Saad Qureshi’s New Commission Is a Cultural Time Machine

For Saad Qureshi, architecture offers a means to travel through time and space. ‘That’s what I find really exciting about it,’ the artist says in this video, filmed in his Oxford studio. ‘It immediately puts you in a geographical location with a sense of time.’

The recipient of the Frieze and The OWO Sculpture Commission, Qureshi was invited to create a work celebrating the diversity of modern Britain for the public spaces of Raffles London, which is housed within The OWO. As he discusses, this opportunity allowed the artist to bring together different architectural elements in a monumental new work, reflecting his experience of multiple cultures from both a personal and professional perspective.

Over six metres tall, Convocation, Qureshi’s work for the Commission, now towers in the Concierge at Raffles London at The OWO. Qureshi expresses his hopes that it offers guests, visitors, and staff a point of reflection, inviting curiosity and thought. ‘You look at each element and it takes you away somewhere else,’ he says. ‘You come back, and another element pushes you in a different direction.’

The Frieze and The OWO Sculpture Commission, Convocation (2022) by Saad Qureshi, is on view at the Concierge at Raffles London at The OWO, which is now open to the public.