Motiroti

Motiroti was a London based organisation which used the arts to achieve intercultural innovation. Since the mid-1990s the company made internationally acclaimed and award winning art that transformed relationships between people, communities and spaces. motiroti worked at the forefront of ever-changing global social realities, challenging and teasing perceptions of artists, institutions and audiences alike.

Working with a range of collaborators within visual and live art, new technology and socially engaged practice, motiroti made public art with the public itself being central to the making and shaping of the work, using emerging social technologies to incorporate multiple perspectives within artworks. The company fostered the development of a lifelong learning culture, with learning and art production part of the same process, and offered potent opportunities to inspire and develop a dynamic exchange between artists and communities.

Motiroti means 'fat bread' in Urdu, and the company took its name from one of its earliest projects, Moti Roti Puttli Chunni - a playful examination of gender stereotypes, presented as live Bollywood musical theatre in east London. Co-founded by artists Ali Zaidi and Keith Khan, motiroti was officially registered as a charity in 1996, although the pair had worked together since the late 1980s. Khan left the company in 2004 to become CEO of the Rich Mix Cultural Foundation. Ali Zaidi continued as the sole Artistic Director until 2012, when he left to establish his own freelance practice under the name of Ali Zaidi Arts. motiroti was thereafter led by Executive Director Tim Jones, who joined the company in 2010, and following its closure operates as an independent consultant and workshop designer, advising on the development of enterprise opportunities and digital capacity in the culture sector.

Details of motiroti projects, from the early 1990s onwards, can be viewed online here. A catalogued archive of its work from the late 1980s up to 2005 is owned by Future Histories, the UK's first dedicated repository for African, Asian and Caribbean performing arts, and its contents can be viewed here.

motiroti presented works in many countries, at venues such as Arnolfini Gallery, Bristol;Barbican Centre, London; Bonn Biennale;Brooklyn Academy of Music;Edinburgh Festival; ;Greenwich Theatre; Harbour Front Centre, Toronto; Houston International Festival; Institute of Contemporary Arts, London;Ikon Gallery, Birmingham; It's Queer Up North, Manchester; Kannonhallen, Denmark; Krannert Center, Illinois; La Ferme du Buisson, France; Leeds Mela; London International Festival of Theatre; Lille 3000; Melbourne Festival;Midlands Arts Centre; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Museum of London; National College of Arts, Lahore; National Gallery, Cape Town; National Theatre, Islamabad; Natural History Museum, London; New Art Gallery, Walsall; New Haven Festival of Arts and Ideas; Notting Hill Carnival; Oval House Theatre, London; Queen Elizabeth Hall, London; REDCAT, Los Angeles; Romaeuropa Festival, Italy; Royal Albert Hall, London; Royal Court Theatre, London; Royal Festival Hall, London; Royal Geographical Society with IGB, London; Royal National Theatre, London; Science Museum, London; Serpentine Gallery, London; Sibikwa Theatre, Johannesburg; Singapore Arts Festival; Tamaseel Theatre, Lahore; Tate Liverpool; Tate Modern; Theatre Royal Stratford East; Tramway Theatre, Glasgow;V&A;Warwick Arts Centre;West Yorkshire Playhouse; Whitney Museum, New York.

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