By Jeevan Sangha
Four Sacks (2023) Acrylic on Canvas, 40cm x 50xm
Two Rooms in My Heart 1 (2021) Acrylic on wood 19.5cm x 19.5cm
Two Rooms in My Heart 2 (2021) Acrylic on wood 19.5cm x 19.5cm
Growing up in East London as the child of first generation Bangladeshi parents, Mohammed has been surrounded by the art of making for as long as he can remember. Housing was precarious, as was employment, which meant his childhood was punctuated by displacement and resettlement. His mother, aunts and sisters utilised their inherited crafts from living in Bangladesh to make their new digs feel like home – basketry, weaving, embroidery, furniture building and more.
Mohammed reflected on how his domestic art at home didn’t seem to hold the same ascribed societal prestige as other forms of commercialised art. “When you don’t have things and you can’t buy things, you make and you repair things you already have. Growing up, there was a very utilitarian slant on it, which I only think in retrospect, was very kind of embodied and not very [socially] valued,” he explains.
By Jeevan Sangha