Imperial Tea
I was fortunate to have the opportunity to be involved in a special exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum, South Kensington. Responding to the theme of Echoes connected to the Colonial European galleries, I investigated the ‘hidden’ history of the teapot - tea as a product of empire and a symbol of colonial power). In response to an ornate silver teapot by Jean-Baptiste de Lens (museum no. 4246:1&2-1856; 4271-1857).
Tea was popularised in C17th and C18th Britain following imports from the British East India Company (BEIC). Initially sourced from China, Britain exported opium from colonial India to China in exchange for tea, which led to the First Opium War. To avoid reliance on Chinese tea, Britain began growing tea in its colonies - India and Ceylon (Sri Lanka), relying on land taken from local communities, forced/low paid labour, poor working/housing conditions. Tea plantations enforced racial labour hierarchies. Tea also played a symbolic role in resistance to Empire, with the 1773 'Boston Tea Party' which helped spark the American Revolution.
Tea became a global mass consumer product and echoes of its past production remain - tea producing regions are still shaped by Colonial-era structures (poor working and housing conditions), most profit is held by global brands in wealthier nations.
I created a welded mild steel teapot constructed from vertical and horizontal bars, forming a cage-like structure that carries no functional capacity to hold or pour tea. The work echoes the familiar silhouette of the museum teapot while stripping it of refinement, utility, and comfort. Where the silver tea pot signified elegance, wealth and domestic ritual, industrial steel introduces weight, rigidity, and exposure.
The sculpture interrogates the colonial systems that underwrote the global tea trade. The cage form suggests confinement and economic entrapment, making visible the coercive structures historically obscured by decorative tea-ware. By removing function, the piece disrupts the ritual of tea and challenges the museum’s tendency to aestheticize empire, with beautiful objects. It stands as both echo and rupture: a hollow vessel that reveals the violence contained within the original form.
