Ben Uri Research Unit

Born: 1975 Bangladesh

Year of Migration to the UK: 1980

Other name/s: Rezia Wahid MBE

Biography

Textile artist, designer, and weaver, Rezia Wahid was born in Bangladesh in 1975 and grew up in a rural village with her paternal grandparents. Her mother, who was in her late teens when Wahid was born, took care of her own siblings while her husband (Wahid's father) ran a restaurant in London, England, dividing his time between the two countries. At the age of five, Wahid, her mother, and her siblings immigrated to north west London. The move to a high-rise block on the Edgware Road was initially a ‘shock’ and ‘trauma’ for the young Wahid (Tarlo, 2007, p. 148). She fondly recalls her early childhood her family’s cotton farm and her mother's traditional embroidery techniques; both experiences had a significant impact on her art practice. She studied Foundation in Art and Design at Chelsea College of Art and Design from 1994 to 1995 and in 1998, she earned a BA (Hons) in Woven Textiles at the Surrey Institute of Art and Design at Farnham (SIAD), thus providing a connection to cotton and weaving in the UK. As she states, ‘I had found my lush green field from Bangladesh in Farnham, England’ (Wahid, 2021, p. 3). Finally, in 2000, she received a PGCE in Secondary Art and Design from the Institute of Education, University of London. Amelia Uden, an established British weaver, served as an inspiration and guide for Wahid. It was Uden who suggested that Wahid study the 1988 catalogue of the exhibition Woven Air, held at the Whitechapel Art Gallery in London and which had a significant impact on her later practice.

Renowned for creating near-transparent, delicate, ultra-fine woven textiles that blur the line between art and utility, Wahid's work, influenced by minimalist painter, Agnes Martin, fuses intercultural weaving techniques with Islamic heritage. Blending a range of influences from William Morris, the Arts & Crafts Movement, and Islamic spirituality, and techniques from Indonesian 'ikat', Japanese 'kasuri', and Bangladeshi textiles, her work also incorporates ethereal Bangladeshi Baf-thana and Jamdani weaving. Wahid often employs hand-spun Egyptian cotton and Japanese silk, while combining the French knots and the European tradition of embroidery with the Japanese approach of ‘less is more’. Notions of memory, identity, and global connections are intricately woven into her practice: ‘The tactile feel, beauty and the concept of the power of cloth, identity and memory became a point of research and inspiration,’ (Wahid, 2021, p. 3). Her practice, as she states, is a ‘celebration of life, beauty, peace, tranquillity, air, light and seeks to build bridges within the simplicity of fibres […],’ (Wahid quoted in Olding, 2007, p. 5). Moreover, she aims to explore ‘identity through cloth and the qualities of global connections it has with diverse cultures’ and ‘to show how the technique of weaving is as diverse as the human race and yet is bound in similarities. The power of cloth is infectious and delivers beyond everyday use: as human beings we are wrapped in cloth at birth and at death, cloth conveys powerful stories, messages, history and the result can be limitless,’ (Wahid, 2021, p. 4). Although Wahid’s textiles generate a ‘pure and sacred aura without necessarily evoking Islam as such, they make a more subtle, but no less striking, intervention in the context of the visual landscape of British contemporary designer craft,’ (Tarlo, 2003, p. 147). Her work fuses ‘distant memories of Bangladesh and concrete experiences of Britain and Islam,’ (Tarlo, 2003, p. 147).

Wahid's first major solo exhibition was Reiza Wahid: Woven Air held at the Crafts Study Centre, Farnham, England in 2007. The exhibition spotlighted Wahid’s delicate gradients of white, her democratic uses of textile, and her painterly touch. All this was reflective of her global travels and informed by broader socio-political contexts, adding urban sophistication to her woven creations. Wahid has had solo and group exhibitions in the UK and Japan. She has also received several awards, including the Ella McLeod Production Prize (1997) and the Alhambra Award for Excellence in Art (2004). Wahid actively participates in the Islamic Relief charity and anti-war movements, guided by a neo-Gandhian philosophy. In 2005, Wahid was appointed an MBE for her contributions to the arts. Currently, she is a Hand-weaver and Textiles Technology/Art and Design Teacher at the Frederick Bremer School, London, having previously taught art, design and textiles at the Warwick School for Boys, Walthamstow, East London. Rezia Wahid lives and works in London, England. Her work is not yet represented in UK public collections.

Related books

Rezia Wahid, Dancing in the Womb, (Bristol: Hesterglock Press, 2022)
Rezia Wahid, 'A Woven Decree', TEXTILE: Cloth and Culture, Vol. 19, No. 2, 2021, pp. 187-190
Emma Tarlo, Visibly Muslim: Fashion, Politics, Faith, (Oxford and New York: Berg Publishers, 2010)
Simon Olding, Rezia Wahid: Woven Air, (Surrey: Crafts Study Centre, 2007)
Emma Tarlo, 'Islamic Cosmopolitanism: The Sartorial Biographies of Three Muslim Women in London', Fashion Theory, Vol. 11, No. 11-12, 2007, pp. 143-172
Remona Aly, ‘Dandelion and Chillies’, Emel Magazine, March 2006, pp. 20-25
Beth Smith, ‘Inner Light’, Selvedge, No. 9, February 2006, p. 13
Emma Tarlo, 'Weaving Air: The Textile Journey of Rezia Wahid', Moving Worlds, Vol. 4, No. 2, 2004, pp. 90-99
Ayesha Gamiet, ‘Rezia Wahid: Magic Carpets and Woven Air’, Q News, No. 349, March-August 2003, pp. 38-39

Related organisations

Chelsea College of Art and Design, London (Student)
Frederick Bremer School, London (Teacher )
Institute Of Education, University of London (Student )
Society of Designer Craftsmen (Full Member )
Surrey Institute for Art and Design (Student)
Warwick School for Boys, London (Teacher)

Selected exhibitions

Rezia Wahid: Dancing in the Womb (solo exhibition), Crafts Study Centre, Farmham (2023)
The Shape of Things (group show), Flow Gallery, London (2010)
Rezia Wahid: Woven Air (solo exhibition), Crafts Study Centre, Farnham (2007)
Islam in Europe (group show), Open Trade Fayre, Millennium Plain, Norwich (2004)
Maka Textile Collaboration (group show), Como Gallery, Tokyo (2003)
Decorating Dissidence, video (https://decoratingdissidence.com/making-during-a-pandemic/first-steps-weaving-with-rezia-wahid-mbe/)

Ben Uri archive

Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [Rezia Wahid]

Ben Uri Research Unit

for the study and digital recording of the Jewish, Refugee and wide Immigrant contribution to British visual culture since 1900.

Rezia Wahid artist