Film featuring Hollywood action scenes shot in Bolton part of an exhibition which opened at Manchester Art Gallery

The exhibition from Bolton-born Hetain Patel, consists of two short films, and opened last weekend.

Now based in London, Patel, aged 36, makes photographs, videos, sculptures and live performances, for galleries and theatres.

The former Bolton School pupil is interested in connecting marginalised identities with the mainstream in an effort to subvert notions of authenticity and promote personal freedom.

With an autobiographical starting point, he uses humour and the languages of popular culture and explores fantasy through a domestic lens.

Patel’s work has previously been exhibited in London at Tate Britain, the Serpentine Gallery and Sadlers Wells, and is often characterised by a fascination with staging archetypal Hollywood action scenes within domestic settings.

Shot with production values that emulate that of Hollywood, both films feature an original orchestral soundtrack by composer Amy May.

The first film, The Jump connects the fantasy of action and superhero films with the setting of a British Indian family home in Bolton.

Starring 17 of his family members, the film is shot in the living room of Patel’s Grandmother’s home in Somerset Road, where he and all of his relatives have lived at various points since moving to the UK.

Featuring Patel’s homemade replica Spider-Man costume, the film presents two different viewpoints of the artist leaping, suited up, in slow motion that is so slow it sometimes feels like a moving photograph.

The second film, Don’t Look at the Finger, is newly commissioned and follows a ‘fight’ between a bride and groom at a West African wedding ceremony, in the grand setting of a church. The scene’s choreography combines Kung Fu with signed languages to express a ritualistic coming together.

The film encompasses Hollywood cinema, West African characters and costumes, East Asian martial arts.

So, what was Patel’s inspiration for the project?

He said: “I have always been a big movie fan, whether that’s big Hollywood movies or art house ones.

“I wanted to use under-represented groups and focus on more culturally diverse subjects. To take something that not everybody is personally familiar with like an Indian family home or a West African wedding and combine them with high production values, music and costumes of Hollywood, which we are all familiar with.”

“I wanted to put them into there without it being niche, and without the stereotypes, but instead present it in a way that just features them and can be part of mainstream cinema.”

The exhibition will run until Sunday, February 4 2018.