You mention a lot of black artists, like Carrie Mae Weems, as influences. I assume that ties in to that shared motivation of making art that is representing people who don't have a visible profile in art or culture?

I studied post-colonialism in Art History at Goldsmiths. Here I was, looking at these black artists and cultural theorists, and yes, they were talking about the black experience, but that was also my experience. Repression, racism, gender politics. And it was that module which made me think: no one's really made art about the British-Asian experience. As I said, I had been saying to all my friends, "You are too black," but actually, at that point, I understood why they wanted to latch onto black culture; it resonated with them. They – black people in America, Britain, those artists I was studying – were from a marginalised community that had managed to find a voice which was political, relevant, justifiably angry and which resonated with those who were repressed and outside of the system. And that's incredibly sexy and relevant. Up to then I had felt like a fish out of water – an inner city brown-boy, at Goldsmiths, hanging out with public school people. I was like, 'Shit, man, what am I doing here?' But that module changed my life.