THE GOLDEN MASS
I was 1 of 3 South Asian artists for the ‘Young Common meets Old Wealth’ project that explores heritage, roots, and culture commissioned by Desi Blitz x Birmingham City Council x The Common Wealth Games 2022.
I interviewed a few South Asian volunteers about their thoughts on the Commonwealth and then created a painting reflecting these thoughts.
There has been a running theme where people have said it feels like "a post-colonial club" "pointless" and "most countries are only a part of this club because they feel it will benefit them but I don't think it does" on the other hand I saw Rita Payne (The chair of the UK branch of the Commonwealth) say "The commonwealth is aspirational." Although most think of the commonwealth as something bad, there are still others that think it's working out, I know people who've had their hard work recognised by the Birmingham games 2022, and they were directly affiliated with the games. However, I've read back in March 2022 that Global Majority community leaders felt the Global Majority communities haven't received any support and felt they were missing out on opportunities.
So overall, I think it will always be a mixed bag of thoughts.
After exploring different ideas for the art piece, I settled on a painting that hopefully can be interpreted differently based on the audience's own thoughts of the commonwealth. That way if you see the commonwealth as a beneficial thing then you will see it for that but if you see it as a negative topic then the painting should also be seen that way.
Here is an article written about the project as well as a small documentary video for you to watch if you're interested.
The final piece is a one-of-a-kind digital painting, printed on gloss metallic paper and mounted within a golden frame.
Fig.1 on the left
I wanted to show a form of imbalance within the painting. Queen Elizabeth is at the bottom and the 54 commonwealth countries are above her.
Positive view: I chose to have the countries above as a way of showing the weight of all these countries that rest on her shoulders. As the head of the Commonwealth, she must balance the needs of the countries.
Negative view: There are a lot of countries and any disruption could cause the overall form to collapse. There are more countries than there are heads of the commonwealth, yet the queen and England are seen as the most important topics throughout any discussions regarding the commonwealth.
Here is a breakdown of the overall design for this painting.
Fig.2 on the right
I played around with the lighting to tell a narrative. The queen is the most well-lit, then the countries which were first members of the ‘British Commonwealth of Nations’ to be semi-lit, and finally a broad range of leaders for the 54 countries to have rim lighting.
Positive view: The queen is the main one and therefore will be the most in the light. She takes charge of the situation and leads the way for other countries.
Negative view: Why is the queen more lit than the others when the commonwealth should be seen as a fair and common ground for all members? Australia, Canada, England, New Zealand and South Africa were reported to have benefited the most as being members of the commonwealth compared to other countries hence why they are semi-lit.
Fig.3 all the images above
There is a timescale across the painting, starting from when the queen was coronated, to the initial members of the ‘British Commonwealth of nations’ and then to the point where there are 54 countries as members of the Commonwealth as of the year 2022.
I also chose to have her wearing ceremonial clothes of the coronation as well as her jeweled crown to also talk about the fact that the precious resources which England gained were by exploiting other countries.
