Nunhead Windows project

Portugal>China/Japan>Portugal>Nunhead; installed Na Pura Cafe My materials here are empty drinks cans from Na pura Portuguese cafe;, with their bright seductive branding printed on aluminium and steel used to construct traditional motifs from Jingdezhen ceramics. Portuguese navigator, Vasco da Gama discovered the passage around the Cape of Good Hope, sailing to Calicut, India in 1498. Trade could then be established directly with Asia, rather than bought overland by middlemen via Egypt. Portuguese merchants were the first to set up trade between the west and Japan in 1543, setting up an entrepot at Macao in 1547. From here they were able to dominate east Asian trade with Europe. By the middle of the 16th century porcelain was being made to order in Jingdezhen for the Portuguese market and was being sold in the shops of the Rua dos Mecadores in Lisbon The Portuguese were interested in trading their imports with the precious metals that were mined in Japan. Culturally it was the relatively small trade in Japanese lacquered wares that had the most influence. Europeans had no equivalent to lacquer, with its durability, lightness and brilliant gloss, and particularly admired the application of gold dust and leaf and inlaying of mother of pearl in which the Japanese were acknowledged masters.