[Potloodcast] Potloodcast 25: Olivia Ahmad

Potloodcast 25: Olivia Ahmad

In this episode of the Potloodcast Floortje Smit is interviewing Olivia Ahmad, the artistic director of The Quentin Blake Centre for Illustration in London. Ahmad studied illustration at the Cambridge School of Art. Instead of pursuing a career as an illustrator, she became interested in curating. After completing a master’s degree in museum studies, she became the artistic director of the House of Illustration in London. The center was set up by the well-known illustrator Quentin Blake around 20 years ago. He wanted to raise awareness and recognition for the art of illustration.

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Four years ago, the House of Illustration closed its doors to move to a larger, permanent location, which will be called the Quentin Blake Centre for Illustration. By the end of this year, the renovation will begin to create the only permanent public space in Britain to make illustration and learn about its past and present. The Centre will be located in 18^th– and 19^th-century buildings at New River Head, a former waterworks in Clerkenwell, London.

1. An image from your childhood that might have influenced who you are as an artist/illustrator/director now

Judith Kerr’s book “The Tiger Who Came to Tea” (1968) is the first illustration I really remember from my childhood, and it’s left a strong impression on me. I still find it totally captivating and the way I felt about it as a child often reminds me of the special hold that children’s books can have on us as we’re growing, and understanding and shape our identity.

Kerr was an amazing author and illustrator who was born in 1923in Berlin. She came to the UK as a child; she was a refugee fleeing Nazi Germany andwent on to create importantbooks about that experience. But “The Tiger Who Came to Tea” is something different. It’s a picture book about a tiger who unexpectedly shows up and joins a little girl called Sophie and her Mum for tea.

The illustrations in this book are so warm and rich in detail, but also concise and beautifully designed, as is the text. For me, it’s a perfect picture book. Most of the book focuses on these surreal scenes of the Tiger sitting down to tea and then going on a rampage through Sophie’s house, eating and drinking everything in sight. But what really stuck with me as a child wasn’t this anarchy, but the quiet  ending after the Tigerhas left andand Sophie’s dad comes home and takes the family out for dinner because there’s no food left in the house.

As someone reading the book in an all-women household, I found this so weird. Suddenly there’s an image of the Dad sitting in this heavy chair, much bigger on the page than Sophie and her Mum, and the tone of the book changes as they go out into the world together for sausage and chips. I became mildly obsessed with this scenario, and with Sophie, who had this long blonde hair – I drew myself with it even though my own was curly and dark brown. 

All this still reminds me of how important books are for children: for exploring the lives of other people and thinking about your own life in relation to them. By looking at it I remember the huge power and influence illustration can have on us, and think about the importance of children being able to see themselves in children’s books. Many perspectives have long been underrepresented in children’s books here in the UK, though there are now illustrators here working hard to address this. 

2. Images that have motivated or inspired you to choose your career 

Tipu’s Tiger is a fascinating object that started me thinking about the way our shared history is ‘built’ and stories change over time. It’s an 18th century automaton, a mechanical wooden sculpture, that depicts a tiger mauling a man lying on the ground. On the side of the tiger is a handle; when it’s cranked, an organ inside the tiger makes a groaning sound, and the man’s arm starts flailing.  So it creates this vivid and kind of macabre scene. 

I first saw Tipu’s Tiger when I was an illustration student at the Cambridge School of Art in 2005. At the time, I was struggling with the school’s emphasis on drawing from observation, as I tended more towards a stylisedaesthetic, and I also struggled to come up with stories and sequences. So as a way to fulfil illustration briefs, I started visiting museums where I could draw things that weren’t moving around at least, and that had ready stories attached to them.  

Visiting the V&A to draw, I was intrigued by Tipu’s Tiger and its history and path to sitting in a display case in West London. It was originally created for the Indian ruler Tipu Sultan, who resisted colonisation by the British East India Company – the tiger is a caricature of this, with the tiger representing Tipu Sultan, and the man in a red jacket a British soldier. Eventually, Tipu Sultan was killed by the British and his possessions were looted, ending up in London and eventually the V&A where it sits today. 

In learning more about Tipu’s Tiger, I was struck by how its meaning has shifted over time. It was created as a symbol of resistance to the British, thenbecame a  British trophy. It was put on display as such and apparently shocked ‘polite’ British society and today it can be viewed from a decolonised perspective (though it remains in the UK). All this made me interested in the role of museums in constructing narratives by choosing to present certain objects and histories while omitting others.

Although I was studying illustration at the time, Tipu’s Tiger inspired me to consider a career in museums and curation. I saw parallels between the way stories are told in museum spaces and the way illustrators use different tools to construct a narrative. While many museums have complex histories and power dynamics, I believe they ultimatelyhave the potential to positively impact people’s wellbeing by providing spaces for discovery, contemplation and creativity. 

