DIT 2026: Tosin Adegoke, Amina Khayyam, Husam Ibrahim – The Body at Sea

What

This DIT project is a two-day experimental laboratory for six artists working across movement, sound, somatics and spiritual experimentation. Together, we will investigate whether the body can serve as a site to engage with archival absences – specifically with the erased histories of South Asian maritime labourers, historically referred to as lascars.

The Context

These seafarers were the coerced engine of the British Empire. Often recruited through systems of forced labour and debt bondage, they sustained global trade under brutal conditions, only to be systematically abandoned at East London’s Victoria Docks. Denied the means to return home, their presence remains an invisible yet permanent layer of the city’s history.

Many of these men originated from regions shaped by Islamic mysticism, where rhythm, breath, music and dance serve as conduits for metaphysical knowledge. While the British archive treats their lives as static data, this lab approaches the archives as a metaphysical field.

The Methodology 

Drawing from these spiritual epistemologies, the lab will embody the archive with rhythmic repetition, collective listening and performance as modes of inquiry to sit with historical residue and archival absence. Amina Khayyam will draw on her expertise in trance-based Kathak and whirling dervish traditions to guide the lab.

The Why

As migrant narratives continue to be flattened into data and crisis rhetoric, this lab experiments with a counter-methodology. By reframing migration as an imperial inheritance rather than a contemporary emergency, the project situates current debates within a longer lineage of movement and survival. This shifts attention away from the immediacy of the present moment toward the endurance of the past, foregrounding the urgency of experimenting with decolonised research methods today.

Where

Activities will take place in person at Artsadmin, Toynbee Studios, 28 Commercial St, London E1 6AB.

When

Saturday 5 – Sunday 6 September 2026.
Timings to be confirmed.

Who

We are seeking six artists/practitioners who demonstrate a clear interest in and potential to benefit from the lab. No prior experience in professional movement, dance, or sound is required.

Applicants should be able to articulate what they hope to gain from the process – whether skills, networks, research development, creative growth, or community connection – and how participation aligns with their current practice or interests. Artists do not need prior knowledge of Sufi traditions or spiritual practice to apply.

The lab welcomes performance-based artists and practitioners working across live art, theatre, dance, music, ritual, embodied practices and interdisciplinary forms. Applicants may be emerging, mid-career, or established, provided they are open to sharing methods, learning from others and engaging in collaborative, process-led and experimental ways of working.

The lab prioritises South Asian artists/practitioners or artists/practitioners from the South Asian diaspora, and individuals who have a meaningful connection to East London. This may include living, working, researching, or creating work in the area, or maintaining an ongoing relationship with its communities, histories, or cultural landscapes. Eligible applications received from individuals who fit these categories will be reviewed first, in seeking to fill the six spaces.

Participating artists/practitioners should be willing to engage in a collective learning environment grounded in care, curiosity and mutual respect. This includes openness to sharing practice, participating in group experimentation and learning alongside artists, thinkers and community members from different disciplines and traditions, including maritime, seafarer and Sufi lineages.