August 2023

Happy Birthday Antonia!!!! The first photo was taken in 2018 at I believe the GRM Awards celebrating and highlighting popular music of mostly Black British origin with some international acts. We met earlier that year when she interviewed me with Claudia for Able Zine. We had such a fun time that night because it ended with D Double E surprisingly coming out for a Lifetime Achievement Award. No one does it like him, your favourite MC’s favourite MC. We were screaming our lungs out and skanking on the upper balcony of Hammersmith Apollo. Shes a truly special soul, beautiful inside and out. I havent met someone as generous and caring, I feel so blessed to have her and Viss. I made them lil felt pieces of art to show them how much they mean to me. Viss’ birthday was in March and I forgot to take a picture of hers, but I thankfully remembered to make a tiktok of this one as well. Viss helped me perfect this design for Antonia An adorable lil mixed chicken and lamb kebab, it was an honour to make as someone who has lived in this corner of North London all my life. (There is a big Greek, Cypriot and Turkish population locally, I appreciate the delicious smell of grilled meat in the air all year round). Lambs happens to be related to her surname rather than one of the meats in the kebab but it all just works together. I could see how happily surprised she was that I had a lil gift for her and Im so glad that she loved it, she spoils everyone so she deserves it. Its a good feeling to be able to make a loved one something special to show how much they mean to you and their smile is the best thank you I could hope for.

I saw pictures of Moki Cherry’s work on the ICA instagram and thought it looked like really fun, bright textiles. Funnily enough as soon I got there I recognised an artwork with a swan on it, looked it up on my phone and realised I had seen half the art before in 2018 in Nottingham! This exhibition Here and Now was more thorough and included textile banners, paintings, clothing/bag, soft sculpture, 2D wooden art, archive material, photographs, sketches and video footage. I liked how colourful and bold the artworks are, with repeated motifs I use in my own work such as hands and skulls. There was a vast array of textiles used, which Moki found in all over the place. She fell in love with Don Cherry, a Jazz musician and they had a family and a band and made music and art together, which fuelled eachother. As a practicing Buddhist there were also a lot of references to Buddhism, with specific hand positions and use of Sanskrit or text. In the video interview she said how she was frustrated that in the western art world people were striving to be unique and absolutely individual, whereas she wanted to recreate and image that has been made thousands of times over millennia (the Buddha), in a form of collaboration rather than individualism. I really appreciated that as it reminded me of when my friend sent me a TEDTalk once about the same topic, striving for individuality is too high pressure and just unrealistic expectations to put on our creative process, we are a combination of all the things we’ve seen, all the references and experiences.  There was a lot of writing from her journals which I related to or connected to about being an artist in a capitalist system, about being a person until people label you a woman, being dismissed as a textile maker. In part of the video footage, Don mentioned Moki’s connection to colour, and from the perspective of being Scandinavian and experiencing light and dark and all the shades in such a different way to countries which have more equal sunlight. I personally find colour quite intimidating, it may sound silly but some people live, breath, sleep, dream in colour theory. I enjoyed her use of colour and fun fabrics. She was a teacher, an artist, a musician, a costume designer. She seemed so fun and engaging when she was talking about the topics of life, death, oppression and energy with children. These tapestries she made were used for educational purposes, enveloping rooms filled with improvisational music and play. Here is an interview with one of Moki’s granddaughters giving further insight from someone who knew her. 

The Royal School of Needlework are starting a series of online talks at the end of September which will cover a range of textile topics. Tickets start at £6 but you can donate more as RSN is a charity. I drew these pictures as Im pretty excited for the talks ahead, especially the ones from my new online embroidery friend Isabella Rosner who is part of the team digitising the RSN collection! There is more information about each talk and how to book HERE

If you cant watch them live, they are available via RSN On Demand service at a later date but Im not sure how much that costs. 

I took Mum to the Design Museum which moved to Kensington in 2016. I cant believe its been so long since I visited the Design Museum as i have never been to the new location, but I have many memories of going there with Dad to see various exhibitions, including one about chairs and one about family friend, architect Cedric Price. 

