 Gwdeithas. I'm Liz Jolly, chief librarian at the British Library. It's a great pleasure to welcome you all to the virtual private view opening of our new exhibition, Khdeidja Say, in this space we breathe, here at the British Library this evening. This exhibition showcases the final series of artworks produced by this hugely talented young British Gambian artist Khdeidja Say. The British Library is delighted to be hosting this exhibition alongside our major exhibition, Unfinished Business, The Fight for Women's Rights, where Say's work, peitawr, is the first item on display. This exhibition is a great team effort created by various British Library departments and colleagues together with our exhibitions team, but I particularly like to congratulate its curators, Marian Wallace and Khdeidja George Say for their exceptional work and research. The British Library would especially like to thank the family and the state of Khdeidja Say, not only for collaborating over the displays of Say's work, but for their whole hearted engagement with the project, including the research process. We are particularly grateful to Nicola Greene, David Lammy, Lucy Cartledge and Anna Freitas. In a moment our curators will talk about the nine works on display in much more detail in a short documentary film. They'll then take your questions in a live Q&A session from the library. You can submit your questions by using the dialogue boxes on your screen. I hope you enjoy the virtual private view and wish you all an excellent evening from the British Library. Welcome to the British Library. I'm Marian Wallace, Lead Curator for Africa. Khdeidja Say was a photographer, an artist of extraordinary promise. Saye, who was British born and of Gambian parentage, was tragically killed in the Grenfell Tower fire in 2017 at the age of just 24. At the time she was exhibiting works in the diaspora pavilion at the Venice Biennale and on the cusp of major success. This series in this space we breathe is composed of nine powerfully evocative self-portraits into these eloquent and multi-layered photographs. The artist weaves symbols of her Gambian heritage. In so doing she expresses, it seems to me, the importance of this heritage and of religious faith for strength in the face of trauma. For Khdeidja Say, this trauma included the experience of racism in Britain. So the work suggests a great deal about the struggles she faced as a Black woman. But they also express hope and offer her African cultural background as a way of understanding and navigating the present. The British Library exhibition shows nine works which we'll explore in this film. I'm now joined by the external curator Khdeidja George's essay. Together and with the help of those who knew Khdeidja Say and her artwork well, we researched the nine images and the items displayed in them. I got to know Khdeidja because of course my wife mentored her and she worked in her studio and there were a few things that we had in common. One was that Khdeidja was growing up in Grenfell Tower and that reminded me of the time I spent in my childhood in the Broadwater Farm estate in Tottenham. In so many ways in Black and ethnic minority communities here in London many of us have spent time in our big estates. The second was her ambition, a desire and a passion to succeed amidst a slightly fragile or delicate personality and that reminded me of myself. She had come of age at inter university getting access to mentoring and support to achieve her dreams in the art world and to go to art school and university. Again, I got that sort of support. I met Khdeidja in 2014. She was 21 and had just graduated from Farnham College having done a BA in photography and she submitted her work to an exhibition for young emerging artists called The Discerning Eye Exhibition at the Maw Galleries and I was a judge and curator at that exhibition and I selected her work having never met her and put it in the centre of the wall that I curated and I met her and her mother Mary at the opening night of that exhibition. The work that she had submitted was a series called Crowns that she was incredibly proud of and talked really passionately about that evening to me. It was a series of work of photographs of the back of the heads of her closest female friends and family and really it was a celebration and a kind of exploration of Black women's hair and what it means to them, what it means to their community as well as them as individuals. She called it crowned because she felt that all of these women were queens. She then came and worked for me in my studio and I saw her very often, you know, most weeks in fact for the following three years before she tragically passed away. But what was so exciting was that she was on the cusp. I'm not sure she fully understood how on the cusp of greatness she was but her exhibition at the Venice Biennale was exemplary. It was exhilarating the launch of that work and to see her blossom but to see the public reaction to the joy, wonder and awe of her artistry. The first work in the series is called Sotiu and it's an image of Khadija, a self-portrait as all nine works are, an image of the artist actually with her back to the camera in this instance and in her hand she's holding what looks like a bunch of sticks and these are sticks with a great significance, in fact a double significance. So these are the chewing sticks from the Salvadora persicatory that specifically are used for the toothbrush because of their healing properties and it helps with oral hygiene and they've been proven for that for many many years. So they're used as toothbrushes but they also use to invoke spiritualism and spirits as well. Now that they are imported into the different diasporas that use them they do come in packets but this is the natural stick. So it's quite important almost as a first image because this is just an everyday, this is an everyday