■ LUMINOUS, UNSETTLING, BEAUTIFUL and thought-provoking: The Singh Twins’ exhibition, Slaves of Fashion is now showing at Norwich Castle Museum & Art Gallery and East Gallery, Norwich University of the Arts until 22 January.This two-centred exhibition explores contemporary debates, interweaving themes of Empire, slavery, conflict and consumerism with European connections to India’s historical trade in textiles.The two city-centre locations allow the internationally renowned British-Asian sister artists to display large-scale triptych artworks, as well as accompanying archival materials which inform their meticulous research.
Visitors to the Norwich Castle Museum galleries are greeted by eleven exquisitely detailed full-length por traits.Their dark themes are presented in such a way that viewers are at first drawn to the beauty and delicacy of the Indian fabrics and designs. As the eye absorbs the finer details within these luminous images of symbolic figures, a realisation dawns that each is in fact a hard-hitting essay in the complex relationships between Europe’s colonial past with the South Asian subcontinent.The luminosity is enhanced as the hand-drawn and digital images are printed on textile, mounted in light boxes and displayed in a dark-walled gallery.