This project examines patterned tablecloths as a material & visual archive through large-scale painting. 

Widely circulated across the Global South, these textiles embody histories of migration, colonial trade & resistance. Their repetitive motifs function as visual codices, carrying imagery that persists across geographies & diasporas. Through this shift from surface to composition, the tablecloth is reframed as an active agent in cultural memory. 

Presented as an installation, the project will establish a dialogue between the intimate act of eating & its collective dimension as a social practice. It highlights how everyday material culture, often overlooked in institutional narratives, participates in shaping contemporary visual vocabularies. In the context of Ireland’s evolving migratory landscape, the project foregrounds the role of diasporic aesthetics in redefining national and transnational identities

The project will be developed in Ormond Art Studios during a residency of 4 months & will result in 8 large-scale acrylic paintings based on selected patterns. The process will involve altering scale, colour & rhythm, shifting their perception from functional design to ambitious abstraction. In this translation, the tablecloth shifts from backdrop to subject, asserting its role within a larger conversation on migration, cultural transmission & visual agency. 

Please note that the details of events listed above are provided by the relevant Local Authorities.