object, this is an everyday object that everybody uses whether you're going to use the natural toothbrush or a regular toothbrush everybody uses it. And you can buy in the market in north London? You can buy in the market in north London exactly and they're of different sizes in the same way that Khadija does have them in the image as well so you can you know have your choice and some of them are actually formed like a brush at the end as well. There's a whole aspect of cleanliness as we will kind of see in other objects in Khadija's work, this whole thing of femininity and cleanliness as well and that that is part of it. So this second artwork that we're going to look at here is called Terrae and in it it's in some ways a very striking and unusual image. Khadija say appears with a string of amulets on her face so these are small pieces of paper with ceramic writings on them sewn into leather pouches small leather pouches and held together with a string and this is actually a string of amulets that was kept in a suitcase in her and her mother's flat in Grenfell Tower and the suitcase was lost in the fire as was as were many of Khadija's artworks. That's a sad part of the legacy of what we've lost of Khadija say's work and I find this image particularly striking because the amulets that she has covering her eyes they're usually when somebody has usually gone to visit a marabu they're often given these for protection so they're not actually since they're given for protection they're not something that's shown publicly they're usually something that's worn underneath clothing maybe around the neck or around the waist so for Khadija to have them on site publicly is very very striking and even more so to have them covering her eyes you know she obviously was saying something very specific about that we can't really make an interpretation of what that is but just the very fact that she has them publicly and on her face shows really in terms of how she was even developing as an artist to take that brave step of coming out of herself to say something about her heritage when she talks about the black body and how she uses that in her art that's that's very obvious in this image what we discovered more and more as we looked at these images was that very often Khadija does something unexpected absolutely as striking original perhaps even subversive in the way she uses the objects in the photographs yes yes the process Khadija used for these images is called the wet collodion photographic process and it was invented in 1851 so in the wet collodion process the it's not a photograph in the way that we understand it it can't be reproduced you have a sort of metal plate with silver nitrate and other chemicals on it and the photograph is almost taken on to that plate and you develop it within sort of 10 or 15 minutes and so in a way the image kind of emerges out of the plate and so some of the some of the sort of hazy and kind of dream like qualities that you see on these images kind of come out of that process and are why it doesn't look like a kind of contemporary modern perfect um it's almost the opposite of the perfect photoshop instagram photograph it's it's it's it's much more mystical because the chemicals on the plate and in that process have this kind of um uh have an energy and and and a life of their own as it were knack bedgen is an image of Khadija say uh side on to the camera with somebody we can't identify holding a cow horn to her neck and this strongly suggests a healing ceremony in which um impurities are um extracted from the patient's body um and you can see also that the healer in in the image seems to have um a small bag hanging from their side and this is probably a bag containing um medicines and other things important for healing in her work she explores her black african identity and i think who she is as a woman really um and you can see it crystal clear um her playing with her mother's christian gambian heritage and her father's muslim gambian heritage and playing with that sense of age and time and spirituality to get this sort of huge depth and i have to say that Khadija i knew um this bouncy but tender soul is transformed as a sort of spiritual woman that takes us back in time and evokes powerfully the image of the black woman in a traditional black setting the second image regale is a really striking one of Khadija say holding her hand in front of her face it's one of the images where we can't see her face and on each of her fingers there is a goat's horn goat's horns are used in the gambia in divination so um the practice of discovering the roots of life's problems and then what can be done to deal with them in future and to us as we looked through and talked about these images these these two very striking and and really quite deep images seem to have quite a lot in common it's kind of got a heavy kind of feel to them every single pose that she has is very striking and you can tell it's it's not um it's one that she has she's thought about quite carefully so that she's representing the object very well but also what she's feeling in her in her body language as well yeah absolutely there's there's a really strong element of performance in these images that comes through even though they're they're still images they're not necessarily what we think of as performance art but but but it's so strikingly there and and going back to the sort of one of the overarching themes of this series it's so much about gambian culture providing a way through difficulties a way of survival a constant reference point yes yes very true in the nine months that she had to make this work for the venus binale she was nearly thwarted multiple times really due to external events in her life financial pressures work pressures and and and other traumas and hardships that really would have thwarted most people and she really kind of doubled down on making