Intercultural Landscapes

The Cowal Kimono four-piece collection visually explores the wealth of diverse ethnicities and cultures thriving as a result of sharing the same space. The wearable art series is inspired by, and brings together, the colours of Scotland’s stunning Cowal Peninsular with the Japanese Kimono, whose surface design is traditionally based on the four seasons and nature (conferring their values on the wearer, it was believed). For me exploring community intercultural & ethnic identity through the closeness and individuality of clothing, weaves together our internal and actual journeying as a globalised society (forced or chosen), with the concepts of roots, belonging, journeying and displacement, and the idea of being from more than one place. 

Each piece of fabric used is part of my own collection and mostly upcycled, including vintage 1950's suiting fabric and 1960's silk chiffon; pieces of fabric found on my travels; and much of the ribbon left over from my degree show piece. The resulting panoramic stylised kimono's, visualises a rich multi-ethnic symbiotic identity story, but like South African cellist, Abel Selaocoe says of his music, ‘this is not a fusion. It’s actually an opportunity for different places to live [and thrive] in the same space’.

This visualising of ethnic & cultural identity, shaped my Masters degree some years ago,

which can be seen particularly in a piece called Woven. 

Medium: photographs, oil and chalk pastels on canvas. Dimensions: 40 x 240 cm

The piece focuses on the vibrancy of Whitechapel market, a microcosm of lived multiculturalism. Each morning a temporary stripy sky emerges and beneath it a new day is woven together amidst activities of rolling stock out, pedestrians rushing to work and shopkeepers clanking up their shutters. By 7pm mementos of another day adorn the pavement and vibrancy surrenders to the melancholy of habitual packing patterns. Evidence of interactions is swept up by clean-up teams; workers surface from the tube; and arbitrary graffitied storage vans abandoned for the night, offer a backdrop to alternate nightly trades. Through collaged photography and other media the piece brings together the diverse cultural, social and generational interconnectivity of this dynamic market and the alternate realities of those who live and work in Banglatown and surrounding areas.