Mariam Syed was born in Karachi, Pakistan in December 1983. She immigrated to Glasgow, Scotland in 2006 to pursue higher education in the arts. Syed is a weaver and textile designer who blends traditional Pakistani weaving practices with her European education and influences.
Textile designer and weaver, Mariam Syed was born into a Muslim family in Karachi, Pakistan in December 1983. Syed initially acquired weaving skills from rural artisan before studying formally at the Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture in her hometown, focusing on Textile Design from January 2003 to June 2005. Soon after graduation, she immigrated to the UK and enrolled on a BA in Textile Design at Glasgow School of Art (GSA), attending from 2006 to 2007, where she won the Natasha Marshall Award. Syed then took a career break between 2007 and 2014 to dedicate time to her family. Resuming her studies, she returned to GSA, completing her degree and graduating with Distinction in Textile Design in 2016. Her final degree show collection featured vibrant prayer rugs, silk headscarves, and Quran covers, inspired by images of colourful Pakistani lorries and designed to engage young Muslims in prayer.
Syed's practice blends weaving, the use of vivid colours, and the influences of architecture and geometry, drawing inspiration from her home country; in particular, the bold hues and patterns of Pakistani lorries and buses in the capital and their striking visual contrast with the British colonial architecture in Karachi's old town. Her oeuvre includes silk scarves, woven in traditional English mills, alongside rugs for interiors, and various contemporary fabrics. She works with silk and wool, with a focus on using sustainable yarns to craft ethically responsible fabrics. Her love for mathematics also profoundly influences her work, especially in her use of geometric patterns. The creative process includes transferring these geometric designs from her drawings to the woven fabric and often begins with photography and the collection of inspiring elements. Syed then develops her colour palette by wrapping yarn around plastic, building monochromatic collages, and experimenting with arrangement to refine her ideas. Syed’s skill set includes warp winding, loom setup, and expertise in both Dobby and computerised looms, as well as an understanding of Jacquard weaving. Her current project involves reinterpreting a traditional Pakistani weaving technique called Sussi, a colourful, striped fabric from rural Sindh. She has also been Inspired by her two sons and historic Bauhaus weavers, such as Gunta Stölzl and Anni Albers, her work blending different cultural motifs and patterns, while contemporary women designers and weavers, such as Margo Selby, Ptolemy Mann, and the Pakistani design brand Khaadi, have all provided a further source of influence. Syed continuously reinvents traditional weaving methods to generate new forms.
In 2016, Syed was awarded a grant by The Worshipful Company of Weavers, facilitating the setup of her business. Since 2016 she has been founder and director of Mariam Sayed Ltd. based in Glasgow, Scotland. The business operates primarily in two main areas: textile weaving and retail sales conducted through mail order or via the Internet. That same year, Craft Central selected Sayed for its Talent 2016 initiative as one of the top 20 designer maker graduates of the year. Additionally, she was shortlisted for the Visual Art Scotland Graduate Showcase and awarded a free Associate Membership of Visual Art Scotland. In 2018, in conjunction with the British Council, Syed visited Chengdu and Xian in China twice to facilitate workshops and to research and document the reactions of craftspeople to China's Circular Economy policies. In 2021, she won the Inches Carr Graduate Craft Award. The following year, she was awarded the Queen Elizabeth Scholarship Trust funding, financing an MA at Glasgow University and a course in Islamic Geometric Patterns at Alquería de Rosales in Granada, Spain. Mariam Syed lives and works in Glasgow, Scotland. Her work is not held in any public collections in the UK.
Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [Mariam Syed]
Publications related to [Mariam Syed] in the Ben Uri Library