Risham Syed

Ali Trade Center Series IV (with Buddleia)

Risham Syed discovered a box of woven Chinese silk panels that was her mother’s most prized possession. Her mother had long talked about making quilts with these panels; there were many questions about what she would do with so many panels, which were ultimately used to  compose Risham Syed’s work Ali Trade Center Series IV (with Buddleia). After her mother’s death, Syed began to explore the history of this fabric as a material linked to commerce, power, social class, and culture, and thus linked to a history of violence, hardship, upheaval, and conflict. The objects, materials, textures, seals, and patina speak to us of time, history, memory, emotions. In seeking out mundane objects typically found in Punjabi-Victorian homes, she has also reflected on the rise, fall, and merger of large British companies such as Johnson Brothers and British Home Stores that evoke the complexity of international business competition throughout history. The presence of the Ali Trade Center tower is an extension of this commercial imperialism. The various iconographic references are located on a map of the region that Syed printed to give the work a geopolitical context. The most symbolic is the Budleia, also called butterfly tree, native to China, which is an uncontrollable invasive species present today throughout the world.