Odundo’s spin on such centerpieces is inspired by historic molds taken from the Wedgwood’s archives, “especially the [Italian] Borghese vase, which [she] deconstructed and inverted to create a towering folly.”
To learn more about the Wedgewood and Jasperware, visit: (https://www.wedgwood.com/en-gb/welcometowedgwood/editorials/guide-to-jasperware?srsltid=AfmBOorTSgMAbkN0Bd-F7cI1jS2sSJbJwOb5bTVeSfwndDO5mzOIgKON)
In describing the decorative scheme featured on the massive Jasperware centerpiece, Odundo stated, in an article she wrote in The World of Interiors:
The decorative scheme involves a painful journey. Realised in black jasperware on a cane-coloured ground, the narrative sequence moves through textbook images of enslavement, including illustrations of the torturous devices used to control and dehumanize. Look closely and you see that what appears to be [a narrative frieze] is actually taken from Sir William Elford’s 1789 etching of African slaves lined up on the lower deck of a ship. Above this we are pulled into the present with images of demonstrations and public uprising, most notably from last year’s tax riots in Kenya.
Finally, it should be noted that the title of the Jasperware work, "The Falcon Cannot Hear the Falconer," came from a line in W.B. Yeats poem, “The Second Coming.” It was written in 1919, just after World War I and the Spanish Flu pandemic. As Odundo notes:
You can’t help but see echoes of where we are today. A moment of global chaos, the politicians not listening to the people fighting unnecessary wars. The piece ultimately questions the notion of progress, acknowledging instead that
inequality simply shifts its guise. The figure at the top of the work is based on one of the Kenyan protestors, angry but triumphant. All of us hold within ourselves beauty and brutality. (Source: Odundo, Magdalene. “Trail of Tiers,” The World of Interiors, 26 September 2024. Retrieved from: https://www.worldofinteriors.com/story/magdalene-odundo)
Other Rooms / Other Works
Odundo created several other works featured throughout Houghton hall, each in response to the room and her experience of such. See below for photos of each piece and the room in which they were set.
The Saloon
The Saloon is a room a person can enter on the upper floor from the outside staircase and balcony. It is an opulent room featuring crimson velvet wall coverings and intricate gilded door surrounds. A portrait of Catherine the Great of Russia, which was a gift to the 3rd Earl, can be seen on the chimney piece. In this room,
Odundo chose to place a burnished orange terracotta piece from 2024 (opposite).
You can’t help but see echoes of where we are today. A moment of global chaos, the politicians not listening to the people fighting unnecessary wars. The piece ultimately questions the notion of progress.
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