ABSTRACT
After months of planning, members from the Tamil diaspora had gathered in a suburban shopping centre outside London to engage in a collaborative and participatory public action. The morning had been busy with preparations; putting up the two party-tents facing the lane between the main shopping street and the mall; hanging pictures inside the tents that had been drawn during the preparatory workshop at the local Tamil refugee centre; cleaning the ground with brooms aided by heavy rain; allocating the white rice flour to draw with into small bowls and mixing some portions with coloured powder. The event 'Making kolams in London' was performed in Hounslow during August 2012, and embedded in the authors research project on artistic practices in the Tamil diaspora. The diaspora emerged as an expansion of his work in relation to events in South Asia as well as in London.
