Hetain Patel, Baa’s House 11

For more than a century, the billboard has functioned as a theatre of aspiration. It is a space where celebrities, politicians, luxury brands and carefully constructed ideals of success compete for attention. Few places embody this more clearly than Piccadilly Circus, where the architecture of advertising has become inseparable from the architecture of the city itself. Yet the people who sustain and shape everyday life often remain absent from these public monuments of visibility.

In November 2021, Hetain Patel interrupts this visual hierarchy with Baa’s House 11, a moving image commission that elevates a figure rarely represented at such scale: the first-generation immigrant grandmother. Towering above the streets of London, Milan, New York, Seoul and Tokyo, Patel’s matriarch occupies a space traditionally reserved for commerce, celebrity and power. Looking out from the screen, she neither performs nor seeks attention. Instead, she continues the rhythms of everyday domestic labour, transforming acts so often overlooked into gestures of quiet monumentality.

Presented in collaboration with the Film London Jarman Award, the commission reflects the enduring legacy of Derek Jarman, whose work challenged dominant narratives while creating space for voices and experiences frequently excluded from public discourse. Like Jarman, Patel is interested in expanding who gets to be visible and whose stories are considered worthy of attention. Rather than presenting a heroic figure in the conventional sense, Baa’s House 11 locates dignity and significance within ordinary lives that have historically existed beyond the frame.

The work pays homage to Patel’s grandmother, performed by the Kathak dancer Vina Ladwa. Throughout his practice, Patel has frequently collaborated with family members, using personal histories as a lens through which to explore broader questions of identity, migration and cultural inheritance. Here, the grandmother becomes both a specific individual and a symbolic presence. She represents countless women whose journeys across borders helped shape contemporary Britain and whose labour, resilience and sacrifice often remain unacknowledged within official histories.

Migration is frequently discussed through statistics, policies and political rhetoric. Patel offers a different perspective. His work asks us to consider the intimate realities that exist beneath these narratives: the homes built far from home, the traditions carried across continents, the languages preserved between generations and the everyday acts of care through which cultures survive and evolve. The grandmother’s presence becomes a living archive of these histories, embodying forms of knowledge and memory that cannot easily be measured or documented.

There is also a subtle inversion at play. Advertising typically asks us to desire what we do not have. Baa’s House 11invites us instead to recognise what has always been there. By placing the figure of an immigrant matriarch at the centre of some of the world’s most visible media spaces, Patel redirects attention towards those whose contributions have often remained invisible despite being foundational to the societies around them.

Broadcast globally throughout November, the commission transforms the language of spectacle into an act of recognition. Neither memorial nor celebration alone, Baa’s House 11 is a portrait of cultural continuity, a tribute to migrant histories and a reminder that some of the most significant lives are rarely the most publicly visible. In occupying the billboard, Patel’s grandmother does not simply appear within the landscape of the city. For a brief moment, she becomes its monument.

Hetain Patel is a British artist and filmmaker whose work explores identity, migration, family and belonging through film, performance, sculpture and installation. Drawing upon personal experience and close collaborations with family members, friends and communities, Patel creates works that challenge assumptions about culture, representation and who gets to occupy positions of visibility and power.

Born in Bolton to a family of Indian heritage, Patel has developed a distinctive practice that combines humour, choreography, storytelling and popular culture to examine how identities are formed and understood. His works frequently blur the boundaries between autobiography and performance, using familiar references drawn from everyday life to explore broader questions surrounding race, class, masculinity, migration and cultural inheritance. Whether working with dance, film or sculpture, Patel approaches identity as something fluid, negotiated and continually in motion.

In 2021, Patel collaborated with CIRCA and the Film London Jarman Award on Baa’s House 11, a moving tribute to his grandmother and the countless migrant matriarchs whose contributions often remain unseen. Broadcast across public screens in London, Milan, New York, Seoul and Tokyo, the commission transformed some of the world’s most visible advertising spaces into monuments to care, memory and cultural continuity. Featuring Patel’s grandmother, performed by Kathak dancer Vina Ladwa, the work challenged conventional representations of power by placing an older immigrant woman at monumental scale above the city. Accompanied by a series of editions derived from the interiors of his grandmother’s home in Bolton, the project explored how domestic spaces become repositories of personal and collective history.

Patel’s work has been presented internationally at institutions including Tate Modern, Sadler’s Wells, the Venice Biennale, the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing and the Hayward Gallery’s British Art Show. Winner of the Film London Jarman Award and recognised for his ability to connect deeply personal narratives with wider social questions, he continues to create works that expand our understanding of identity while celebrating the richness and complexity of lived experience.

Through humour, generosity and a profound attention to the people around him, Hetain Patel reveals how the stories that shape our lives are often found not in grand historical narratives, but within the everyday relationships, gestures and spaces we inherit.