The Congest & The Square

Ambi, an exhibition, co-curated by Jenny Brownrigg and Sabrina Henry (CCA), took works from the textiles and fashion holdings at The Glasgow School of Art Archives and Special Collections as its starting point. A series of commissions invited four Scotland and UK-based artists and designers - Fiona Jardine, Raisa Kabir, Hanneline Visnes and Rabiya Choudhry - to track the diverse histories of their selected piece in order to present a new story or work from it. The title of the show, ‘ambi’, allows for dual stories, and acknowledges that the archival items of interest have, in a number of cases dual origins and appropriations. For example, ‘ambi’ is Punjabi for the pattern known in Scotland as paisley pattern. Pursuing a line of research connected with the manufacture of carpets in the late 19th and early 20th century, Fiona Jardine looks at the relationship between space, place and labour. Originally concerned with weaving lace in Darvel, Ayrshire, by 1898 the firm of Alexander Morton & Sons had established an enterprise in Killybegs, Donegal making hand-knotted carpets. Prominent architects and designers such as George Walton and C.F.A. Voysey produced designs for Morton which were worked up by women in Killybegs, and the name ‘Donegal’ became synonymous with carpets of the highest quality. Jardine's work for ambi, The Congest & The Square, took the form of a curated exhibition, a recorded talk and a poster (free to take away).