Skip navigation

Main menu

  • What's On
  • Visit
  • Art
    • Discover Art
    • Artists
    • Artworks
    • Stories
    Stories
    Stories

    Watch, listen and read

  • Learn
    • Schools
    • Tate Kids
    • Research
    • Activities and workshops
    Tate Kids
    Tate Kids

    Games, quizzes and films for kids

  • Shop
Become a Member
  • Tate Britain
    Tate Britain Free admission
  • Tate Modern
    Tate Modern Free admission
  • Tate Liverpool + RIBA North
    Tate Liverpool + RIBA North Free admission
  • Tate St Ives
    Tate St Ives Ticket or membership card required
  • Families
  • Accessibility
  • Schools
  • Private tours
  • Discover Art
  • Artists
  • Artworks
  • Stories
  • Schools
  • Tate Kids
  • Research
  • Activities and workshops
Tate Logo
Become a Member
Free Tate Britain Performance

Karenjit Sandhu: gestalt

21 November 2025 at 14.00–17.00
Book tickets
Book cover of gestalt by Karenjit Sandhu, bright orange coloured with a scribbled image of two hands grasping fingertips

Book cover of gestalt by Karenjit Sandhu

Join Karenjit Sandhu and special guests to celebrate the Panchayat Collection and the launch of gestalt

Karenjit Sandhu’s gestalt is a new poetry collection shaped by her research into the Panchayat Collection at Tate Library. Founded in London in 1988 by Shaheen Merali and Al-An deSouza with Bhajan Hunjan, Symrath Patti and Shanti Thomas, Panchayat was a pioneering group of artists engaged in artmaking, activism and communal archiving. The Panchayat Collection brings together books, catalogues, magazines, videos, slides and ephemera that reflect this collective history and capture a wide range of artistic, cultural and political experiences, often focusing on race, class, gender, and memory.

In gestalt, Sandhu responds to the Panchayat Collection through visual poetry, drawings, and performance instructions, creating an alternative documentation of its legacy. The book, published by The87press (an Asian, LGBTQIA+, and neurodiverse collective), also features artwork by Panchayat artists Bhajan Hunjan, Permindar Kaur, Rita Keegan, Symrath Patti, and Shanti Thomas.

Sandhu will perform from gestalt, accompanied by a soundscape composed by Christopher Sarantis. Guest poets Azad Ashim Sharma, Bhanu Kapil, Iain Morrison and Redell Olsen will bring distinct yet connected perspectives: from explorations of diasporic identity and experience to experimental approaches to archives, memory and documentation.

The event will also feature a show and share of materials from the Panchayat Collection, celebrating its 10th anniversary at Tate.

2pm Welcome; Panchayat Collection show and share

3pm Readings: Azad Ashim Sharma, Bhanu Kapil, Iain Morrison, Redell Olsen

4pm Break

4.15pm Talk: Azad Ashim Sharma

4.20pm Live performance: Karenjit Sandhu

Karenjit Sandhu

Karenjit Sandhu is a poet and performance artist. Her publications include gestalt and young girls! (the87press), Poetic Fragments from the Irritating Archive (Guillemot Press), and Baby 19 (Intergraphia). She is a Lecturer in Art at the University of Reading, and her performances have been staged with institutions including the ICA, Barbican, Arnolfini, Christie’s, and Flat Time House.

Azad Ashim Sharma

Azad Ashim Sharma is the director of the87press and serves as poetry editor at Philosophy and Global Affairs and the CLR James Journal; he is also the commissioning editor of The Hythe Review. He is the author of three poetry collections, most recently, Boiled Owls (Nightboat Books, 2024) which was shortlisted for the Jhalak Poetry Prize. His second collection Ergastulum: Vignettes of Lost Time (Broken Sleep Books, 2022) was the recipient of the Caribbean Philosophical Association’s Nicolás Cristóbal Guillén Batista Outstanding Book Award.

Bhanu Kapil

Bhanu Kapil is an Extraordinary Fellow of Churchill College, Cambridge. She has been awarded a Windham-Campbell Prize from Yale University and a Cholomondeley Award from the Society of Authors, both for poetry. Her most recent book of poetry, How To Wash A Heart (Pavillion Poetry) won the TS Eliot Prize. Her newest book, Autobiography of a Performance, is co-authored with Blue Pieta and published by the87press.

Iain Morrison

Iain Morrison is a poet based in Edinburgh, where he is part of Fruitmarket’s curatorial team. His I’m a Pretty Circler was shortlisted for the Saltire Prizes in 2019, and his Moving Gallery Notes, accompanied by a film installation, was published by John Hansard Gallery in 2018.

Redell Olsen

Redell Olsen makes work across poetry, bookworks, visual and performance texts. Her poetry collections include Film Poems (Les Figues, 2014), Punk Faun: a bar rock pastel (Subpress, 2012) and Secure Portable Space (Reality Street, 2004). She is Professor of Poetry and Poetics at Royal Holloway, University of London.

Tate Britain's step-free entrance is on Atterbury Street. It has automatic sliding doors and there is a ramp down to the entrance with central handrails.The Exhibition is on the Lower floor of the gallery.

  • Accessible, standard and Changing Places toilets are located on the Lower floor.
  • Ear defenders can be borrowed from the ticket desk on the Lower floor.

To help plan your visit to Tate Britain, have a look at our visual story. It includes photographs and information about what you can expect from a visit to the gallery.Download Tate Britain mapFor more information before your visit:

  • Email hello@tate.org.uk
  • Call +44 (0)20 7887 8888 (daily 10.00–17.00)

Check all Tate Britain accessibility information

Tate Britain

Reading Rooms

Millbank
London SW1P 4RG
Plan your visit

Date & Time

21 November 2025 at 14.00–17.00

Pricing

Free with ticket

Book tickets

We recommend

Left Right
  • Tate Library

    A centre of excellence for research on British art since 1500 and international art since 1900

  • Panchayat Collection

    Find out about the Panchayat Collection, important to the practice and exhibition histories of artists with South Asian, Caribbean and African heritage, living and working in Britain.

  • Panchayat Collection Research Resource

    Learn about the Panchayat Collection and the transnational exhibitions, networks and solidarities forged by artists of colour in Britain at the end of the twentieth century

Artwork
Close

Join in

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • YouTube
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
Sign up to emails

Sign up to emails

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Tate’s privacy policy

About

  • About us
  • Our collection
  • Terms and copyright
  • Governance
  • Picture library
  • ARTIST ROOMS
  • Tate Kids

Support

  • Tate Collective
  • Members
  • Patrons
  • Donate
  • Corporate
  • My account
  • Press
  • Jobs
  • Accessibility
  • Privacy
  • Cookies
  • Contact
© The Board of Trustees of the Tate Gallery, 2025
All rights reserved