This September, step inside Arch 165 at Shepherd’s Bush Market for a powerful immersive experience exploring migration, memory and a place changed forever.
As part of Open House Festival, Shepherd’s Bush Market will welcome Mirpur: Atlantis of Kashmir on Saturday 12 September.
For anyone looking for Open House Festival events in West London, this is a chance to experience something a little different. Taking over Arch 165, the installation brings together projection, original music, historical research and personal memories to tell the story of Mirpur in Kashmir, an area dramatically changed by the creation of the Mangla Dam in the 1960s.
Visitors are not simply being asked to watch. You will also have the opportunity to add your own experiences of migration, changing landscapes and lost places to a growing living archive.
At the heart of the project is the story of director Hassun El-Zafar’s own family.
Inspired by conversations with his grandfather and his family’s oral histories, Hassun began exploring the experiences of communities from Mirpur whose homes and landscapes were transformed by the construction of the Mangla Dam.
The result is an approximately 10-minute immersive work, bringing those memories to life through sound and projection.
While Mirpur provides the starting point, the themes reach much further. It is a story about home, displacement, family memories and what happens to those memories when people build a life somewhere new.
There are few places where a project about migration and community could feel more at home.
For more than a century, Shepherd’s Bush Market has grown and changed alongside the neighbourhood around it. Generations of traders have made the Market their own, with communities from across the world contributing to the food, shops, businesses and everyday life you will find here today.
That history of movement, enterprise and cultural exchange is part of what makes the Market what it is.
Bringing Open House Festival to Shepherd’s Bush Market gives visitors another way to explore the area and its stories. Mirpur: Atlantis of Kashmir offers a chance to experience those themes through a different lens, beneath the railway arches and surrounded by the sights, sounds and people of the Market itself.
Mirpur: Atlantis of Kashmir at the MarketSaturday 12 September12pm to 7pmArch 165, Shepherd’s Bush Market, W12 8DF
The installation will play on a loop throughout the day and lasts around 10 minutes, so you can drop in at a time that suits you.
Enter the Market through either the Uxbridge Road or Goldhawk Road entrance and make your way towards the middle of the Market. Look out for event signage directing you to Arch 165.
There is ramped access to the space, although the short ramp does not have handrails. Step-free routes, toilets, drinking water and a quieter area are available within the Market. As always, remember that Shepherd’s Bush Market is a working market, so you will hear the sounds of shops, food businesses and traders around you as you make your way to the installation.
Hassun El-Zafar is a multidisciplinary artist and public engagement specialist whose previous work has included projects with the Southbank Centre, Wellcome, UNESCO, Ramadan Tent Foundation and BBC Radio.
For Mirpur: Atlantis of Kashmir, he is joined by a creative team spanning virtual reality, music, historical research, community research, games design and heritage production.
The team includes VR researcher Dr Bobby Nisha, composer and sitar player Shama Rahman, historical researcher Hoyee Tse, community research practitioner Awais Hussain, games designer Jeff Dehut and producer Pippa Le Grand.
26th August 2026