this work which became for her as every week went by almost a physical way of enacting her own faith in order not just to make this work but to actually survive herself and so the wet collodium process became incredibly important for her as well as the kind of themes and subject matter in this work this next image is called andy tu rai and in it kadija seo holds a clay pot to her ear it's a traditional piece of gambian pottery traditionally red with white trim these pots are universal in gambian homes and they're used to burn incense kadija do you want to tell us a bit more about them and and also these pots which were bought in east london very recently yes i mean i mean it's it's great that we can actually find these in this london it shows us where part of the gambian community is other west africans are and so we do need to have these pots even you know in the diaspora as well to burn the incense as part of as part of the culture they're very very common in gambian homes you're going to have more than one you know in in different rooms they're a sign of femininity because it got such a wonderful smell because you can have different incenses in them one that's very common is frankincense and sometimes it is you know that the pot is taken around the house as well but it's very common to have the different pots in the house and also because it's a perfume scent that's also is associated with ruin so that when they go out it's like it's part of their femininity for that as well so it's a very important part of the culture and here it's it's almost as if kadija say is finding a way to talk again about being a woman in gambian terms yes absolutely and it's there's you know in terms of expressing that you know that's probably like one of the best ways of doing it in a sense because you kind of grow up with that that scent and that that smell all around you but also it's important in terms of the pots as well because as you were saying you know traditionally it's red clay with white design we still have the red clay pots but they're designed differently very very simply but like with this larger one for example they're just made plainly so that people can then put their own designs on them in whichever in whichever way they want they are quite delicate as well again reflecting femininity the the delicacy of them too yeah yeah so in a way that's in a way it's an engagement with traditional what you might call traditional femininity in in that image but there's this other image kurus the Islamic prayer beads which you could say engages with masculine and feminine roles in a completely different way exactly i think that's really interesting the way that she did that because it's obviously it is kadija in the image holding the beads and the prayer beads are usually something that you will see men holding in public rather than women and the prayer beads that she's holding are the long ones that where you're counting the 99 names of a god in there of Allah clearly Islamic prayer yes but having a woman holding it is then it's that contrast showing the strength of women you know and showing the strength of kadija she's not afraid to go in there and say this is another side of women this is another side of me this is this is part of my strength moving forward and and i can do this i can own this the next two of kadija says images that we're going to look at have similarities to one of them is called limon from lemon and the other one is tool tool which means sprout or grow so i'll just tell you a little bit about limon because obviously it's not a gambion wall of words limon they do use lemons a lot in gambia it is seen very much as a western fruit but and it is used quite a lot it is used a lot for cleanliness again femininity so it is going back linking to the andy chari and the incense and linking back to the toothbrush and the oral properties as well so it again it is seen very much as associated with women and in the image kadija say holds the lemon to her mouth so now i'm going to ask marion to describe the next image so tool tool is an image in which kadija has draped strands of plastic flowers around her neck you can't actually see it all that well in the final image it's got this amazing sort of blended blurry quality to it but in the production photos you can see that actually she's used brightly coloured strands of these plastic flowers and these are flowers that are very common in the gambia in people's homes and they're also found on shrines and worn by indigenous healing practitioners as well so again there's the connection to to traditional way rituals and ways of healing but i think that there's probably more to these images than that she also found enormous solace and faith in popular culture and she in particular top of her list i would say that she talked about Beyonce and Rupor. I mean limon for so many young black women and Beyonce i mean Beyonce is a role model for so many people but for young black women and the whole album that she did on lemonade is it's a strong one. There's a wonderful photograph of her in the studio as she was making these works where she's sort of holding a peacock fan and also a book with a beautiful photograph of Rupor and she's standing there very proudly with this portrait effectively of herself with Rupor. This artwork is called Paytowl again it's a very striking photograph and in it Kadija Say has a cowry shell bracelet on her wrist and she holds a bunch of cowry shells in her mouth the shells are actually strung together with a long piece of string and bunched up and put in her mouth. The other interesting thing about this pose is that she sits with her chin on her hand which has a very specific meaning in the gambia and it's a meaning to do with discontent and unhappiness so in a way perhaps this connects us with the trauma that's referenced in some of the other works in this series but perhaps the