AMBA SAYAL-BENNETT: GEOMETRIES OF DIFFERENCE

A new commission by London-based interdisciplinary artist Amba Sayal-Bennett, exploring the layered architecture and rich history of Somerset House.

Drawing inspiration from architect Sir William Chambers’ 18th-century drawings for Somerset House, Sayal-Bennett has created a new series of sculptures installed in multiple locations around the site. She is interested in how the British colonial imagination and imperialist attitudes of the time were encoded in the designs of his buildings. Chambers drew upon the classical architecture of the Greek and Roman traditions as well as architecture from East Asia. Similarly, to make her artworks, Sayal-Bennett quotes fragments of his original drawings and remixes them into new geometric abstractions. Her pattern-rich designs are rendered in powdercoated laser-cut steel, resulting in sculptural reliefs that reflect on the past as well as look to the future.