Kamilah Ahmed Reframes the Arab Hall in Silk and Brass
Water has been trickling through the Arab Hall's marble fountain since 1881, watched over by Damascene tiles that Frederic Leighton chose himself, tile by tile, on a buying trip to Syria. This summer, for the first time in the room's history, that fountain sits beneath something new: an embroidered arch, suspended in mid-air, catching the light the way the gold mosaics have always done.
The work is called Facets in Resonance, created by Kamilah Ahmed, a London-based British Bangladeshi embroidery artist whose training runs from Chelsea College of Art through the Royal College of Art and into the ateliers of Dior, Valentino and Alexander McQueen. She spent a decade in couture embroidery before turning her needle towards architecture and interiors, most recently leading embroidery design at de Gournay. That range shows in the arch itself, which asks silk thread to behave like carved wood, hammered brass and painted tile all at once.
Ahmed builds her forms from Jamdani weaving and Ari hook embroidery, techniques rooted in Bangladeshi textile tradition, then pushes them through hand-wrapped silk warp structures and laser-cut motifs generated by stitch programming. The result reads as sculpture as much as textile: a three-dimensional lattice echoing the Hall's mashrabiya screens and divan marquetry, with hand-cut brass mesh flowers layered in to pick up the golden sheen of the room's mosaics. It's a striking use of digital tools in service of handwork, the laser cutter doing precision work so the hand-stitching can carry the emotional weight.
The Arab Hall at Leighton House ©RBKC. Image Siobhan Doran.
The commission feels at home here through its conversation with the Hall's own history. Leighton began planning the space as early as 1870, sourcing tiles in Damascus and drawing on journeys across Spain, Turkey, Egypt and Sicily, a story now unpacked in Dr Melanie Gibson's new book, The Arab Hall, Frederic Leighton: Traveller and Collector. Ahmed's own influences travel too, from her life in London to time spent in Italy and India, and her practice leans on threadwork, beading, appliqué and cutwork to tell those journeys in cloth.
This isn't Ahmed's first major recognition. She was named the inaugural recipient of the Collect Open Award at Somerset House in 2026, and holds a Queen Elizabeth Scholarship Trust Award taking her into advanced training with master metalworkers. Working from her studio at Cockpit Arts Bloomsbury, she traces how pattern moves across South and Southeast Asia, following trade routes through thread.
As Daniel Robbins, Senior Curator of Leighton House and Sambourne House, puts it: "The Arab Hall has an extraordinary capacity to surprise, delight and inspire." Ahmed's arch does exactly that, giving a Victorian celebration of Islamic craftsmanship a contemporary maker to speak back to it. Facets in Resonance remains in place until 31 July 2026, alongside an exhibition in the Tavolozza Drawings Gallery tracing the Hall's original construction.
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Further Information:
Facets in Resonance by Kamilah Ahmed is on show at Leighton House, London, until 31 July 2026.
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Image Credits:
Facets in Resonance by Kamilah Ahmed, Leighton House. ©RBKC. Image Jaron James.