Anyway, I didnt get a chance to look around the whole museum but the exhibition we went to see was stunning. It is the first exhibition in the Design Museum’s history dedicated to creators from South Asia. This exhibition, The Offbeat Sari - Indian Fashion Unravelled was curated in sections: Innovation, Form, Identity, Resistance and Materiality. It showcased only saris made in the past ten years, as it stated saris are often looked at as timeless, but this misses the opportunity to focus on progression and innovation in the field. 

Copied from the exhibition text: “Woven from steel. Stitched from hand-distressed denim. Knotted, pleated or belted. Worn in protest, celebration, or simply on the daily commute. The offbeat sari is the sari radically reimagined by designers, wearers and makers for a diverse, contemporary world. Conventionally a single piece of unstitched fabric, the sari's unfixed form is inherently fluid. Its many different shapes and textures, adapted over the course of millennia, reflect identity, social class, environment and function and immense creativity. The sari is a language expressed through fabric, which has been intertwined with evolving cultural influences over time.

In the past decade, the sari has been re-energised. Designers catering to a new generation across India's burgeoning cities are experimenting with new drapes and innovative materials. Younger women, who previously associated the sari with dressing up, have transformed it into contemporary everyday fashion. Individuals are also embodying saris in ways that give voice to who they are, exploring plural and nonconforming identities, and challenging conventions of femininity. This exhibition explores the creative, often unexpected ways in which the sari is a site for design innovation and an empowering vessel for self-expression in India today.”

From a purely aesthetic point of view, me and Mum love looking at textiles and seeing all the different types of fabrics, designs, embellishments and details embroidered on. Last month we saw Ashish Gupta’s fully sequinned tops, bottoms, dresses and even jock straps at William Morris Gallery which absolutely stunned us. This exhibition was gorgeous in many other ways, especially connecting us to our South Asian heritage. Mum has worn saris and traditional ware over her life but we’re not well versed in history or contemporary South Asian culture including fashion. It did inspire us to play dress up with the saris Nan gave me. Before colonial times these long pieces of fabric were worn without under garments, but Victorian prudes forced our ancestors to be ashamed and cover up. 

The exhibition noted that between 1960s to the early 2000s, many people stopped wearing saris as a way to fight against patriarchal expectations of domesticity and focus from the male gaze in Bollywood. Over the years people of all genders have reclaimed this clothing as a fashion statement and form of self expression. We saw images of saris which were featured in Bollywood films and inspired nostalgic references from modern looks. Then there were saris created from experimental materials or processes which push the boundaries of textiles beyond purely functional, including puffer material and distressed denim. 

The exhibition highlighted street style in cities like Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore where saris are worn with heels or tailored clothing, even tshirts and trainers for a more casual look. Saris have been worn in many settings alongside or inspired by sports such as cricket or skateboarding. There was a large display of photographs of people of all genders wearing saris mixed with street styles showing individualism and personal expression. I had an amazing personal moment while looking at this display because there was a big painted sign for Saree Palace, which has Hindi words for types of sarees, and their english counterparts at the bottom of the sign. Since I have learned the Hindi alphabet I was able to match these english and Hindi words which gave me an accomplished feeling. 

There was examples of how saris have been used to make political statement such as the pink saree and matching bamboo stick representing the Gulabi Gang who fight patriarchy in the form of fighting against child marriage and sexual abuse. Gulabi is the Hindi word for pink. Another example was the Hargila Army, a group of women in Assam trying to protect the worlds rarest stork. Alongside creating large headpieces of the bird, they weave images of it directly into the textiles to raise awareness and fundraise, this gives many women the opportunity to become conservationists or get fashion qualifications to gain financial independence. 

I also enjoyed the athleisure section which showed a fashion advert of a model wearing a sari with trainers while she plays cricket, as well as racer stripe inspired design often seen in sportswear, and Oorbee Roy wearing a sari with vans and a helmet to skateboard in a viral video from 2021.

In the New Materialities section, it said “Look closer at the sari. Beneath its structure, drape and styling, the sari is simply a textile. Yet within this simplicity lies a rich world of expression. The sari's weave, texture, colour and surface are a canvas for the incredible creativity of contemporary Indian designers, craftspeople and designer-artisans. Their work often draws on India's craft histories to inform new techniques.

