Ambush
- Paths You Walk
- RIM-2026-004
- 2026
- Lodging house near Bartons Foundry, Walsall, 1958
- Billy Dosanjh
- Adam Tomlinson
- Deborah Aston
- © Billy Dosanjh
- Paths You Walk
- lodging house
- Bartons Foundry
- Punjabi
- memory
- migration
- 1958
- Black Country
- magic realism
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About this work
Ambush is the second tableau in Paths You Walk, set in a lodging house near Bartons Foundry, Walsall, in 1958.
A young man sits on bare floorboards in a dimly lit room. He wears a heavy knitted jumper and work trousers — the clothing of a factory worker at rest. His shoes are off, placed neatly beside a suitcase. A bed with a wool blanket and a dressing mirror fill the shadows behind him.
He looks towards an open doorway, and through it we see something that should not be there: a burst of golden light and dense tropical foliage, impossibly vivid against the drab interior. It is a vision of home — the Punjab he left behind, pushing through the walls of his Black Country lodgings.
The title
“Ambush” references the sugar cane fields of the Punjab. The cane does not appear literally in the image, but as a structural memory — the homeland that haunts the lodging house, appearing through the logic of the psyche rather than the visible world.
Production
- Art Director: Adam Tomlinson (Dead Man’s Shoes, This is England)
- Producer: Deborah Aston (Small Axe, Boiling Point)
Exhibition
Ambush is exhibited at The New Art Gallery Walsall (Community Gallery), 6 March – 6 July 2026, and at partner community venues.
© Billy Dosanjh / Reimagining Industrial Migratory Stories CIC. Licensed under CC BY 4.0. For high-resolution or print enquiries: reindmigs@gmail.com