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...

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Image Credits:

Facets in Resonance by Kamilah Ahmed, Leighton House. ©RBKC. Image Jaron James.