Viewing Hetain Patel’s latest project ‘Come As You Really Are’ at The Hobby Cave at Grants

“There is a vulnerability in sharing something so personal, which often happens in private spaces around the responsibilities of daily life. But there is also a tremendous power in sharing collectively, which is at the heart of this project,” says artist Hetain Patel of Come As You Really Are. On view at The Hobby Cave at Grants in Croydon until October is a cornucopia of thousands of objects, all of them crafted, modified or collected by avid hobbyists all over the UK. There’s also a few things Patel has made too.

The presentation is intended as a portrait of creativity in the UK, showing how the little things become the big things, and how we infuse meaning into our surroundings, shaping our belongings to reflect our values. It all started from a nationwide open call from Patel, asking the public to share how they spend their spare time.

The handmade submissions by hobbyists Patel received are displayed together with new and existing works by Patel. The Other Suit, 2015, for example, is a Spiderman suit crafted at the kitchen table over months, following tutorials on YouTube. It sits next to Patel’s 2013 Fiesta Transformer, a robot sculpture built from his first car with the help of his father in the family garage in Bolton. Somerset Road, 2024, meanwhile, is a Ford Escort tufted by the artist in the pattern of his grandmother’s living room carpet. These personal details pay homage to the inventiveness of labourer migrant communities like Patel’s, and highlight the universal, insuppressible urge to invent.