Knowledge of textile-making passed down through generations can be seen in intricate processes, from silks hand-woven in Kanchipuram to stainless-steel sculpting in New Delhi. Natural materials, such as rain-fed organic cotton and indigo dye, are being revived and cultivated from seed to cloth.”

I absolutely love learning and seeing how things are made, maybe its my Autism but I find it fascinating to understand how things are created, the whole process needed to make something new out of raw materials. This section had objects such as raw cotton, cards for jacquard machines, video footage of factories, draped fabric made of woven metal, fine detailed muslin, a Charkha (spinning wheel), design charts, wooden printing blocks and indigo thread. Textiles is human history, it couldnt be made without peoples knowledge and dedication to every step of the process. There was a cool short film called Sari Men that you can watch HERE and within this you can see such innovation as a musical, lit up sari which took the creator 3 years to complete. There was also an absolutely stunning sari which showed every single stage of the sari making process from harvesting the cotton, to dying, to weaving, to surface design, to taking it to be sold at a market. 

I have never had the privilege to see such a showcase of beautiful saris before, there were so many colours, textures, combinations, styling choices, inspirations, materials and meanings. Even though I am not physically connected to my South Asian culture, the vast history of embroidery and textiles in general is something I feel in my bones. If you are able to and interested, I definitely recommend purchasing the exhibition guide, I havent read it yet but it looks like an amazing resource especially if youre not able to make it to the Design Museum to see for yourself. 

Greedy railway companies (owned by european companies whos countries railway systems are actually nationalised and in public ownership) have decided to cut staff and shut down ticket offices. This has already happened across Londons underground network where many ticket offices have been turned into Tiny Parks as you can see from my pictures of Wood Green station below. Staff are usually nearby on the Tube, but across the whole of the UK’s rail network, stations vary in size. Ticket offices ensure all kinds of people can access the transport service, people who cant use the ticket machines, people with learning disabilities, people with no smart phones or internet access to pre-book, as well as Disabled people and the elderly. To close all ticket offices is a huge injustice and removes accessibility for people who want to travel independently, a right many take for granted. Why must already marginalised people have their worlds made even smaller and more difficult because greedy people want to squeeze as much money from a service as possible. Staff will be spread thinner and thus put in more dangerous and precarious positions just in order to do their job. Its generally cheaper to fly to another country in europe than it is to travel across the UK via train so a serious change needs to be made, but not by cutting jobs and much needed services. There is a march in London on the 31st August. 

RMT have asked people to respond to the public consultation HERE to find your local train company or HERE for a general letter, or email schedule17@transportfocus.org.uk and ticketoffice@londontravelwatch.org.uk directly. Public consultation closes 1st September. 

Petition Email your MP

This was the girls 3rd time visiting Nopalera Sessions at Wolves Lane, but the first time with my cousin Gina as well as Josh and his girlfriend Zoe. Josh and Zoe, especially have been to many different spiritual and musical events so I was hoping they would really enjoy this place not only for the performance but the beautiful cactus covered setting. They ended up being our sober companions as the rest of us were tripping balls, so we had completely different experiences. Last time I wanted some kind of visual psychedelic effect but it didnt kick in for me, this time I got what I asked for! I wanted to see the Cacti dancing and moving, and they did! They looked surreal, like comic style drawings almost. It was kind of intense as theres other people there, the sun as still up and the event started a bit late but once I had found stability I was able to take in the music and atmosphere. It was a full moon and Mantawoman played the Yangqin joined by Garwyn Linnel who played Cello. They were being guided by I Ching, a Daoist text connected to Yin and Yang which informed the improvised music they played alongside throwing coins and mark making on pages of paper. At times I found it hard to concentrate fully on what was happening musically but the waves of sound alongside the candles made the space move and light up with waves of warm light. Im so lucky to have people who all want to share these experiences together, on shrooms, stoned or otherwise. Its a beautiful local community project to support and get to enjoy the beauty and spirituality which comes with nature and music. 

