Khadija Saye

I first met artist/photographer Khadija Saye in 2016 when she worked at artist Nicola Green’s studio. Khadija had been selected to show her work at the new Diaspora Pavilion at the Venice Biennale - the youngest of a group of great artists including Isaac Julien, Yinka Shonibare and Barbara Walker.

Khadija’s work for the pavilion was a set of six extremely beautiful wet plate collodion tintypes titled Dwelling: in this space we breathe. These works explored the ‘migration of traditional Gambian spiritual practices’ - a part of Khadija’s exploration of her identity, heritage and mixed faith background. 

In the run up to travelling to Venice, I worked with Khadija at Jealous Print Studio to produce a silk-screen print edition derived from one of the Tintypes, “Sothiou”.

Khadija returned from Venice in May 2017 and died, along with her mother, in the Grenfell Tower fire on 14th June 2017 aged 24.

After Grenfell, a program called Khadija Saye Arts was established with the support of Nicola Green’s studio and under the umbrella of IntoUniversity, a charity which had helped support and nurture young Khadija over many years.

I worked with Nicola Green to produce a series of eight more silkscreen prints, made from high resolution scans of Khadija’s tintype prints. The original silkscreen, Sothiou, had been a close collaboration between Khadija and the studio, so the later prints were made in exactly the same way.

The eight new prints, together with Sothiou are offered for sale as a portfolio through Victoria Miro gallery. Proceeds are divided between Khadija Saye Arts and the Estate of Khadija Saye. The British Museum, The British Library, and The Government Art Collection each have a portfolio in their permanent collections.