First British Asian Sari
A Mumbai-born illustrator based in north west London has won the top prize in the British Sari Story national competition for new British Asian sari patterns with his "Sari for Harrow’.
Nilesh Mistry, 40, was presented with the award by Baroness Flather, the first British Asian woman to receive a peerage, at the British Sari Story launch at Brent Museum last night (Thursday 27 September 2007).
"I am absolutely thrilled," he said. "I feel so proud that I’ve been able to put something back into Indian culture and the Indian visual arts in this country, to make a contribution to such as traditional item as the sari and to reinterprete it for our times."
Mistry’s sari shows Harrow’s coat of arms and the famous public school but also the ‘real’ Harrow - an exquisite border of its citizens including a Somali woman in a Burka, a hoodie with a mobile phone, a Gujarati housewife, a Polish builder and Afro Caribbean woman and a mullah.
The competition, created and staged by the cultural arts organisation Bridging Arts, called for people around the country to create sari designs reflecting British Asian life today. Entrants entered patterns ranging from cup cakes and the Yorkshire weather to the Union Jack and the London Underground.
Ten finalists had their patterns printed on to new saris by the University of East London which are now on display at Brent Museum.
Funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund and part of the Mayor of London’s India Now celebrations, the British Sari Story exhibition marks the 60th anniversary of Indian independence by celebrating British Asian heritage. Also on display are drawings by artist Helen Scalway of a sari shop in Tooting, south London and saris collected by children at Barham Primary School, Wembley, chosen because of their particular significance to their families.
