Stage Exit
- Paths You Walk
- RIM-2026-005
- 2026
- Butts Road lock-up, Walsall, 1965
- Billy Dosanjh
- Adam Tomlinson
- Deborah Aston
- © Billy Dosanjh
- Paths You Walk
- Butts Road Walsall
- 1965
- forbidden
- Pietà
- South Asian diaspora
- Black Country
- magic realism
- intimacy
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About this work
Stage Exit is the third tableau in Paths You Walk, set in a lock-up off Butts Road, Walsall, in 1965.
Two people sit together inside a classic car, parked in a small lock-up garage. The space around them is raw — bare brick walls, a wooden-beamed ceiling, workshop clutter. A single bare bulb hangs overhead, casting warm light across the car’s polished bonnet. One of the car’s headlamps is on, its beam cutting a solid line through the exhaust haze.
The garage is a hiding place. This is a private moment, away from the street, away from the gaze of a community and a decade that would not have approved.
Themes
The composition is built on the visual grammar of the Pietà — a protective closeness between two people caught at a threshold. The title is precise: this is a stage exit, a withdrawal from the public performance of belonging into a space where other rules apply.
Production
- Art Director: Adam Tomlinson (Dead Man’s Shoes, This is England)
- Producer: Deborah Aston (Small Axe, Boiling Point)
Exhibition
Stage Exit is exhibited at The New Art Gallery Walsall (Community Gallery), 6 March – 6 July 2026, and at partner community venues.
© Billy Dosanjh / Reimagining Industrial Migratory Stories CIC. Licensed under CC BY 4.0. For high-resolution or print enquiries: reindmigs@gmail.com