overarching theme of this and the title of the piece obviously is the cowry shells and the many different things that they represent and the way in which they are um so almost a quintessential symbol of Africa. The cowry shell this little shell just on its own carries so much symbolism and meaning for Africa and Africans. One of the main things for centuries is the fact that it's been a currency um so it's it's a symbol of wealth so it doesn't feel like there's anything negative about cowry shells it's a symbol of wealth that's one thing and used nowadays for jewellery a lot as well. Used for jewellery a lot uh not only that it's used as it's used for divination as well isn't it? Yeah and also it's really important as a link for the African diaspora to Britain um to to the continent I think this is one of the most enduring signs and enduring symbols of connecting the diaspora so in in in many respects so not only does that kind of show Khadijah says diasporic identity it's also like a pan-African symbol yeah really it's a pan-African symbol too which is which is great yeah yeah indeed. The image that really speaks to me and I think um is in so many ways the most powerful is the petal image it's the only image where Khadijah is looking directly at you. It shows her with a confidence uh peace and a defiance it is a very very powerful image and it's an image that conveys her femininity um where she as that is at one with her heritage and who she is in some ways it reminds me of one of her heroes Beyonce who she used to talk about it is a powerful image of a black woman in her stride it's how I choose to remember Khadijah and it is an indication of all that would have been possible uh did she live on that night? Good evening from the British Library and welcome to our live stream chat in a few moments Khadijah and I will be answering your questions so please do send them in but before we do that we thought we'd perhaps take a few moments to reflect on the the process of putting this exhibition together because certainly for me it's been a long journey and and a very moving one and um and really a very sort of profound process of research and discovery and it it's one I think in which um we've continually found out more and more about these images and found that there are meanings behind meanings as it were it's been a process of continual learning. Yeah it has been such a wonderful experience first of all working with you Marion has been has been great but also just in in terms of discovering different things about Khadijah herself learning more about the person she was because we find so many different everybody says what a wonderfully warm person she was um and just very joyous so we have that in the midst of her artwork which we explored in so many different ways we spoke to experts in the UK and so as we spoke to experts in the Gambia from the National Centre for Arts and Culture Gambia and experts here um you know community I mean who else did we speak to? We spoke to people who knew her um other artists and friends and family friends and family yeah yeah and we read some books as well for you yeah we did find a lot of reading yeah and uh and Eva and I think somebody's thesis as well came into it. That's right. Came into that as well just to so that we could get the whole context of um of Khadijah's life the different aspects the multi-faith aspects but also the diasporic aspects and her love of uh popular culture as well because they've been talking about yeah yeah so that all of that fed into it yeah yeah interestingly and there are there are so many different aspects to the work I think and and then again every time I look at the works I find I often see something new I mean I I came in this morning to have a look at the exhibition which which opened today and and I just thought so much about these works but what really struck me is so much about these works is so much is interior she she's listening to something that only she can hear she's she's looking at something with her eyes shut that only she can see and um it connects so strongly with religious faith but also um african healing being quite private often african religion and rituals being something for yourself. Yeah because the images when you first look at them they do look simple because there's not much in them it seems there's the body the black body and there's an object and there's the object on the body what was she doing with all of that we can only make some interpretations of that but also then when she goes and she starts mixing the popular culture with tradition I mean I love those ones of limon and ru Paul yes and we talked about that and that whole link with floral drag who would have thought that floral drag with those plastic flowers and with gambia and culture but she fused them together I mean yes it it is really amazing and there's so much behind that apparent simplicity yeah yeah well we've got some questions that have come in so maybe I should go to the first one um could you talk a bit more about the indigenous religious practices in gambia and how that fuses in with Islam and Christianity um I think this question is from Isis Amlak um yes could we talk a bit more about the indigenous religious practices in gambia and how that fuses in with Islam and Christianity I think I think one thing that that that's emerged clearly is how much religious mixing syncretism if you like um there is in the gambia and how much people draw on different traditions which is is exemplified here um and uh another um the other major religion um that you've talked about Khadijah is Rastafarianism yeah especially kind of like in the um like in the town areas and um and they will mix that because they some of them who who take on Rastafarianism will see Rastafarianism as a way of life I've been told Rastafarianism is a way of life Islam is further hereafter but it's also interesting