Forming New Folklores reimagines the traditional practice of Bengali chhapa, woodblock printing on textiles, as a creative tool to collect stories and preserve them as contemporary folklores. The project seeks to reclaim chhapa, an art form rooted in South Asian visual culture, from its colonial, patriarchal, and industrial histories.

In 2024, artists F. Zeeshan Choudhury and Rasel Rana, commissioned by arts charity Unlimited, collected and recorded folklores within their communities in the UK and Bangladesh through a series of storytelling workshops. These workshops surfaced questions about how folktales, passed down through generations, could respond to the needs of our time. These reflections include: How do stories reflect our experiences with exploitation? How can the way we preserve these stories reflect contemporary needs for collective care and access? How can we take advantage of storytelling as a tool of resistance?

Choudhury conceptualised a set of woodblock stamps as modular tools for storytelling. These stamps create an open visual lexicon consisting of fragments of characters and symbols, inviting subjective expressions, imaginative worldbuilding, and crosscultural translation.

This vision unfolds across two exhibitions:

Forming New Folklores: Made in Bethnal Green documents F. Zeeshan Choudhury’s process of collecting, recording, and sharing folklore within a hyper-local context. Neighbouring The Create Place–where Choudhury hosted workshops collecting stories from diverse communities–this exhibition unveils the artist’s new folklore, expressed through a hand-printed sari made using modular chhapa stamps.

16 June–21 July 2025 at The Gallery Café, 21 Old Ford Road, London E2 9PL

Opens daily from 8:30am-5pm

Forming New Folklores: Made In Exile expands the project into a live, collaborative, diasporic dialogue between the artists and audiences. Centred on a sari-inspired installation created through public interventions, the exhibition transforms the gallery space into a domestic commons–where eating, resting, cleaning, and gatherings take place. This live exhibition invites visitors to explore the meaning of living in exile and how we find ‘home’ through a series of participatory interventions.

21–25 June 2025 at Rich Mix, 35-47 Bethnal Green Road, London E1 6LA

Opens daily from 10am-8pm.

This exhibition is co-curated by F. Zeeshan Choudhury and Noel Cheung.

Forming New Folklores is made possible with the support from Unlimited’s International Open Awards in 2024. Unlimited is an arts commissioning body that supports, funds, and promotes new work by disabled artists for UK and international audiences.

About F. Zeeshan Choudhury

F. Zeeshan Choudhury leads community projects that use creativity to facilitate radical wellbeing. Their research and practice finds tangible ways for people to interrogate injustice and imagine new futures. They are an advocate for hyper-local community engagement, and run community groups in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, including the Queer Writer’s Circle at The Common Press in Shoreditch, and Writing to Uncover The Self at St Margaret’s House in Bethnal Green.

Website: www.fzeeshanchoudhury.com

Instagram: @fzeeshanchoudhury

About Noel Cheung

Noel Cheung (she/her) is a curator, researcher, and maker based in London. She is currently Assistant Curator at the Victoria and Albert Museum, working on the V&A East project, opening in East London in 2025–26. With a focus on interdisciplinary practices, her work explores the intersections of art, design, and science. Her research critically examines the role of design as a catalyst for progressive change, with particular attention to the questions of identity, the politics of representation, and the redefinition of social models. She also investigates the impact of the arts on mental health and wellbeing, with a focus on the potential of museums and cultural institutions to serve as spaces for self-reflection, mindfulness, and healing.

Website: https://noelcheung.com/

Instagram: @noelcheung3