Decolonising the canon of pattern
Sam Jacob and Priya Khanchandani were interviewed on Monocle 24 radio this week about their exhibition (also featured on Wallpaper*) that reinterprets and decolonises the canon of pattern in design, art and architecture.
Adam Nathaniel Furman
British architect & designer Sam Jacob and writer & curator Priya Khanchandani have invited 15 high-profile international artists, designers and architects - including Gustavo Utrabo, Lubna Chowdhary, Marina Tabassum Architects, Pablo Bronstein, Rana Begum and Raqs Media Collective - to create new works in response to the 19th century architect Owen Jones’ book The Grammar of Ornament (1856), for an exhibition on display at Lisbon Architecture Triennale.
Jones’ comprehensive collection of over 2000 patterns - compiled from Jones’ explorations of places like Italy, Sicily, Greece, Egypt, Constantinople and India - reflects how the Victorians examined international art and design by placing Britain at its centre. Published at the height of British imperialism, the curators point out that the book flattens histories and cultures through its categorisations, employsing disparaging language about nations that were colonised by the West.
“Chinese” (from The Grammar of Ornament, Owen Jones, 1856)
“Indian” (from The Grammar of Ornament, Owen Jones, 1856)
“Savage Tribes” (from The Grammar of Ornament, Owen Jones, 1856)
The eclectic responses on display in the exhibition range from two-dimensional A3 pieces to animation and textile-based responses. Set alongside 10 original plates from The Grammar of Ornament, and reconsidering Jones’ patterns from a contemporary perspective, they encourages new and more pluralistic readings. Collectively, the works form a carmen figuratum (a pattern-based poem) that simultaneously re-interrogates history and canon while putting forward new ways in which ornament can carry meaning in visual practice.
Marina Tabassum Architects
Faissal El-Malak
Na Kim
Priya Khanchandani says: “Jones’ book of patterns was created at the height of the British Empire, when many of the cultures and nations that he reflects on - from the ‘Hindoos’ to the pejoratively named ‘Savage Tribes’ - were read from a Eurocentric perspective. In the process they were reduced to rigid categories that denied them their own subjectivity. The eclectic, international, responses we have curated tries to rebalance that perspective; and, in the process, reveal the incredible richness that pattern can contribute to visual culture. There is a lot of discussion about decolonising in the cultural sector at present, which is positive - but it is also important to commission new work that artistically challenges the existing canon.”
Sam Jacob says: “Jones’ project attempted to organise a history of pattern into a universal set of rules. Made at the apex of imperialism, his work opened western design up to other traditions while simultaneously flattening those very same histories and cultures. Pattern in his hands became divorced from context and meaning. Our project attempts to remarry the decorative and symbolic strands of pattern making. And in doing this aims to reveal that politics, as much as pleasure is central to the design of pattern.”