and it seems like it might be mainly the men who do it but also young women do it as well like when you go to the hairdressers and when they take off their hijabs they usually have locks underneath locks underneath I was quite surprised but it's also quite typical across west Africa in the countries that I know of I've come from Sierra Leone for Muslims and Christians to marry it's not really a man thing for you know anything major for us and you just celebrate everybody's holidays it's it's a lovely kind of space to be in that these religious they're not in kind of conflict so she's able to bring this into her artwork the same way some some other artists do like there's another artist in the UK called Inua Ellums he does the same thing and it and it's lovely what it can produce absolutely because you can dip into all of those different aspects but also some similarities like course with the prayer beads because both Christians and Muslims both use prayer beads and this one we are quite sure they are the Islamic prayer beads the 99 beads after the name of Allah the two names of Allah so we're quite sure that they're the Islamic ones but because she is from both it could have been either ones and that was one of the things that we had to research which feet are exactly exactly yes couldn't get that wrong yeah yeah yeah oh of course the questions are now coming in they can fast um so um okay here's a question from Steve Russell thank you for this wonderful introduction to say's work can't wait to see the exhibition which are Marian uh which are Marian and Khadija's favorite images and why nobody's asked me that I must say it's almost like choosing your favorite child which obviously it's it's not on um I I was struck again by Tere which is the one where she has the amulets on her eyes there's an incredible look of peace about that image which I find really moving and yet it's also so as we said in the film it's so surprising and unexpected and I like that juxtaposition so um I don't have a favorite image but that's one I'd refer to I have a different favorite each day depending on how I feel but I suppose like I think maybe David Lambie mentioned it I like the image with her holding the cow is in her mouth because she's face on it's like I'm I'm coming into my own and I'm not afraid of it and she's and that's one of the I think it's the only one where she's where she's face on so that one strikes me um but I can't necessarily say it's a favorite yes but it is striking but also just to say that that image paytow with the cowish shells is also the first work in the um unfinished business exhibition the women's rights exhibition that that we are showing at the same time so the works in our exhibition here are silkscreen prints um but the 10 type of paytow is is also in the women's rights exhibition um here's a question I must admit I apologise I thought the one um the first one was Isis this one is Isis question um it's quite long so I might just have to take the beginning and the end so we get it precise uh hi thanks this exhibition is an extremely important celebration of the African woman it gives agency to the African female presence and experience Khadijah says contribution to the art world in this country is particularly significant at this time but only because of her untimely passing but also because of the visual impact of systemic racism that was exposed this year uh I'm sorry Isis I have to skip the middle I'm going to the end what have um what I've said what commitments have the British Library made to changing the narrative and opening spaces for the African presence and expression well I think that this exhibition in itself is an important way of doing that um giving a space for African culture here and um one of the things that that we were talking about again this afternoon is um the way in which Khadijah say presents African culture as a thing of beauty um when there is so much negativity around ideas about African culture often um and it is quite wonderful and I think also um this is something we have been working at we had a major exhibition on West Africa 2015 to 2016 and that was also very much a concern to um present African culture in in a much more neutral and positive light than is often the case yeah and I think that we were also talking about how to engage the community yes more so we were actually using what Khadijah wanted to leave a legacy she has because on the basis of her work we can bring in the community you know a lot of people don't know that the Gambian community around the country is quite sizeable but not only Gambian but those links to Gambian Senegalese as well and other West African countries so it's a way of bringing people into the library and into the work but you know and we can explore through that different ways yes and absolutely this exhibition is free unfortunately because of COVID regulations you have to book in advance but but it's free and open to everybody and we welcome everybody here and also I should say that that that we've already made a number of links with the community around the Grenfell area and and we had plans for various events which were obviously disrupted by COVID but we are hoping to have some real life events if that's possible before May possibly visits and if not we are looking at at online events thank you Ruth Pearson has asking are the pictures displayed the original metal plates or copies hello Ruth the pictures displayed here are prints they're silk screen prints and they were made from the metal plates the tin types um the tin types um some of them were lost in the Grenfell tower fire very sadly some of them have survived but um of all nine portraits uh there were digital scans of all nine portraits before some of them were lost and those scans have been used to make these silk screen prints um got another comment this is a comment from Felicity um I hope I pronounce