As I write this I have just got home from seeing Spongebob the Musical at Southbank Centre with the girlies and what can I even say. I really bloody enjoyed it. I had no idea what to expect and it was a rollercoaster of colour, sound, cringe, pure joy and sadness. It was a feast for the eyes and ears. The main reason I wanted to see the show was because the person who I wanted to win the first season of Drag Race UK was playing Plankton! And the second reason we wanted to go, was big nostalgic energy, as Gareth Gates was playing Squidward. For my international readers, he was a runner up on Pop Idol in 2002 and I probably had a bit of a crush on him back in the day. 

The story of the play was a bit chaotic, as were the group musical numbers but there were so many amazing solos, the whole cast was so talented and looked like they were enjoying themselves. I really like how the characters were interpreted with the clothing and accessories they wore which highlighted their personalities. A lot of the cast played different roles throughout and it was really well curated with different clothing, props and costumes. 

The audience was mostly adults and there was a massive standing ovation at the end, and massive cheers throughout, the happiness and energy in the room was infectious. This summary seems all over the place but that kind of describes the show (with all due respect). Near the end two massive bubble machines went off which was pretty whimsical. I have to give a special shout out to the woman who played Pearl, she was perfect. To be fair so was the person who played Patrick as well as Spongebob. Overall it really had amazing highlights, references to previous episodes/jokes and fun choreography. I really liked how some of the costume were made with materials like rubber gloves for sea urchins and a coral hat made out of those red beer pong cups.

One thing i didnt like was how relating to part of the plot where everyone is told to stay home, these posters reminiscent of covid precaution posters were shown on screen. “Stay home” “protect the kelp” “save yourselves” and i just hate how early pandemic experiences are either being used as a joke or meant to represent some distant past, as if covid is not longer a threat. Just something i have to roll my eyes at. 

After the show, with stunning weather we sat by the thames and had a smoke and debrief. As we walked past the skatepark we saw the best graffiti which said Kenough in blue barbie font on one of the ramps. Then as we were sitting on a massive stone chatting, Davina DeCampo (the drag queen we love) walked past and Gina told her how much we love her and I blew a kiss as she walked away from our big cloud of smoke. Id had a really draining emotional day where I was hysterically spiralling and I almost just didnt want to go tonight but Im so glad I didnt listen to that negative voice because it really did lift my spirits. 

I love exploring London, especially on a beautiful sunny day after a morning of stress and depression. It lifts my spirits to see architecture and public art. Not only did I see beautiful mosaics on my way to the Southbank Centre, I saw some union flags in rainbow colours which looked nice in the sun despite my general judgement of what it represent, there were giant inflatable cats, graffiti as well as these two banners on the side of the building. I saw the hazelnut one as we left the show and the other as we were walking back to the station so I missed the third work which is named after the area and battle (Waterloo). 

I absolutely love that Hall has connected the british empires industrial revolution beginning (fuelled by funds from enslaved African people’s labour and stolen wealth from colonies) with the climate crisis we face today. I believe colonialism was not only a racist project which changed the face of the globe in terms of moving different groups of people across the planet, but all of that action and industrialisation has lead directly to much of the problems we face today. The past 500 years have killed a planet which has existed for millennia because of greedy europeans. 

From Southbank Centre website: “Ed Hall is an artist and banner-maker who has created banners for campaigns, artists and trade unions since 1984.

Hazelnuts do not grow on a dead planet is a reference to Julian of Norwich, a 14th-century mystic and believed to be author of the earliest surviving work in English to be written by a woman.

Despite writing within a religious framework, she believed that all things were created as equal partners on a beautiful Earth, and wanted humanity to take care of creation.

We have no other home, Hall says, ‘Man-made climate change is top of any political agenda. It is interesting for me that Britain was the first country to industrialise and began the process of pumping carbon into the atmosphere, creating the greenhouse effect.”

