I’ll Get My Coat
Usman Saeed & Sukhdev Sandhu (2005)
A writer, an archivist and a painter set out on foot to explore the landscape of Britain. Eschewing the heritage trail they walk the streets of Dalston and Stoke Newington, the cemetery in Ilford, and through Manningham, journeying after the Muslim vernacular across the landscape − mapping Asian history, culture and ruins in Britain.
I’ll Get My Coat is a collaborative artists’ book, the end product of walks and talks between Sukhdev Sandhu, Sara Wajid, and Usman Saeed. Two share a similar culture and similar memories, of being Asian Britons, of aspirations and shame. The other, a painter and fashion photographer from Pakistan, is drawn to the license and possibilities that Britain offers, to a glamour that the others find themselves rejecting for an anthropology of Asian ruins.
Published as part of Scape Specific, commissioned by Sara Wajid.
