Image: Herbert Art Gallery and Museum, Coventry
A new archival display at Coventry Archives is bringing together photographs, pamphlets, newsletters, protest material and personal items to examine the political, creative and communal histories of Coventry’s South Asian communities. ‘South Asian Voices in Coventry Archives: Politics, Activism & Community’ is available during archives opening times from 18 April to 31 July 2026, with drop-in access free through the Archives entrance.
The Herbert Art Gallery and Museum, which is promoting the display on its website, says the project was curated by Shaniece Martin, Archives Assistant for ‘Stories That Made Us – Roots, Resilience, Representation’, in close collaboration with South Asian Cultural Ambassadors. The display is presented as an archival response to the city’s South Asian histories rather than as a conventional gallery show, and it focuses on material from the Coming to Coventry Collection, the Virk Collection and items selected by the ambassadors themselves.
According to the exhibition text, the display explores the “rich and politically engaged histories” of Coventry’s South Asian communities through documents and ephemera that record everyday organising as well as public action. The selected material is said to highlight decades of grassroots activity around workers’ rights, anti-racism, cultural identity, education and social justice, showing how migrants and their descendants have helped shape the city’s political and cultural landscape.
The display also places emphasis on community voice and lived experience. By centring material chosen in collaboration with South Asian Cultural Ambassadors, the project frames archives not only as repositories of the past but as active records of resistance, leadership and collective action. The source page describes the project as a celebration of resilience and community contribution within Coventry’s diverse civic life.
The listing gives the venue as Coventry Archives and notes that Herbert admission fees are not required when entering through the Archives entrance. Opening hours for the display are Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, 10.30am to 3.30pm. The event page names the run as Saturday 18 April to Friday 31 July 2026, with the display available during archives opening times across that period.
The Herbert’s announcement comes as part of its wider events listing, but the display itself is focused specifically on South Asian histories in Coventry and on the archival materials assembled for this project. With its combination of collection items, community-selected objects and documentary evidence, ‘South Asian Voices in Coventry Archives: Politics, Activism & Community’ places local archival work at the centre of a story about politics, activism and community memory in the city.
