For the September edition of the Look What I Found series at the V&A East Storehouse, visitors and staff were joined by multimedia artist, creative practitioner, and researcher Remiiya Badru. As part of an ongoing micro-residency at V&A East, Badru spent valuable time diving deep into the institution’s vast and varied collections in preparation for her upcoming exhibition at Cody Dock in Canning Town, titled “Common Threads.” Supported by the Assistant Curator based at V&A East Storehouse, her research was facilitated through privileged access to object stores and specialized appointments with the V&A Collections Access team.
Following her deep dive into the archives, Badru presented the objects and research she had uncovered during a free show-and-tell event. Her work explores the intersections of calico production, Prussian Blue dyes, and the historical geography of the River Lea. Badru is well-known as an avid walker, listener, and practitioner who explores textiles, dyes, and making histories across diverse geographies and time periods. Her work maps global connections across material culture through collaborations with prominent institutions such as the University of Leicester, Royal Museums Greenwich, Museum X, and the Museum of London Docklands.
Drawing from her extensive explorations and practices centered around rivers, Badru developed a unique creative process known as "Rhumblines." This metaphorical device threads complex river-related and interwoven stories together, allowing her to navigate the often hidden histories and silences of people and places. As a witness to infrastructural change and flux in her local area, she explores these juxtapositions through memories of (post)colonialism, pre- and post-industrial change, cultural heritage, and both natural and man-made environments.
Badru’s previous investigations surrounding the River Thames and water histories directly informed her year-long artist residency at Cody Dock. Situated in east London, Cody Dock is a community-led social enterprise dedicated to conserving the banks of the River Lea, preserving its industrial heritage, and running cultural and educational programs. The organization maintains a core focus on community building and harnessing the power of creative making to forge social bonds and foster healing within a rapidly changing, bustling part of the London Borough of Newham.
Bromley Hall and the Global Cotton Trade
As part of her residency at Cody Dock, Badru has focused heavily on investigating the rich textile production histories rooted in Bromley Hall, located in Bromley-by-Bow. Recognized as one of the oldest surviving brick houses in London once utilized by Henry VIII, Bromley Hall is currently owned and undergoing restoration by Leaside Regeneration as part of broader efforts to revitalize the River Lea area. Historically, the site served as a center for calico printing beginning in the 1740s, operated by the Talwin and Foster families throughout the late 18th century. These printers utilized sophisticated copperplate printing techniques to produce furnishings featuring patterns heavily inspired by Chinese motifs and Indian chintz.
In 1955, the Calico Printers’ Association donated a historic pattern book from Bromley Hall to the V&A’s collection. Uncovering this tangible link to her research during her residency, Badru visited the Prints and Drawings Study Room in South Kensington to view the pattern book. She subsequently located many of the exact same printed fabrics originating from Bromley Hall within the collections at the V&A East Storehouse, including a striking Peacock and Hen textile piece. These Asian-inspired materials speak directly to the broader migration of designs and textiles during the 1700s and 1800s, an era when both the River Lea and the River Thames functioned as critical commercial waterways connecting Great Britain to its global colonies.
Building on previous projects where she created works responding to narratives of enslavement and the maritime journeys of ships between Britain and its colonies—with a particular focus on the histories of cotton production and manufacture—Badru expanded her inquiry. She began investigating calico and indigo-related objects within the V&A collections to uncover deeper global connections between the Bromley Hall printers, international trade networks, and the River Lea.
Calico, Colonial Markets, and Indian Textiles
Badru began her archival exploration by examining historic calico at the V&A East Storehouse, where she encountered a cut piece of white cotton manufactured in Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, around 1855. While studying the close weave of this coarse cotton fabric, Badru discovered that the textile had been deliberately cut during the production of John Forbes Watson’s multi-volume work, The Textile Manufactures of India, published in 1866. Watson’s publication consisted of comprehensive textile books—which he frequently referred to as "mini-museums"—that were dispatched to manufacturing hubs across Britain and colonial India. These volumes contained physical samples of South Asian materials designed to teach British textile producers how to replicate and weave the fabrics domestically.
In the introduction to these volumes, Watson explicitly outlined the economic motivations behind the initiative: "About two hundred millions of souls form the population of what we commonly speak of as India; and, scant though the garments of the vast majority may be, an order to clothe them all would try the resources of the greatest manufacturing nation on earth. [Britain] It is clear, therefore, that India is in a position to become a magnificent customer."
By systematically documenting and teaching Indian textile production methods, Watson’s writings reveal how imperial Britain sought to exert control over colonial markets, eventually manufacturing and reselling imitations of traditional Indian textiles back to their original makers. Through these porous and fluctuating global exchanges of textile production and export, Badru became deeply interested in examining how water not only shapes the physical movement of raw materials but also influences the localized making practices, knowledge systems, and commercial markets surrounding textile history.