her surname right um Buckham uh thank you thank you for the excellent virtual private view amazing art my favorite is the picture of the backs of women's heads such an appalling tragedy that Khadijah is no longer with us um those images are great the crowns they are not part of this exhibition sorry Felicity they're not part of this exhibition I'm not sure how they will be able to be viewed um but hopefully you will be able to come to this one in the space we breathe uh which is which is quite amazing yeah um I think we do have another question here but I think I can't be kind of answered that and we were talking about the mixed religious heritage um I think we we spoke about that one um I was wondering um Marion in terms of in terms of when we were doing the research what did you what did you come across in the research that really surprised you all that really stayed with you um yes I well I a lot of things really I guess um I was looking at at our notes again um today because obviously uh we couldn't put everything in in the exhibition in in the captions underneath each picture there are that there is our distilled research if you like um but there were things that we had to to leave out um obviously and and and one of those was it was sort of conjecture really um but but uh with some basis about shells and the sea and liminal areas between land and sea so when Kadija is holding the pot to her head in in Andy Turai um it's almost like she's holding a shell to her ear and in the obviously in the in Paitaw um there are carry shells uh front and centre of that of that image and and and shells have this um sort of connection with water with water spirits so again back to sort of African religious and spiritual ideas and I think um there may be there may be meanings there that she was trying trying to connect with those sorts of spiritual ideas um but I'm not aware that she wrote about that and so we won't know if that was in her mind or if that's an interpretation that that we're putting on it yeah well what about you what did you uh what was most striking for you for me strangely enough it was that whole link she did with um with the popular culture uh I wasn't expecting it no I wasn't expecting it in some ways I mean um Felicity mentioned the images um that the crowns in some ways that is also part of um very modern well it's both traditional and both modern culture because when you look at the hair it's um they're all different styles and the hair is at different stages some of it is treated and some of it's untreated some of it's dreads and some of it isn't that I could kind of immediately get but because I maybe because I didn't know Khadija personally I didn't know about her interest with Beyonce for example RuPaul was totally out of the blue but I can but in some ways you can kind of like so I love the way she fused those things yes and she's kind of saying that just because something might be hidden traditionally it does have a link to modern culture as well yeah and that I suppose that's what I like and I think moving forward she would probably have done more of that and it also showing that also tells us more about her in a way and that would have been quite exciting all of those links she would she would have made you know um yeah so we do have another question um from Debbie Golt I'd love to see Khadija say's work exhibited and discussed in the Gambia are there any plans for this maybe within the Embokka festival eventually um I think I think it's one it seems to be one exhibition at a time and um and it's basically it's up to Khadija say's estate yes where you know whether they say yes or no to something I think it's really important that her work should be shown in the Gambia because she was a Gambian British artist and you know both people in the UK and in the Gambia should be very very proud and I'm sure they are of Khadija and you know I was even thinking which Gambian women artists are there in the Gambia for example you know um who are who are so strong but you know we know some artists there but the artists I can think of are all male for a woman to come a young woman to come like this is it's totally extraordinary it is and then to see in some ways as well to see themselves in artwork when people see themselves in artwork when people see themselves in literature it gives them a confidence that nothing else can absolutely and that's very very important in some ways that kind of links back to Isis is Isis amlach's question how do we make ensure that those um that African culture and tradition is given proper respect wherever it is um and not isolated and I think it also links to Khadija's sort of a vowed purpose to open doors for other people she talks about that and she talks about that and when you imagine she's at the beginning of her career and she's already talking and thinking like that she is really giving a lot of young people hope which is why it's so great that there's those moves to have the support for young people yes um through the Khadija's a arts program right yeah I think she would have loved that yeah yeah I think it's it's beyond question that she is opening doors now absolutely yeah that's part of the gift and the legacy that she's given given for us yeah um so I'm just looking um what are the questions that we have there that we may not have answered yet um so excuse me I might not or I might have missed those kind of questions so in terms of um how long is the exhibition on for and have we um and in terms of any other I know we had to count a lot of events because of of COVID and everything but is there anything specifically that people need to look out for the exhibition is on till the 2nd of May and for other things that all I can say at the moment is watch this space yeah and we are going to do some blogs as well there will be blogs there will be blogs yeah so so the blogs will be and and I