The Art of Carnival Arts: Mahogany Carnival Design

11 Oct 2024-23 Jan 2025

PV 10 Oct 2024

Notting Hill Carnival 2024, 2024. Credit: Ethan Parker

Overview

The Art of Carnival Arts is an exploration of Carnival’s history through the work of Clary Salandy and Mahogany Carnival Design.

Formed in 1989 by designer Clary Salandy and structural engineer Michael Ramdeen, Mahogany aims to heighten understanding of Carnival and Carnival Arts. The group of multidisciplinary artists have developed techniques of costume design and construction that utilise the human body in the art form of Mas Making.

Over the last 35 years, their large-scale kinetic costumes have made them a powerhouse within the world of Carnival, and they have brought majestic costumes to events both at home, such as the 2012 Olympics, and internationally, like the annual Trinidad Carnival.

Carnival arts have long been overlooked and this will be one of the first exhibitions in the UK that elevates the art form by capturing Mahogany’s costume-making process from conception, to making, through to the costumes being worn in 2024’s Notting Hill Carnival.

The exhibition also tells the story of Carnival through its social context, presenting the audience with important historical milestones that transformed Carnival into how we see and know it today.