Its Carnival Weekend here in the UK. Notting Hill Carnival to be precise the biggest Carnival in the northern hemisphere. Its believed that the origins were in 1958 where an interracial couple (the wife, Majbritt Morrison was Swedish and the husband Raymond Morrison was Jamaican). A group of white kids followed and called her slurs. Overnight approx 300-400 white people started to attack the houses of West Indian people which lasted until the 5th September. The following year in January 1959, Claudia Jones, a Black Nationalist, Communist, Feminist, Activist and Writer organised the Caribbean Carnival held in St Pancras Town Hall. Later in the year, in May 1959, an Antiguan Carpenter and hopeful Lawyer called Kelso Cochrane was murdered in a racist attack on his way home in Notting Hill. This is why Carnival is in Notting Hill, a place for mourning, celebrating our Caribbean culture and history, coming together, playing Mas, being loud and unapologetic. Caribbean people and people from all over the british empire were invited here, recruited to work in the NHS, to rebuild in “mother land” after WWII. They were met with the cold, grey, harsh, horrific, racism and xenophobia. 

When people from the Windrush Generation (Caribbean people who came to the UK between 1948-1972) oftentimes they had to leave their children in the Caribbean with extended family, while they worked and earned here. Dr. Claudette Crawford-Brown Coined the term Barrel Children, as the main way they connected to their parents, sometimes for well over a decade, was through barrels they received from the UK filled with materials, foods and other practical items. 

I went to the Black Cultural Archives in Brixton to see an exhibition called Over A Barrel: Windrush Children, Tragedy and Triumph, co-curated by Nadine White and Black Cultural Archives. It is estimated that 6,000 children came over with their parents during this time, but that over 90,000 children were left in the Caribbean. Although the exhibition focusses on our Afro-Caribbean community, my mum experienced the same. She didnt see her parents until she was 3 which is when she came to England with the rest of her siblings to join my grandparents here in London. 

There was a short film on display which interviewed many of these Barrel Children, speaking of their experiences with extended family, unfamiliar parents and a new society and country to get used to. Some spoke of how when they met their parents they were strangers. This reminded me of when my aunt met her Dad for the firs time in England, she asked Nan (her mum) “Why you tek the mans handbag” which was a bag filled with coats as they arrived on a cold island. One of the participants in the video related the disconnect and separation to what her ancestors and family experienced during the Slave Trade, where generations of families were repeatedly destroyed and fragmented. 

When the Afro-Caribbean children arrived here they were met with racism at school not just from their peers but also teachers. They were disproportionately put in ESN schools (Educationally Sub Normal). This was because the way they spoke sounded different, but they spoke english in their own amazing ways which formed in british colonies by colonised people from all over, a type of Creole. This happened during the 60s and 70s, and in 1971 Bernard Coard wrote How The West Indian Child Is Made Educationally Sub-Normal In the British School System. This galvanised the parents to organise and create saturday schools and clubs which focussed on Black History and lifting the self esteem of these children who were being neglected and failed by general education. Also factor in that these children were dealing with trauma, of leaving teh family they knew in the Caribbean, starting over in a new place in a land very far away, they were dealing with socio-economic difficulties and dynamics at home which just meant they needed more support, not for access to education to be limited at ESN schools.

Then decades later in 2018, the Home Office destroyed landing cards and records of many Caribbean people who came during the Windrush Generation either as adults or children. Many have been deported, many have died before, during or after the process of deportation, many have died waiting for compensation and justice. These people made britain their home, paid taxes, contributed to their communities, and they were subjected to abuse, deportation, confinement. Britain has always been a place of migration, from Romans, Germanic people, Vikings, Normans and Dutch. But whens its Black, Brown, racialised people from the colonies, WHO WERE BASICALLY INVITED under the British Nationality Act 1948 (which declared everyone from a colony a British Subject/Citizen), suddenly its a problem. In actual fact, the british government didnt even for a second think that people from the Caribbean, Africa and South Asia would arrive at their shores, they were hoping that people from british colonies such as Canada and Australia would come back. They educated their british subjects (of all races) to see britain at the mother land, so of course people from all over the globe would want to come. Especially after many served in world wars fighting for queen/king and country. 

