Including the voices of those with lived experience to inform and broaden arts-based action research has been part of artists’ practice since at least the 1970s. In-Situ, based in East Lancashire, are an arts collective who use this methodology as a research tool for themselves and others. Working and consulting with diverse community groups for the past twelve years, they are now an Arts Council National Portfolio Organisation (NPO).
In February 2024, Zehra Aziz (Art of Small Talk, Islamabad) spent a month in-residence in Nelson, Lancashire, on a Charles Wallace Visiting Fellowship to explore how In-Situ instils art in everyday life in Pendle and see how their methodologies might help Art of Small Talk promote art and creativity in Islamabad, Pakistan. From In-Situ, the connection was established by Calum Bayne, a previous member of the team, and developed by Zoya Bhatti, a current producer, and the outcome of the visiting fellowship led to the In Translation Residency, funded by the British Council in Pakistan, that took place between August and October 2024.
In-Situ and Art of Small Talk chose four artists to take part, two from Lancashire, Zara Saghir and Jamie Holman, and two from Pakistan, Mehr Javed and Rabeya Jalil. The work involved exchange visits in both countries, online and in-person discussions on creativity and practice, as well as engaging with community groups and making art together at each location. The research findings of the project are now being collated through dialogue and reflected on.
I visited Nelson Library on 18 October 2024 to see the small show of the work the four artists had created during the residencies and attend a panel discussion about the project. While it was evident the artists were exhausted at the project’s end, having only recently landed in the UK, I did get the chance to hear their first impressions of the experience through quick chats before the presentation.
Both Zara Saghir and Jamie Holman from the UK travelled to the capital city of Pakistan, Islamabad. Saghir’s knowledge of South Asian culture had always been mediated through memories from her own grandparents, who migrated from rural Kashmir, making modern Islamabad a culture shock that prompted research questions around her own British South Asian community’s gender-based restrictions. The series of powerful photographs she produced are reminiscent of Frida Kahlo’s early family photographs, where she dressed in men’s clothes to rebel against gender and societal restrictions while exploring her own identity. In the main image Saghir presented, she appears to be smoking, while wearing men’s clothes in the street, and looking to get on a motorbike.
Some contemporary interpretations of the Qu’ran argue against any Muslim woman enacting the behaviours Saghir portrayed in her image. She refuses any doctrines about how to be demure and feminine in order to be good. Contesting these restrictions seems especially pertinent right now as we are watching women’s rights being retracted in places as diverse as the USA and the Middle East.
When talking to Saghir, she makes it clear that through this work she is attempting to have a conversation with young British South Asians, channelled through images of her own identity. Her work provokes a visually powerful and critical dialogue about gendered voice and interpretation.

Holman’s artistic inquiry began by uncovering some of the manufacturing links between Britain and Pakistan which are hidden behind multinational brand names. He centred on footballs as a prime example – Pakistan makes up to 70% of the world’s total output. His video work of a Pakistani choral ensemble, Theatre Wallay (which translates in Urdu to The Theatre People), singing a football chant was a seemingly playful but actually quite forceful piece about reciprocal dialogue, delivered from his working-class perspective. They were chanting Tu hai Kaun, ‘Who are ya?’ – a fundamental enquiry that sits at the base of any potential exchange between distinct cultures linked through two separate and contested versions of a shared history, as well being cheerily challenging.
During the residency, both Mehr Javed and Rabeya Jalil were working collaboratively with practitioners and workers in different fields for the first time. Pakistan has a thriving contemporary arts scene in Islamabad and Javed is primarily a studio-based artist. Her exploration for this research was conceived as a sartorial intervention, aiming to stitch together a conversation between two geographically distinct places.
It was a simple but exquisite artistic process. For Javed, pockets symbolise portable belongings, personal memories, and hidden aspects of one’s identity. She started by releasing her sketches to a group of local embroiderers in Pakistan, letting them interpret her art practically through their own experience of stitching work. She then presented the outcomes by gifting these small, embroidered pieces of cloth as pockets to anyone in and outside Nelson Library, who would let her sew them onto their clothes. The method enabled intimate conversations and friendly dialogue as she worked.

Through Nelson Library, where the artists and facilitators sat down to talk, Jalil’s sound piece announced itself in the sonic shape of a ritual chant. Different speakers spoke the same words over and over until it sounded ceremonial. This was the start of her exploration of linguistic identities and how vocalising language exposes an individual’s social characteristics. She worked with a software programmer to produce an AI translator that could repeat some of the sentences in the piece in different languages. What held me was how this use of technology to translate from one language to another separated out that language from its context and history by flattening distinct dialects and accents.
The afternoon’s panel discussion facilitated dialogue between the artists and representatives of In-Situ and Art of Small Talk, Anna Taylor and Zehra Aziz respectively. The conversation dwelt on authorship and issues around integrity, especially considerations around equity, acknowledgement, and remuneration when working in community settings. It became clear that the ethics of arts-based research are complex. It was highlighted that there are many levels to consider, from who can and can’t have their photographs used as research evidence, through how participants are valued and acknowledged, to who owns the research – as well as deeper questions between the artists about what ‘the practice of art’ is, and how it is carried out in both locations.
In Translation was firstly a project about building a bridge of communication, reaching out from concept towards understanding. This arts-based research strategy from In-Situ, to develop their practical working methods locally, acknowledges the need to develop research collectively. They know that if you want to engage with all sections of a community, you have to hear from all sections of a community without presumption and with sensitivity, and this project appears to have begun the process of achieving that outcome.
However, the project brings into question how individual artists might benefit from In-Situ’s research methodology. Research through arts and art education can be transformational for an organisation developing new creative methods to work within their local cultural ecology (and also provide opportunities for artists working in this field), but can it assist studio artists to broaden their own practices?
Well, as I learnt from the panel discussion, yes it can. In 2012, when three artists decided to root their practice in the place where they were living, rather than seeking to develop their career in a larger city with a more visible creative environment, they became In-Situ by name and by nature. Collaborative dialogues and community engagement work, and equally important art works, came out of what they found quite literally on their doorstep.
In-Situ’s decision to work on this project was to further some of their ongoing objectives: to develop greater understanding, new engagement initiatives and relevant art projects by developing a relationship and cultural dialogue with an artist-led organisation with a dialogical practice and a community of artists in Pakistan.
The world has changed a bit since In-Situ began. But their capacity to build supportive environments for artistic creation and exchange offers valuable opportunities for dialogue, that I think are vital to building any artist’s practice. The intense boil of an international residency, however, does require stamina from both the artists and the two organisations taking part. While the research will eventually add dynamism, like a good and hearty meal there is a need for time to digest the experience, and the panel discussion was just the beginning of thinking about conclusions. The next steps and more conclusions are still in the distance. As a collective, In-Situ seem to make decisions equitably, between all their artist workers, which means they have the capacity to develop transformative, researched, site-specific projects. The pieces the artists developed in the residency now need to be given the time and space to grow into curated bodies of works.
In Translation: International Residencies with Art of Small Talk, Islamabad was organised by In-Situ at Nelson Library, 18-19 October 2024.
Chantal Oakes is a writer artist based in Preston, Lancashire.
This article is supported by In-Situ.
Published 14.01.2025 by Jazmine Linklater in Explorations
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