Mobilise are excited to be working with the very talented emerging visual artist, Sham.

Sham said: "I feel empowered and excited to work closely with Mobilise to assist my artistic practice and research on dialogue within activism. As a practising artist, my work is about advocating for change in ethnic minority communities through art activism.

I’m mostly concerned with addressing social issues related to race and transnational identities. These broad societal issues open my work up to addressing other social issues including poverty, sexism, religious fanaticism and corruption in ethnic enclaves. My work has developed an enquiring and thoughtful practice that is used to ask, and examine, difficult questions pertaining to my culture and heritage and its relationship to the UK today as a British-Pakistani woman.

I’m currently interested in using collages, zines and poems/manifestos to create and engage anyone in an important conversation about these issues. I actively acknowledge the need to work with others to bring change and awareness. I hope my work destigmatizes and re-evaluates the idea we’ve built around these issues- only then, can a shift occur. This shift is making space for difficult conversations to happen easily which I support.

I hope to hold creative workshops with Mobilise where people can connect, share and learn about these topics. As a longstanding project, I hope to create an online space that offers a platform for artists to share their work, this digital space will specifically call for and encourage the involvement of female artists of South Asian heritage. I hope to create a safe space for brown artists to confidently share their potential, stories and dialogue to push for a better world."

With thanks to Arts Council England for funding this work.