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Medium: Plaster 

FALLEN CAPITAL
Resonate Beasts | Media Studies | RCA



Curated with the impetus to educate and improve public taste in design, the V&A Cast Courts originally celebrated works ‘from Ahmedabad to Zurich’. Nonetheless, the current landscape of the exhibition is such that it only centers on the marvels of European history.

Archival research reveals a vast acquisition of works from regions such as India, South Africa, and Western Australia which were displayed in the Colonial and Indian Exhibition, and later retained for the Cast Courts in the South Kensington Museum (now the V&A Museum). The Education department collected colonial artefacts as they were considered essential to Britain’s national character. The display of such items was an opportunity for the public to become acquainted with the condition of their colonies; it was a chance for people to see the progress made by their fellow countrymen beyond the seas. Colonial artefacts collected from cities in contrast to rural regions highlighted the large development of industrial and commercial value for the advantage of Great Britain. Yet today, these artefacts are absent from the Cast Courts, deemed “unsuitable for the exhibition”. The museum committee recommended the ‘satisfactory disposal’ of Indian material which were not reinstated with their European counterparts after the refurbishment of the Cast Courts in 19594; 12 years after India had attained independence from British Raj.

 The portrayal of Britain’s acquisition of colonial artefacts only acknowledges its history as the spread of civilization, thus obscuring alternative histories of exploitation, disease, and racism. Wemyss terms this as the dominant discourse of the ‘Invisible Empire’; the subtle but enduring structures that sustain colonial power.  It is evident that the power structures which stem from the legacy of 400 year of rule have not simply disappeared with the dissolution of formal administration as they are re-instated through the ways knowledge is produced and shared. Thus, there is a continuous and arduous need for decolonizing epistemologies. 

In acknowledging that power is dispersed in the form of knowledge that is enacted and circulated through social institutions, Fallen Capital seeks to unsettle the structures that keep the Empire’s legacy invisible.



750 x 250 x 250 mm 
 Through explorations in casting, my work seeks to underscore the visibility of the European “capital”, upheld by the often-invisible labour of its colonized counterpart. The structural column that once supported the capital draws inspiration from the Sanchi Stupa Gateway – a monument once displayed in the Cast Courts which is now lost within archival history.




255 x 168 x 270 mm 
Research Booklet containing references to archival documents 







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