Interpretations live

Throughout 2025, University of Birmingham have been working with True Form Projects, aiming to foster a long-term collaboration that embeds inclusive, decolonial research practices into the university’s academic environment while enhancing access to True Form Project’s East in West Vinyl Archive.

For this event, we will be in-conversation with Birmingham artists Haseebah Ali and Seema Mattu exploring relationships with South Asian music, translations of songs and records from the archive.

We are also excited to be premiering new electronic audio by UOB music masters student Gianni Bencich, who is currently undertaking a Research Assistant role with True Form Projects as part of our partnership. Gianni will be utilising machine listening to analyse oral history recordings of South Asian communities in the UK and connecting them to material from the archive.

Interpretations live looks at connections of the East in West Vinyl Archive to communities, sharing different perspectives and exploring how this weaves across South Asian communities, exploring themes spanning identity, relationships, community, migration and socio-political changes, through to joy and resistance.

Refreshments and snacks will be available throughout the event.

This event supported by Aspire and ERC-QR funding, Pan-Pan, and the National Lottery Heritage Fund.

Tickets are free but places are limited, please use the link above.

Speakers and performers

Haseebah Ali

Haseebah is an artist and arts educator based in Birmingham. Her work centres around cultural themes and occasionally political circumstances. Her artistic aim is to create work that not only educates her but the audience to which it is viewed.

Having obtained a BA in illustration in 2018, Haseebah has embarked on many opportunities including having her work on billboards, exhibiting at Saatchi Gallery with WaterAid, as well as being a guest judge for BBYA in 2022. Her work is centred around storytelling and conveying that through a visual language. As a printmaker working mainly with relief print and intaglio, Haseebah enjoys working with communities to exchange knowledge and uplift voices.

Seema Mattu

Seema is a Valmiki world-building trickster whose multi-channel practice is framed as a theme park - known as SEEMAWORLD. Interwoven by CGI (computer-generated imagery) and IRL (in real life) activities - environment-building, 3D character creation, folk-punk sound design and visual spectacle is used to traverse and subvert sentiments around: systems of caste, queer desire, fan labour and gender biases within digital landscapes. SEEMAWORLD itself is a self-generating archive. The biotic evolution of performance, movement, imagery and sound design goes beyond how a utopian South Asian existence might look - but rather how it might feel.

Seema is particularly interested in genres of cyberpunk and solarpunk, and their fusion with both South Asian folk culture and a diasporic British Valmiki existence. Seema is currently an Incidental Artist at Eastside Projects (2024-2026), and her work has been showcased and supported globally, including projects with: Berwick Film and Media Arts Festival, IKON gallery, Blindspot Gallery and FACT.

Gianni Bencich-Grigore

Gianni is a composer, performer, and researcher based in Birmingham, and currently a Research Assistant at Trueform Projects: East in West Vinyl Archive. His work explores the intersections of philosophy, psychoacoustics, and technology. Drawing from microsound, critical theory, and mysticism, his creative practice examines how sound can become a space for discovering the new, disrupting the apparent, and encountering the unknown.

Gianni is currently associated with the Birmingham ElectroAcoustic Sound Theatre (BEAST) and the University of Birmingham’s Centre for Electronic Music, where he is developing work around AI synthesis, spatialised listening, and the aesthetics of the Real.

His music has been presented in festivals and venues across Europe, Asia, and the Americas, including major international festivals like Donaueschinger Musiktage (Germany), Festival Cervantino (Mexico), and BEAST FEaST (UK).