Shiraz Bayjoo is a London based artist, originally from Mauritius. Bayjoo studied at the University of Wales Institute, Cardiff. Bayjoo was artist in residence at Whitechapel gallery during 2011, he has exhibited with Tate Britain and the Institute for International Visual Arts, and is a recipient of the Gasworks fellowship. I have spent the last 8 years developing a discourse that combines research with communities and archives; culminating in a multi disciplinary practice of video, painting and installation. Images are broken down, re-explored and re-situated. I am interested in ideas of nationhood and the exploration of identity and histories through using photographs, and artefacts stored in public and personal archives. I am concerned with how the wider public's perception of events and histories is influenced or differs from what is conveyed or captured in the more dynamic collections held in archives. Through investigating themes of migration and trade, the work explores these complex colonial histories and relationships, and enquires into the challenge of authoring of collective identity in the post-colonial world.