Its no coincidence that 2023 marks the 75th Anniversary of both Empire Windrush and also the NHS. Nurses were recruited from the Caribbean, and without immigrants the NHS would not have survived into this century. We have so much to repay this generation for, not just because I am Indo-Caribbean diaspora because we have all benefited from the contributions of immigrants in the UK. From music, to academia, sports and politics, healthcare and culture.

It was really moving and humbling to see this exhibition, looking at ephemera including photographs, passports, newsletters, posters and other archive documents. 

I saw a video on Instagram from The Foundling Museum about how they have the largest collection of everyday 18th century textiles. They have a display on all about the tokens which were left by the mothers with these babies so they could be identified. During the 1700s there was so much poverty in the UK especially in the capital. Infant mortality rate was awful, babies were being left because Mums couldnt afford to look after them, they were widowed, or the product of affairs, all manner of reasons so The Foundling Hospital was founded by Thomas Coram in 1739 so that babies could be cared for without risk of abandonment. William Hogarth was a big supporter of this institution, even designing their logo as well as fostering children with his wife. We was a patron and got his artist friends to support them too. It actually became London’s first public art gallery, where many graduates from the Royal Academy of Art would exhibit and donate works to fundraise for. Because the Hospital began being funded by patrons and supporters (it was quite fashionable at the time for rich people to support these kind of causes and the Foundling Hospital was particularly popular) but funds were still tight. Before they received government funding in order to accept all babies upon arrival, there was a lottery where mothers would have to pick a ball out of a bag, if it was white their baby could stay, if it was black or red, they unfortunately couldnt. I recently learnt about this on a episode of Who Do You Think You Are? With Chris Ramsey a comedian. HERE you can look at the displays online.

The ground floor of the museum detailed the institutions history, from the historical context of it being founded, documents for babies, along with tokens left by the mothers, information about eating and educational conditions as well as philanthropists of the time and patrons. There was a lot of historical paintings from the 1700 and 1800s from various patrons and donations, as well as staff who worked there over the years. I was disappointed to see only one small scrap of fabric, as well as an embroidered token with initials on the surface, although I did purchase a book called Threads of Feeling: The London Foundling Hospital’s Textile Tokens 1740-1770. The importance of this collection is that very little everyday fabric and textiles from this time exists, because working people would have worn and used their clothes until they were rags, and thus not able to be preserved and archived like wealthy textile examples. 

The walls and stairs case was covered in artworks, not only historical paintings, but a series of portraits with people who used to live in the Foundling Hospital as well as contemporary commissions from artists. Some artworks were commissions in response to the tokens previously mentioned, alongside the scraps of fabric were coins, pieces of jewellery and locks. The basement floor had an exhibition on called Finding Family “Finding Family questions the idea of family through art from the 17th Century to the present day. Looking at the ways in which artists have represented and responded to ideas of family, past and present, the exhibition presents a selection of historic and contemporary works of art that explore blood relations, social bonds, personal connections and love. The works are accompanied by creative writing by participants from Tracing Our Tales (the Museum’s award-winning programme for young care leavers) who have responded to the exhibition’s themes from the context of their own lived experience.” 

I was really moved by the combination of contemporary artworks, with historical paintings alongside poems and words by graduated of the Tracing Out Tales programme which were very raw and emotional. About identity, grief, family dynamics, abandonment. Family isnt just about your blood, its who has your back, your community, who you care for and are cared by, your chosen family. 

I liked the eclectic, organisation of this piece by Annabel Dover called Museum of My Mother, Kate. 

“Working with a variety of media including painting, photography, video, cyanotype, and drawing, Annabel Dover is drawn to objects and the invisible stories that surround them. Focussing on her relationship with her mother, who recently died, Dover has reproduced a collection of her mother's belongings as watercolour and pencil drawings that relate to the Foundling tokens. 

These family 'artefacts, including dolls' clothes made from her mother's dresses, pill packets and perfume bottles, were the things Dover rediscovered when clearing her mother's house. The eclectic array of objects in the painting echo the multi-layered nature of their uneasy mother-daughter relationship. The paints are made using pigments extracted from plants in the garden and fabrics that belonged to her mother.”