Come As You Really Are Review: Heaven is a Ford Escort with Swirly Carpet!

Since February, artist Hetain Patel has been assembling hobbyists from across Britain. Quilters, cosplayers and nail-art enthusiasts. Mosaicists, ceramicists and chain-mail linkers. Doll modifiers, wood turners, scrapbookers and yarn bombers. Collectors of postcards, figurines and carrier bags have all contributed to Patel’s latest exhibition, Come As You Really Are.

This show, produced by Artangel, features a dazzling array of 14,000 loaned objects. Warhammer figurines, lead soldiers, and Star Wars fighters populate a long countertop, with Cindy dolls and their dogs towering over them like Biba-clad giants. A tiny diorama decorated with greenery from a model railway includes modified acrylic nails, micro origami, and thimble-sized ceramics. Quilts, weavings, and embroideries surround a Ford Escort covered in swirly carpeting.

Come As You Really Are is the first exhibition in an itinerant series by Patel, staged in a former Wetherspoons that once occupied two floors of the 1890s Grant’s department store on Croydon High Street. The remnants of the pub’s signage and decor create playful juxtapositions, with Polly Pocket toys filling the cloakroom and bottles of fruit-infused gin glowing behind the bar.

The exhibition reveals a heartening truth: not everyone in Britain spends their spare time doomscrolling or indulging in online conspiracy theories. Some folks are creating coloured pancakes shaped like Homer Simpson, carving wooden benches that resemble skateboard decks, or cutting orange peel into hearts to make firelighters.

While Patel isn’t the first artist to exhibit hobbyists’ work — Alan Kane and Jeremy Deller have done so in the past, and Grayson Perry’s TV show Grayson’s Art Club offered a platform for the nation’s makers during the pandemic — his approach is grander in scale. Yet, Come As You Really Are shares conceptual territory with these previous efforts, challenging conventional definitions of what makes someone a “professional” artist.

Patel’s distinction between those who view their art as work and those who see it as a hobby is thought-provoking. Both groups share a common passion. An amateur, after all, does what they love. In a world where social media often pressures us to monetize every skill or interest, this exhibition serves as a reminder of the intrinsic value of hobbies as sources of joy, escapism, and human connection.

As we move away from political regimes that have vilified the arts as elitist pursuits, Patel provides compelling evidence of widespread engagement in making, collecting, and performing. This is a powerful counter-argument to underfunding the arts.

Objects in the exhibition are displayed without labels, with a key available to help visitors identify them. Only after my visit did I realize that Patel was behind some of my favorite exhibits, including the carpet-covered Ford Escort and a full-size Transformer robot made from a Ford Fiesta. Patel has also made a film celebrating hobbies beyond the exhibition’s scope, featuring wild swimmers, dancers, drone flyers, and custom car owners.

This conscious blurring of distinctions reflects the reality that even those in the professional art world have hobbies. The list of contributors includes artist Sista Pratesi for her latch hook furnishings, and former National Portrait Gallery director Sandy Nairne for his landscape sketching.

Like the broader art world, this exhibition thrives on creativity and accumulation. Miranda Worby’s My Little Pony collection occupies an entire room, while Adam Buss’s football shirts cascade down a stairwell. Tina Leung’s K-pop merchandise fills a dresser, and countless other collections—from used erasers to catalogued mineral samples—offer something to intrigue everyone.

Patel’s longer-term project as an artist is to rethink identity beyond the conventional markers of class, heritage, and geography. Hobbies provide an opportunity for escapism and a space to share passions or even adopt entirely different identities. Come As You Really Are is not just a public celebration of private passions, but an invitation to explore all the unique ways we can connect with one another.

• At the Hobby Cave at Grants, Croydon, until 20 October

Source: The Guardian