saheli
Syahi is the deity of sonic joy, musicality, congregation and radical kindness - under whom Local Superstar, my ongoing project as an Incidental Artist at Eastside Projects, emerges.
This will manifest in the forming of Saheli, a sonic collective of South Asian, queer, female, and/or non-binary musicians exploring misogyny, caste imbalances, colourism, and queer erasure and more in South Asian music.
Saheli imprints on the devotional music and sonic structures I’ve studied and perform weekly as seva (selfless service) as a member of the Sangeet Party at my local Valmiki temple in Birmingham.
To contextualise the intention of forming Saheli, and the themes explored throughout the project, I have curated two events so far as part of Eastside Projects’ public programme (below).
SANGEET PARTY!
Valmiki Educational Day
19 July 2025
Eastside Projects
A one-day festival to celebrate the religious, historical, familial, societal, contextual and musical underpinnings of the Valmiki community in the UK.
In Valmiki cuture ‘Sangeet’ refers to being together in song, most often in joyful congregative spaces. For the event, we set up ‘creation stations’ responding to Valmiki teachings and scripture; shared multi-lingual archives and links to Punjabi culture; showcased a pop-up exhibition of community artworks and artefacts; along with live performances from Bhagwan Valmiki Sabha Birmingham’s ‘Sangeet Party’, of which I am a member.
Photo credit: Irina Mackie
Saheli Sonic Lounge!
5 September 2025
Eastside Projects
Hosted by SEEMAWORLD and RX, the event explored gender disparities in South Asian sonic expression and request line culture through True Form Project’s East in West archive.
There were opportunities to make live requests and delve into both classic and contemporary music as we thought collectively about what Saheli could be, represent and respond to, as well as what people long for musically.
Photo credit: Irina Mackie
forming saheli
In August 2025, we called out for musicians and vocalists to join Saheli - to be formed between musically-minded South Asian people in the UK.
Currently at the stage of conducting auditions, priority will be given to South Asians who are queer, trans, non-binary, indigenous, a dalit (or self-preferred term), and/or a woman.
To outline what I am looking for, I created and shared a pre-band manifesto as part of the callout (below).
Each stage of the forming of Saheli will be filmed. I will use some of this documentary footage in combination with interviews, testimony, 3d digitally animated characters and environments and sonic landscapes made by Saheli, to create a new large scale audiovisual artwork in three chapters.
This project will launch at Eastside Projects in May 2026, before touring to FACT (Liverpool) and Focal Point Gallery (Southend) across 2026 and 2027. This is an evolving project that will develop with the band.
The first chapter follows a Sonic Council of invited guests who will act as an advisory panel, and help me form the collective. They will be present during each stage of the auditions (see below for film structure).
she who is a friend (2026)
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A docu-speculative episodic film, which begins with the forming of a folk~punk band imagined by a Sonic Council in congregation at the core of a three-world borderland.
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IDYLLIC WORLD
DIGITAL ANIMATION
Alternative sub-deity realm emerges, within which specific ideals and possibilities / impossibilities are expressed. The Sonic Council are sent down to the Real World by the sub-deities to form Saheli.
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REAL WORLD
LIVE ACTION FOOTAGE
Saheli is formed by the Sonic Council.
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SEEMAWORLD
DIGITAL ANIMATION
Origins of deity, Syahi, and sub-detieis are introduced.