Shezad Dawood. Feature. Production still. 2008. COURTESY THE ARTIST AND PARADISE ROW, LONDON.

London Dreams Deirdre King argues that the concept of 'diaspora art' needs updating in today's globalised world.

HISTORICALLY, THE TERM 'DIASPORA' referred to a population's displacement and relocation outside its country of origin due to political, economic or natural factors. Cultural identity was of great importance in the dispersed population - this fact was pivotal to the definition.

Currently, South Asian 'identity' is highly visible in London, thanks to the presence of South Asian art in the city. This is a new phenomenon: until recently, South Asian art had a low profile here. There were only a few platforms. The Grosvenor Gallery showed predominantly older generation artists like M.F.Husain and F.N. Souza. From 1994, however, inIVA (Institute of International Visual Arts) began to focus on cultural diversity, as did the Gasworks Residency Program, which was established in the same year by Triangle Arts Trust.

The increased visibility of South Asian art today points to a need for a contemporary way of defining diaspora - and indeed a new form of 'exodus' is taking place. For, the diaspora which manifests itself through art - its origins and specific modes of appearance - is peculiarly attuned to our consumerist age and is different in important ways from the simple historical model. Around the turn of this century, information technology and the ever-wide reaching tentacles of the capitalist economy eroded cultural boundaries and refashioned identities. In this new era of multiculturalism and globalisation, the notion of the diaspora came to reflect ideas of 'postnational citizenship' rather than a vigorously defined sense of nationhood.¹

Current South Asian art in London marks further changes in the meaning of the 'diaspora' word. As with certain diasporas over the course of history, today's diaspora art is driven by economics: specifically, it is powered by the global capitalist economy and the recent economic boom. What is new, however, is that instead of a population, it is the cultural object that undertakes the diasporic exodus. It is the art object that becomes the migrant, not the artist.

This is not to say that contemporary artists have not migrated from South Asia to the U.K. - some have - but they have yet to coalesce into an identifiable group. To describe the handful of South-Asian artists who have made London or England their home - like Raqib Shaw, Shezad Dawood, Runa Islam and Anish Kapoor - as 'diaspora artists' would be incorrect given that a South Asian presence in the artworld is determined by works made by artists who are not necessarily resident here. So how and why has this 'diaspora of artworks' come about?