Own is a publication featuring a series of photographs of South Asian women reclaiming artefacts lost to British colonial histories. The art direction here invokes mainstream fashion magazines, which often ignore the political history of fashion.
This publication targets the intersections of class and colonialism – the jewellery of Indian royalty is blown up larger than life on British Asians, asking whether museums’ colonial image of the subcontinent is true representation for the modern South Asian woman.
Photography assisted by Anna Haret.
Words by me.
This project began with a research report into how the Great Exhibition of 1851 introduced Indian culture to Britain. I traced the influences of the exhibition to modern attitudes towards India through academic and visual research, visiting the colonial possessions of Britain in museum collections.
Mood board for art direction – I wanted contemporary photography poses and styles edited as vintage magazine advertisements.
I used Blender, Photoshop and Illustrator to combine my photographs with the artefacts, sourcing images from museum archives or recreating them completely in 3D.
3D renderings of the jewellery I saw in museums.
Showing colonial attitudes through modern advertising conventions.