should also say that the British Library has bought a set of these prints these these are artist's proofs on loan from the estate of Khadija say but we have also bought a set which will be available to researchers in our reading room in due course that's great yeah I wanted to say a little bit more about the uh these these objects as well in terms of the traditional ones that we that we have um especially I suppose the pot because again when somebody asked about the favorite image all of a sudden I talked to myself I love the pots and the what especially when the incense is in them when we when we did the first uh what in the film and we did have the incense in there and it was a gorgeous smell and then you know today we don't have the incense in there and it it almost seems like it has a different purpose just it does almost seems like it has a different purpose and yeah and these ones were kind of these ones were got in east London but again you will find now small gambian shops where where there's gambian communities to be able to get so many of these different products and in one of the images as well and we're saying about and Khadija has the bag with medicinal properties so then a lot of those shops will also be selling some of those because they are healing they are they are healing and medicinal for different kind of leaves and different kind of uh yeah different kind of things as well um we have a question here from Margareta an illuminating discussion I wonder if you could reflect on the choice of still photography as opposed to moving image which dominates social and popular media I'm thinking of the ghostliness which seems to inhabit them I suppose it's about the process should I read that again yes um I wonder if you could reflect on the choice of still photography as opposed to moving image which dominates social and popular media I'm thinking of the ghostliness which seems to inhabit these yeah I suppose it it's a little hard to reflect on that in general terms but in in terms of what Khadija say chose to do I think this wet collodion process is is is just tremendous in the effects it gives and the the sort of eloquent nature of it and and again we were talking earlier about the way in which it sort of connects to a past um she's talking about tradition and she's using a very old form and old technique she's visualising it in an if you like an antiquated way and you can see the same thing in in in the film of Lemonade by Beyonce that you've got sort of old situations visualised and converted into something that the powerful um sort of um run by powerful black women basically um transforming that past and and connecting with it and and I think that's what Khadija is is doing in many ways would you would you agree I would but also as you're speaking in in in other ways it's still it connects again back to um the West African tradition in the sense of but also not just in West Africa probably in terms of having photos taken in studios yeah um and those old photos whether they be black and white or whether they be sepia um and I don't know if they use the collodion process in West Africa but still that that whole process of that whole taking photos it was a very important one for the family and it was one that those were ones would happen each year so um that is part of the tradition in a in a sense as well that's part of the tradition um uh of the of the different communities to have those so she has linked the European tradition with with African tradition right there just in terms of photographic process that's that's absolutely true and those photos were about what were usually studio photos that were staged in some way which is absolutely exactly what Khadija has found yeah yeah yeah again she's used her own twist he's used her own twist on those yes absolutely yeah yeah so um I think it's uh I think that was going to time for our last question actually unless you've got anything else uh no um that's all from me okay well I'd just like to wrap up and say thank you to to everybody as well and just mention in times of Khadija's work um there is um a quote I've come across from a Fenisha Kerr who is Tupac Shakur or she was Tupac Shakur's mother she she passed a few years ago as well and her quote was um arts can save children no matter what is going on in their homes and I really feel that art saved Khadija because she talks so much in the interviews in her interviews and her quote she talks a lot about the trauma and darkness she went through she doesn't always detail it but she does talk about the racism she experienced in Britain and those and you know so coming out so so to have this exhibition during this year with the Black Lives Matter movement and for her to talk about that is really really important but what we do see through her artwork is that she was migrating a different form of migration migrating through this trauma and darkness to come out on the other side and be really positive obviously there was you know that kind of trauma you don't get through immediately very quickly and she does talk in some place some places about spiritual remembrance which is all very much linked to discussions we're having today more deeply around ancestral uh ancestral trauma and ancestral remembrance and she linked that to the spiritual remembrance so she was moving through these phases and becoming stronger as an artist as a young African woman as well so she really has left us this fantastic legacy to share with others to share with young people you know to say if I can do it you can do it too so thank you Khadijah thank you for the legacy and the gift yes I can only echo that and and thank you all for joining us tonight and we hope you've enjoyed the evening as I said the exhibition continues until the second of May it's free please do come please don't forget to book in advance so thank you and good night from the British Library