South Asian Diaspora Arts Archive

08/04/2025

We, Birmingham Museums, are delighted to announce the acquisition of the nationally important South Asian Diaspora Arts Archive, where we will ensure its preservation for the future and the ability to continue to acquire objects for the collection.

To keep up to date with the latest information surrounding the archive, please follow our page Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery (UK).

The South Asian Diaspora Arts Archive (SADAA) showcases the first British Asian art Spanning visual art, music, literature, dance and theatre, the archive

11/03/2024

25th Anniversary
Happy Birthday to Us! To celebrate, we asked nine writers, painters, and practitioners, all first generation British South Asians, to use our archive as a kick-off point for reflecting on their lives and work. Our masthead, Bhajan Hunjan’s painting, My Grandfather’s Passport, was finally and finely finished as part of that challenge!

Our online celebration is named after Romesh Gunesekara’s beautiful submission: Anthem of Arrival. We have poetry as well as paintings from Juginder Lamba, and poems and a drama from Farrukh Dhondy. Rahila Gupta elegantly juxtaposes the contradictions of being black and British and Vayu Naidu has written a short story.

We commissioned nine artists and writers linked to the SADAA collection to produce work to celebrate our 25th anniversary in 2024.

21/03/2022

SADAA, (South Asian Diaspora Arts Archive) invites you to join some of our best known writers, artists, and performers of South Asian Heritage as they create the timeline linking the prejudice, politics, and protests of the 1960s and 70s to the proliferation of work that emerged in the 1980s and 90s. That influence is apparent in their work today.

ReUnited : Roundtable Events at Thinktank Theatre, Millennium Point, Curzon St, Birmingham B4 7XG

TV & Media 6PM Thursday 24 March:
To celebrate SADAA’s digitising of C4’s Eastern Eye series, we bring together game changers including:
Farrukh Dhondy, Sara Wajid, Anita Bhalla, Samir Shah, Suman Bhuchar, Keith Khan


Writers & Performing Arts 6PM Thursday 31st March:
Untold stories from their new communities fuelled the growth of writing and performance. We bring together legends including:
Jatinder Verma, Shobana Jeyasingh, Rukhsana Ahmad, Sudha Bhuchar, Romesh Gunasekara, Piali Ray

Visual Arts 6PM Thursday 7 April:
Artists had to do it for themselves, creating collectives and curating exhibitions. We bring together the change-makers including :
Bhajan Hunjan, Juginder Lamba, Shaheen Merali, Alnoor Mitha, Symrath Patti, Alice Correia

Entry 5.30pm for live recordings at 6pm.

Please note no admittance after 6pm. Refreshments from 7.30pm onwards
https://www.birminghammuseums.org.uk/.../SADAA-ReUnited...
The events are free, but booking is essential. You’ll also have the option to join online.
To book: Birmingham Museums :: Ticket Selection
SADAA, is a national archive that conserves, digitises, shares, and celebrates the work of first generation British South Asian artists and is based at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery.
For more info visit https://sadaa.co.uk/
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Hope to see some of you at the events in Birmingham.

22/07/2021

The Reunited project requires an experienced archivist and an enthusiastic researcher with an interest in South Asian arts. Both are contract appointments with an autumn start. Join our exciting journey! Find Out More https://sadaa.co.uk

22/07/2021

Great news too from the National Lottery Heritage Fund https://www.heritagefund.org.uk which will fund our new project, Reunited, bringing together the creators, curators, producers, practitioners, journalists, and commissioners who introduced first generation British South Asian artists to mainstream audiences. We’ll be hosting workshops and live recordings.

Heritage Horizon AwardsOver £50million of funding has been awarded to five transformational projects across the UK - from the Scottish mountains to England's southwest coast.Discover the successful projectsThriving PlacesWe are committed to supporting heritage projects that create better places to ...

22/07/2021

Thank you for your generous support of the SADAA crowdfunding initiative, which raised just over £2000 including gift aid. We hope to use the money to bring in two outstanding collections, those of the artist, Bhajan Hunjan and the musician Sarvar Sabri.

29/04/2021

The SADAA has turned to crowdfunding to bring in outstanding collections from first generation artists and performers before it's too late: https://crowdfunder.co.uk/sadaa-urgent-appeal-to-save-vital-arts-archives… If you can spread the news, or even donate, that would be fab

Covid has put 100+ key arts archives at risk. Help us collect them now.

07/01/2021

Check out our new pocasts featuring artists Amal Ghosh, Bhajan Hunjan, Mumtaz Karimjee and Vayu Naidu

Listen to interviews with artists who have showcased their work at SADAA. Discover what inspired them to create, the experiences that influenced their work and

14/05/2018

We are delighted with our new home at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery.

05/12/2016

We're delighted to have acquired storyteller, writer and performer Vayu Naidu’s extensive archive. It's now been digitised and you can check it out at https://sadaa.co.uk/archive/theatre/vayu-naidu