Welsh Anti-racist Action Plan: 'I was shaking after p-slur, now I make art for justice'

Nasia Sarwar-Skuse was racially abused in 2018 in Cardiff, Wales. Now she has collaborated with the Welsh government and Arts Council to fight racism and change colonial narratives

Nasia Sarwar-Skuse says she is a strong person, but when she was brutally confronted by racist abuse, she was left trembling.

"I’m quite a tough person, but the adrenaline went through me and I was shaking, I was like ‘Woah,’ and I was just thinking ‘Thank God my little daughter wasn’t with me,’"she says

The PhD student, writer and lawyer who was born in Pakistan but moved to Manchester as a child says "we all have our experiences" when it comes to racism as a "person of colour."

Nasia explained: "I was racially abused probably a few hundred metres from my home, six or seven years ago.

"A lady decided to call me the p-word. I did get her arrested and I did take her to court and she did get prosecuted,” says Nasia proudly, as it is rare for ethnic minorities to take legal action against discrimination, with only 10% of all reported crimes ending in justice in 2023. She added: “I’m a certain kind of person; I don’t think my mother would have done that, or even my sister.”

The writer and artist now based in Cardiff opened up about the physical threats she faced as a child from an Asian family: "I have memories of my mum gripping my hand when a group of football supporters were coming. I explain this to my husband who is White Canadian, like ‘You don’t get that I hate match days, I really do,’" Nasia says.

"We get bricks through our window and he’d just cover it up and say ‘they’re just drunk’ but it was targeted. So we grew up living with that. And you grow up becoming more resilient. And for me writing and art is a form of justice.”

In response to these terrifying experiences shared by ethnic minorities, the Welsh government has taken rapid action to combat racism.

The government has set up an Anti-racist Wales Action Plan. This groundbreaking initiative supports the Arts Council of Wales and Museum Wales to educate people on racism and colonisation through the arts.

The latest project Perspective(s): Decolonising Welsh Museums and the Arts challenges how stories are told in Welsh national museums and explores the hidden sides of Welsh history.

Among the artefacts examined in this programme are ‘Welsh Plains cloth’ – the rough fabric produced in Wales and used to clothe enslaved Africans on British plantations. Artist Lucille Junkere is working with the National Wool Museum to explore this further.

Nasia Sawar-Skuse's piece ‘Wales Is...talking about empire’ involves a luxury red sofa, once owned by Clive of India - whose military successes as Head of the East India Company’s army played a key role in the colonisation of India by the British. The piece is on display at St Fagans, as part of a recreation of a South Asian living room.

Nasia said: "I got involved with Perspective(s) while researching Robert Clive’s connection to Wales for my PhD, which presented an ideal opportunity to challenge traditional historical narratives by highlighting overlooked stories and connections with empire, particularly those related to the Clive family, and to foster a deeper understanding of Wales' cultural heritage."

In collaboration with all seven Amgueddfa Cymru – Museum Wales sites, seven artists encourage audiences to view overlooked histories present within chosen objects, and explore how understanding the past can shape a more inclusive future. Artists include: Lal Davies exploring the copper industry with the National Waterfront Museum , Sophie Mak-Schram researching how power is structured in institutions with National Museum Cardiff and Sadia Pineda Hameed diving into the Welsh coal industry as an imperial fuel source with Big Pit National Coal Museum.

Artist Jasmine Violet working with the National Slate Museum praised the Perspective(s) project saying: "It represents a vital step towards supporting marginalised artists and communities in Wales, and opens up essential dialogues around decolonisation, allowing diverse voices and experiences to be represented and celebrated. I hope to help create lasting projects that genuinely support communities, creating a more honest and inclusive environment for everyone in Wales."

Jasmine who will be doing a performance dance on sugar and the slave trade said: "Telling this story, it needs to be done physically. I think the story of sugar, the story of colonialism is something that has been written about and talked about but it hasn’t been expressed by the people that it affected in a public space like this. To be able to do something physical like that rather than a painting gives it a lot more context and a lot more of a guttural feeling."

Artist Hannan Jones working with the National Roman Legion Museum opened up about what the project means to her: "Perspective(s) resonates with my own diasporic background to allow navigation between histories of migration and empire. Being Welsh and North African but raised in Australia, I am deeply engaged with social and cultural migration, placemaking and storytelling."

The creative producer for the Arts Council of Wales, Daniel Trivedy added: "We had riots over the summer in the UK, and thankfully that disorder didn’t take place on the streets here in Wales. However, individuals from marginalised backgrounds… felt unsafe on the streets, the very streets that they grew up on. We shouldn’t be complacent thinking the same thing might not happen here in Wales in the future. We are really lucky in Wales that we have an Anti-racist Wales Action Plan and Perspective(s) really fits into that.

"Perspective(s) is confronting some of the more challenging narratives that haven’t often been represented in the arts and heritage sector - it’s confronting and representing these narratives in new ways."