Horrifyingly Beautiful

An exhibition by The Singh Twins in the UK sees some of the ugliest chapters of India's textile history transformed into art you can't turn away from

- Anjana Vaswani

For an Indian viewer, the image of Mumtaz Mahal— in whose memory the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan had the magnificent mausoleum Taj Mahal built—is a familiar one. We’ve seen it in everything from school texts to decorative objects and theatre. So, the sight of the monarch in a pair of jeans in a medieval castle some 160 kilometres from London triggers a strange stirring. It’s like bumping into an old friend after decades—you recognise her, yet she seems entirely different. The mixed media artwork ‘Indigo: The Colour of India’—a combination of traditional hand painting, digital elements and scanned historical archival material—is part of The Singh Twins’ Slaves of Fashion exhibition, on display at Norwich Castle Museum and East Gallery at Norwich University of the Arts till January 22, 2023.

Founded by William the Conqueror in the 11th century, the castle in Norwich, UK, is listed as a building of exceptional interest (Grade 1), and that it has, at different times, served as both a prison and a sanctuary makes it the perfect venue for an exhibition that presents the dual narratives around India’s textile history. “The exhibition, which took four years to create, explores narratives of the Empire, colonialism, conflict and slavery through the lens of India’s historical textile trade, and the relevance of these themes to modernday legacies and debates around environment, ethical consumerism, racism and the politics of trade—all of which are equally important at this time,” say the artists.