Sothiou (from ‘Dwelling: in this space we breathe’ series) 2017

The series was created from a personal need for spiritual grounding after experiencing trauma. The search for what gives meaning to our lives and what we hold onto in times of despair and life changing challenges. We exist in the marriage of physical and spiritual remembrance. It’s in these spaces in which we identify with our physical and imagined bodies. Using myself as the subject, I felt it necessary to physically explore how trauma is embodied in the black experience. Whilst exploring the notions of spirituality and rituals, the process of image making became a ritual in itself.

— Khadija Saye, 2016

As the daughter of a Muslim father and a Christian mother, this series by British artist Khadija Saye illustrates her interest in how the practices originating in her parents’ home country of The Gambia had migrated across the world through the African diaspora. These works were created in an intimate studio in the artist’s London apartment, on the twentieth floor of the ill-fated Grenfell Tower — where, tragically, she and her mother died in the 2017 fire. Saye created this series of tintypes, an early type of photography that creates a photographic image on a thin sheet of metal or iron coated with a dark lacquer or enamel; these nine silkscreen prints, commissioned by Victoria Miro Gallery, London, were made from raw scans of the tintypes after her death.