Hardish Virk began his career in the late 1980s as a DJ, visual artist, actor, director, writer and producer, working in film, theatre, dance, music, festivals, fashion shows and the club sector including co-founding one of UK’s biggest South Asian LGBTQ+ club nights in the 1990s.
Over the last 30 years he has been working with arts and cultural organisations in the UK and Europe on organisational development, advising on diversifying audiences, staffing and programming. In addition to this, he has worked within the cultural, voluntary, health, education and sports sectors, facilitating training and workshops on community engagement and audience development. Hardish has written for arts and cultural magazines as well as authoring the book, ‘Spirits Message’, published in 2015.
He is currently leading on a South Asian heritage project called ‘Stories That Made Us’ which has led to two exhibitions, talks, commissions and his latest exhibition, ‘Stories That Made Us – Roots, Resilience, Representation’, opens at the Herbert Art Gallery & Museum, Coventry in November 2025. Hardish is interested in the nuances of our life stories and how they are told using personal archives, whilst having a multi-artform approach – utilising traditional methodologies and new technologies. The ambition of ‘Stories That Made Us’ is to have a Living Museum of South Asian Stories in Coventry – an idea he has had for nearly 30 years.
Race equality continues to inform a lot of his work, and he continues to challenge racism wherever it appears, be it on the streets or inside institutions.
When asked about the forms of racism, Hardish says:
“I believe there are two types of racism: one is physical, and the other is in policy, structures, and systems. You have to be proactive in challenging it.”
