Dayshift — Reimagining Industrial Migratory

About this work

Dayshift was the first image made in The Exiles series, created in 2019 after years of research into the experiences of South Asian empire workers who arrived in the Black Country in the 1960s.

In the foundry courtyard, migrant workers take a break — away from the indigenous workers inside. They listen to their foreman, who is asking them to cast their union vote. Due to language challenges, they are lost and confused. Some of these workers would go on to suffer from tuberculosis.

The woman reading a letter in Dayshift returns again in Seamstress, the sewing factory tableau — a thread connecting the domestic and the industrial across the series.

Composition

This image is composed from over 800 individual source files, applying filmic principles of set-building, casting, costume, and lighting to create a single image that functions as a silent, operatic film.

The foundry courtyard setting is not used as a backdrop, but as an actual character in the work — speaking to the history of de-industrialisation that defines the Black Country landscape.

Awards

Dayshift was entered into the Royal Birmingham Society of Artists Photography Prize Exhibition, where Billy Dosanjh was awarded First Prize.

Judge Jaskirt Dhaliwal-Boora commented:

“The level of skill and care taken to make these images are outstanding. Birmingham and its surrounding areas have in modern history been built on the back of migration, and Billy’s work is fitting in celebrating and sending a positive representation specifically of the South Asian and Panjabi community of Birmingham and the Black Country. A wonderful nod to our forebearers… the intense detail in these images mean you could study them for hours.”

Exhibition history

Dayshift has been shown as part of [Traveller, Your Footprints] at New Art Exchange, Nottingham (September 2022 – January 2023) and The Exiles at The New Art Gallery Walsall (November 2022 – February 2023).