Ankara, Adinkra, and Regional Resist-Dyeing
In addition to historic calico, Badru directed her attention toward objects dyed with natural and synthetic indigo, including an English dress fabric made around 1960. This type of printed fabric, widely known as ankara, became immensely popular and is worn extensively across West Africa. Badru was drawn to the complex history of ankara, which originated from Dutch attempts to industrially recreate Indonesian batik techniques without investing the intricate and time-consuming labor required for traditional wax-resist dyeing.
Through the mechanisms of Dutch colonial rule in Indonesia and the subsequent European "Scramble for Africa," ankara emerged from entangled global trade exchanges marked by the European appropriation of traditional textile methods. Over time, despite its colonial roots, ankara transformed into a powerful, recognizable fabric symbolizing African self-sovereignty and cultural empowerment.
However, while European control over ankara production via cheaper roller-printing technologies enabled nations like the Netherlands and Britain to establish dependent consumer markets across Africa, Badru was particularly intrigued by this specific object’s imitation of adinkra designs. Adinkra cloths are traditional block-printed fabrics, frequently colored with plant-based dyes, originating from the Asante and Bono peoples across contemporary Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire. The corresponding adinkra symbols serve as conceptual visual forms and storytelling devices found across West African textiles, pottery, and architecture.
Noticing a persistent theme of European reproductions of indigenous crafting techniques coupled with attempts to dominate colonial markets through cotton and indigo textiles, Badru and her curatorial collaborator opened an adjacent storage drawer. Inside, they discovered an àdìràmọ́lẹ̀kà cloth, providing a fascinating point of comparison with a distinct Yoruba textile practice that also employs resist-dyeing methods. Such serendipitous discoveries highlight the dynamic nature of object research at the Storehouse, where searching through storage can unexpectedly redirect research into entirely new directions.
The àdìràmọ́lẹ̀kà textile represents a mid-20th-century innovation in Yoruba àdìrọ̀ dyeing techniques, wherein a thin layer of cassava starch is meticulously painted onto cotton fabric using a metal stencil to produce intricate patterns through resist-dyeing. By directly comparing the English ankara with the Yoruba àdìràmọ́lẹ̀kà, Badru emphasized the frequently overlooked material intelligence of indigenous makers—qualities that mass-produced, industrial fabrics fail to replicate.
Workwear, Sashiko, and Boro Innovations
These ongoing inquiries into indigo-dyed cotton, manufacturing processes, and labor practices prompted Badru to examine entirely different regional objects crafted from similar materials within the V&A collection. Among these was a firefighter’s jacket and hood set originating from Japan and dating between 1850 and 1900. The garment exemplifies sashiko, a stitching technique typically utilized for mending, which in this context was applied to quilt multiple layers of cotton together. This created a heavily reinforced fabric capable of providing enhanced protection against open flames.
Before entering a burning building, firefighters would thoroughly douse the outfit in water, creating a thermal barrier against extreme heat. Furthermore, the accompanying hood featured specialized padding along the top to offer additional cushioning against falling debris. This early manifestation of specialized protective clothing underscored for Badru how textile production has consistently been adapted and innovated through sheer necessity, connecting the labor histories of working people across vast temporal divides.
Maintaining her focus on utilitarian workwear and textile resilience, Badru also studied a Japanese work coat known as a noragi, which serves as a prime example of boro—a Japanese term denoting patched and ragged textiles. Likely worn by a farmer, this coat was repaired by its original wearer using patches of recycled indigo-dyed cotton. Beyond demonstrating the historical use of reclaimed fabrics to extend garment durability and conserve resources, Badru viewed the garment as a profound testament to the aesthetic and practical value of sustainable, circular textile practices.
The intricate, hand-stitched lines on the noragi bear witness to the care, time, and consideration invested by both the maker and the wearer. The physical details allow modern observers to visualize the hands that repaired the cloth, the labor that imbued the jacket with the stories of hard physical work, and the deliberate stitches applied at night to ensure the garment would endure another season. These material traces render the bodies of historical makers visible across a span of more than 150 years, offering a unique opportunity to recover hidden voices through the study of textiles.
Community Patchwork and Public Participation
Because Badru’s artistic practice frequently incorporates creative facilitation and community engagement, she sought to involve visitors and staff at the V&A East Storehouse in collaborative making. As part of her ongoing narrative work bridging global textile histories, she invited members of the public to craft their own decorative patches using discarded denim and scraps sourced directly from the Storehouse Creative Studios.
With the support of Honey Birch, Creative Studio Practitioner for V&A East, Badru hosted a drop-in workshop that drew enthusiastic participation from museum visitors and staff alike. Inspired by the signature high-visibility vests worn by volunteers and workers at Cody Dock, Badru encouraged participants to pin their finished patches onto a collaborative garment destined to become part of her final exhibition. This collective artwork serves as a direct homage to the diverse individuals and communities who shape both Cody Dock and V&A East.
Remiiya Badru’s completed Common Threads project, featuring the collaborative jacket alongside her broader archival research, is on display at The Boathouse at Cody Dock in Canning Town through November 6, 2026.