Tipu’s Tent Revisited

This work is a response to the Indian artefacts in the Clive Museum and to the history and legacy of British Rule in India.
It is a multi-media installation and is version of the famous chintz tent of Tipu Sultan – one of the main attractions of the Clive Museum. My version also has walls made of chintz cotton, but the fabric has been made to my own design and produced on a digital fabric printer. The traditional ‘Tree of Life’ pattern has been subverted to include icons that highlight some key events in the history of the British in India.
Inside the tent a video of a performance by a British Asian dance group is projected onto layers of gauze and sari fabric. The video is a result of time spent collaborating with Jai Jashn Dance, a Wolverhampton-based community dance group. The dancers here perform to a popular Bollywood song – an example of the blending of Western and Asian cultures. The multiple images of the dancers allude to the multiple identities we all adopt in contemporary society.