwich: Norwich Gallery, 1993), pp. 36-37
Aubrey Chalmers, 'Raising a Stink at the Gallery', Daily Mail, 27 September 1993, p. 5
Anon., '20,000 mango art display 'a load of old rot'', Today, 27 September 1993, p. 15
Anon., 'Sorry, Old Fruit' and 'Our View: Fruit 'n Nut Cases', Daily Sport, 27 September 1993
Keith Harrison, 'What Rot', Sunday Mercury, 26 September 1993, p. 1
Tania Guha, 'Transition of Riches', Third Text, Vol. 7, No. 25, 1993, pp. 81-86
Sonali Fernando and Cary Sawhney eds., Transition of Riches, exhibition catalogue (Birmingham: Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, 1993), pp. 26-29
Symrath Patti, 'The Complete Promise', Third Text, No. 19, Summer 1992, pp. 19-24
Chila Jumari Burman and Vi Hendrickson eds., Keepin' it Together (Leeds: The Pavilion, unpaginated, 1992)
Allan deSouza and Shaheen Merali eds., Crossing Black Waters (London: Working Press, 1992)
Jean Fisher, 'The Complete Promise', unpublished essay, 16 July 1991, available in The Panchayat Special Collection, Tate Library, London
Preethi Manuel, 'One Spirit: Black Artists Against Racism', Bazaar South Asian Arts Magazine, Iss. 8, 1989, p. 17
One Spirit: Black Artists Against Racism, exhibition pamphlet (London: 198 Gallery, 1989)
Anon. 'Murder Tribute Sparks Art', The Mercury, 13 November 1986, p. 38

Related organisations

Cranford Community School (artist-in-residence)
Dartington Art College (student)
Dominion Centre for Community Programmes (assistant manager)
East Ham College of Technology (student)
Greenwich Asian Women's Group (Asian women's development officer)
Greenwich Citizens' Gallery (founder)
Leeds Polytechnic (student)
Panchayat (founding member)
Willesden Green Library (artist-in-residence)

Selected exhibitions

Solo Exhibition, Muse Gallery, London (2022)
Symrath Patti archival materials, included in the Women of Colour Index display, Rita Keegan: Somewhere Between There and Here, South London Gallery (2021)
Queen Victoria Bicentenary Exhibition, Kensington Palace, London (2019)
The Complete Promise, The Rutherford Building, Goldsmiths College, London (2018)
Phantasm: Objective Reality as Perceived and Distorted by the 5 Senses, The Tabernacle, London (2013)
British Display: Said Adrus, Rasheed Araeen, Chila Burman, Mona Hatoum, Symrath Patti and Keith Piper, organised by Symrath Patti, Havana Biennial: Art, Society, Reflection, Wilfredo Lam Centre, Havana, Cuba (1994)
Renegotiations: Class, Modernity, and Photography, curated by John Roberts, Norwich Gallery, Norwich (1993) and touring to Myles Meehan Gallery, Darlington Arts Centre, and Zone Photographic Gallery, Newcastle-upon-Tyne (1993-1994)
Transition of Riches, Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery and touring to Southampton City Art Gallery and The Smith Art Gallery and Museum, Stirling (1993-1994)
Keepin' it together, curated by Chila Jumari Burman and Vi Hendrickson, The Pavilion, Leeds (1992-1993)
Pink Slips, Performance with Guerilla Girls, New York, USA (1992)
The Complete Promise, Centre Space/Hounslow Library, London (1991)
Havana Biennial: The Challenge to Colonization, Wilfredo Lam Centre, Havana, Cuba (1991)
One Spirit: Black Artists Against Racism, 198 Gallery, Brixton, London (1989)
Panchayat, Soho Poly Theatre, London (1988)
Jagrati: An Exhibition of Work by Asian Women Artists, Greenwich Citizens Gallery, London (1986)
Creation for Liberation, St. Matthew's Meeting Place, Brixton, London (1985)

Ben Uri archive

Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [Symrath Patti]

Ben Uri Research Unit

for the study and digital recording of the Jewish, Refugee and wide Immigrant contribution to British visual culture since 1900.

Symrath Patti artist