‘Un-Paisley’

The Un-Paisley is a series of objects revolving around the shape India calls the ‘butta’, Scotland the ‘paisley’, and I, like my mother, the ‘mango’.

This shape personifies the duality of the narratives within colonies and highlights the repercussions of colonialism in a so-called ‘post-colonial’ world. Through its popularity within craft and trade, as the Kashmiri shawl, the shape provided the first seeds of the industry before and through India as a colony. And, through its immoral journey to the West, rooted in imperialistic ideas of ownership within Scotland, the shape, appropriated as the ‘paisley’, was the touchstone of domestic industries, providing many people, especially women, with an opportunity at financial independence. At the same time, whilst the western-world seemed to benefit from this motif, in India, the native industries were decimated.

Un-Paisley takes the forms of vessels and body adornments made from metal; it combines traditional metal-smithing techniques with those from textile crafts. This collection was developed while contemplating the idea of imperial ownership as I resonate with the shape’s immaterial sense of post- colonial narratives.