Saturday 15 January 2011

'Kandahar, my homeland' and cutting up my curtains


I’ve just finished a short film about cutting up my curtains http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wwnp-Fzka_Y

My film was inspired by the Sanderson fabric, ‘Kandahar’ - with which our sitting room curtains are made and by the poems of Afghan refugee Shabibi Shah.


In the film, I imagine 'Kandahar' the pattern escaping into an idyllic English country garden…
 


 
 
 
 




 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
'Kandahar' was originally adapted in 1967 from an Indienne block printed chinz pattern (c.1860) by the Sanderson design studio at their Perivale wallpaper factory. Sanderson then launched 'Kandahar' as a matching surface printed wallpaper and a screen printed cotton fabric as part of their 1968/9 Third Triad Collection. The fabric cost 12/5 (twelve and five pence) per yard. According to Sanderson's archivist Michael Parry, 'the design was named after the second largest city in Afghanistan because of its proximity to Pakistan & India (the Persian/Indian cashmere style having originated in the western Himalayas).'