Zarina Bhimji: Lead White

In Lead White Zarina Bhimji explores the history of Zanzibar. Her expert curatorial eye has scoured national archives and found documents bearing witness to the country's past and by extension its present. Filtered through Bhimji's artistic vision, these documents become a poetic exploration of numerous topics including national health, education and contemporary Africa. The documents collected by Bhimji come from a wide variety of places. There are legal and constitutional documents, but also photographs and personal effects. A particular point of interest in Lead White is paper and how texture and light function as an echo of the themes investigated here. This substantial monograph marks a departure of sorts for Bhimji. In this work she incorporates to her new mediums of digital photography and the traditional craft of embroidery. This interplay, in Gallagher's words, forms a 'tension between present and past, and enhances the relationship between the specific and the universal.'