texile/mixed media
‘dark, golden, hairy, roots’(2023)
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Prompted by Amitav Ghosh's “The Nutmeg Curse’ spice plants like Peppercorn, Cinnamon, Clove, Nutmeg and Turmeric collide in ‘Dark hairy roots’ - a tapestry, weaving the interconnectivity of plants, faith and human hands as one epic force; one that will always confuse and flatten the colonial fantasy of commodify and capitalise. Drawn in connection to each other like capillaries pumping life around; turmeric and madder roots root down their stems that bloom the flowers of cinnamon and nutmeg that grow high into vines of peppercorn that entangle all around. The paintings are held down by thick Khadi weaves - the original anti-colonial hand-spun cotton that helped to eventually ‘decolonise’ India - an antidote to the pace of capitalist and machine supremacy. I collaborated with embroiders in Jaipur to create a tapestery made from Khadi (hand-spun cotton) dyed with iron, turmeric, cinnamon and nutmeg ground into dye baths with cutch, maridold and madder roots symbolic of the intersections that both spice and cloth had on british colonial thirst and western taste. Brass spice boxes etched with spices are shown alongside.
The drawings are inspired by collections of botanical illustrations done by Indian Islamic painters that made up most of the horticulture archive in the UK between the 17th -20th century - but archived and muted within European collections, the work seeks to reanimate plants as beings with agency
This European negating of life, muting of nature enforced its colonial, separationist ideologies as being apart from the earth and therefore was not merely a process of establishing dominion over human beings; it was also a process of subjugating, and reducing to muteness, a texture universe of beings that was once thought of as having agency, powers of communication, and the ability to make meaning; like water, plants and animals. This collective process was not only technical but relational, inviting dialogue, storytelling, and shared authorship.
Shown at Khari Bouli market in Old Delhi - the biggest spice market in the world.
Prompted by Amitav Ghosh's “The Nutmeg Curse’ spice plants like Peppercorn, Cinnamon, Clove, Nutmeg and Turmeric collide in ‘Dark hairy roots’ - a tapestry, weaving the interconnectivity of plants, faith and human hands as one epic force; one that will always confuse and flatten the colonial fantasy of commodify and capitalise. Drawn in connection to each other like capillaries pumping life around; turmeric and madder roots root down their stems that bloom the flowers of cinnamon and nutmeg that grow high into vines of peppercorn that entangle all around. The paintings are held down by thick Khadi weaves - the original anti-colonial hand-spun cotton that helped to eventually ‘decolonise’ India - an antidote to the pace of capitalist and machine supremacy. I collaborated with embroiders in Jaipur to create a tapestery made from Khadi (hand-spun cotton) dyed with iron, turmeric, cinnamon and nutmeg ground into dye baths with cutch, maridold and madder roots symbolic of the intersections that both spice and cloth had on british colonial thirst and western taste. Brass spice boxes etched with spices are shown alongside.
The drawings are inspired by collections of botanical illustrations done by Indian Islamic painters that made up most of the horticulture archive in the UK between the 17th -20th century - but archived and muted within European collections, the work seeks to reanimate plants as beings with agency
This European negating of life, muting of nature enforced its colonial, separationist ideologies as being apart from the earth and therefore was not merely a process of establishing dominion over human beings; it was also a process of subjugating, and reducing to muteness, a texture universe of beings that was once thought of as having agency, powers of communication, and the ability to make meaning; like water, plants and animals. This collective process was not only technical but relational, inviting dialogue, storytelling, and shared authorship.
Shown at Khari Bouli market in Old Delhi - the biggest spice market in the world.