3. A work of your own that represents your first steps of becoming an illustrator/artist/director

Around five years ago, I put together an exhibition called “Designed in Cuba: Cold War Graphics” at House of Illustration, the former gallery of Quentin Blake Centre for Illustration. I’d been curating exhibitions for about 10 years by that point, so it wasn’t the first exhibition I’d worked on, but it felt like a really different kind of project than I’d worked on before, and so it felt like I was starting out in some ways. 

The exhibition was about the work of designers who were based at OSPAAAL, which stands for the Organization of Solidarity with the People of Africa, Asia and Latin America. It was a political organization set up in Cuba in the 1960s. From the 1960s to the 1990s, around 50 designers worked there, creating illustrated magazines and posters aimed at spreading revolutionary and radical political ideas around the world to different liberation movements and socialist governments. It was fascinating work, but not much had been documented about the design and illustration side of it – most of the research I could find had focused on the geopolitical history that the designers were responding to.

It felt like an important story to tell, involving both complex global histories and a deep dive into the designers themselves – who they were, how they worked, and why. It can take about two years to put together an exhibition like this, depending on how much material is already out there versus how much new research is needed.

I’mreally interested in how illustration can reflect and influence different eras in history. Working on this project, I learned that OSPAAAL’sdesigners were working with significant material constraints, but still managed to be incredibly prolific and innovative by recycling materials and using what would normally be waste from photographic and reproduction processes. Because they were working at a time of huge political change in Cuba, they were taking skills from corporate advertising and repurposing them for socialist andanti-imperialist causes – which resulted in this really fascinating blend of approaches. 

I’m really interested in socialist design, but this material was so different to anything I’d seen before. Rather than the socialist-realist scenes of productive fields or factories, these designers were using a much broader visual language, using tongue-in-cheek subversive humour, subertising and pop art references. It was great to uncover this history and share these playful but politically-charged works.

Tracking down material to exhibit is usuallywas a bit of a treasure hunt – there are fantastic examples of illustration in museums that have databases you can search, but because illustration hasn’t been as valued as other kinds of visual culture, I often find that the most comprehensive collections are owned by individuals and take longer to find. But it’s always worth the effort. 

4. An historical art work or illustration that influenced you

The poster design “Christmas Fare from the Empire – Making the Empire Christmas Pudding” by Frederick Clifford Harrison for the Empire Marketing Board in 1928 has been on my mind lately. It’s part of a chapter in British history that I’m researching for an online exhibition at qbcentre.org.uk

The Empire Marketing Board was a UK government-funded organization that existed from 1926 to 1933. Its goal was to promote trade and encourage British consumers to buy products from within the British Empire. They did this through a large-scale advertising campaign, producing over 700 poster designs that were displayed all over the UK. This poster shows a woman making a traditional Christmas pudding using ingredients from colonised countries. The campaign was trying to present buying Empire products as a fashionable and patriotic thing to do – sort of like how buying organic is seen as virtuous and responsible today.

Looking at these images now, with a decolonized perspective on the British Empire, they’re pretty jarring. The campaign portrays the Empire as a harmonious, mutually beneficial family of countries, which we know wasn’t the case. But theposters provide an interesting window into the propaganda and marketing strategies used to bolster support for the British Empire.

From a design history point of view, I find this campaign fascinating. It employed innovative illustrators and designers and used cutting-edge visual communication techniques for the time, for example by targeting different messages at men and women. And the sheer scale of the campaign, with its massive custom billboards, was something new for the UK.

While this particular poster may just look like a quaint domestic scene to some, unpacking the context and intent behind it reveals a lot about the political and cultural forces at play. And while it was made nearly 100 years ago, the perspective on Empire that it promoted can still be seen in the UK’s cultural and political discourses today. 

5. A contemporary image, illustration artwork or body of work that inspires you 

I found it hard to choose one thing! I’ve been so glad and inspired to see small publishing fairs and comic festivals coming back in the UK after the pandemic. It’s been great to be able to meet people and learn more about their work and projects.

I find digital formats really challenging in some ways. But I don’t mean that digital is bad – I think it opens up so many exciting possibilities and is used in amazing, innovative ways by a lot of people. The challenge is more about how discoverable that digital work is, especially in the crowded social media spaces where a lot of it lives and that’s becoming more dense with advertising. 

Anyway, you asked me to bring something inspiring, and I brought some of the comics and zines that I’m constantly collecting. I just find it so bold and inspiring when people commit their personal vision to something and put it out there themselves.

One of the things I’m really excited about is the rise of small, independent publishing and festivals. I’ve also been inspired by groups like the Comics Cultural Impact Collective who are doing great work advocating for more public funding and support for the comics industry here in the UK. They’re using data and analysis to make a strong case for why comics are valuable and deserve to be a thriving part of the arts and culture scene.

These kinds of collective efforts are really important, especially for illustrators, who often work on their own – it can be a real challenge to build community. But I’m hopeful that places like the Quentin Blake Centre for Illustration can become hubs where illustrators feel welcome to connect and collaborate. There’s real power in coming together.