Ben Uri Research Unit

Born: 1983 Ahmedabad, India

Year of Migration to the UK: 1994

Biography

Photographer, filmmaker and educator, Arpita Shah was born in Ahmedabad, western India in 1983. Shah spent the first three years of her life in India before her family moved briefly to Ireland and subsequently re-located to Saudi Arabia. Shah finally immigrated to the UK with her family in 1994, at the age of eleven. This migratory experience is reflected in her practice, which often focuses on notions of home, belonging and shifting cultural identities. Shah graduated from Edinburgh Napier University in 2006 with a BA in photography and now works with photography and film, exploring the intersections of culture, heritage and identity. Shah has 'always been fascinated by photography; her father was 'an amateur photographer and [...] was always taking pictures of the family' (Arpita Shah, Ruthless Magazine). She draws, both visually and conceptually, on Asian and Eastern mythology in order to explore issues of cultural displacement in the Asian diaspora, while her research centres on the politics of identity, race, gender and representation. Working with portraiture, in particular, in Shah's own words, 'my practice is socially engaged and I often collaborate with women from diverse cultural backgrounds exploring the intergenerational experiences of diaspora, migration, displacement and colonialism' (Arpita Shah, Open College of the Arts website).

Shah held her first solo shows in Fife and Glasgow in 2012, followed by her first artist residencies at Street Level Photoworks and Tramway, Glasgow (2013). As part of her residency on the Albert Drive project at Tramway, Shah collaborated with Asian women from Pollokshields (an area in the south of the city), to create Purdah – The Sacred Cloth, a series of portraits of women from Muslim, Sikh and Hindu communities who practise the tradition of head covering or veiling. Purdah was exhibited in the UK (including at the New Art Gallery Walsall in 2019 as part of a group exhibition Too Rich a Soil with artists Maryam Wahid and Nilupa Yasmin), and abroad. Shah has received several commissions, including from An Lanntair (Isle of Lewis), GRAIN (a Birmingham-based arts organisation) and, in 2014, she was commissioned by Creative Scotland to create Portrait of Home, a collection of photographs of families based in Scotland, who have cultural roots in other Commonwealth countries. Exhibited as part of the Commonwealth Games Cultural Programme, the images celebrated Scotland’s links to the Commonwealth, visually representing how migration between these countries has shaped the national and cultural identity of contemporary Scotland. In 2019 Shah was commissioned by GRAIN, to create Modern Muse, a project exploring, representing and celebrating South Asian female identity among women between the ages of 16 and 30 from Birmingham and across the West Midlands. Shah is also the author of a short film, Zindagi Ki Ghazal (2012–13, made in collaboration with Ankur Productions as part of the Intergenerational Jukebox Project), exploring the experience of music and migration within an older generation of South Asian women, now living in Scotland, and which was screened at the Tron Theatre, Glasgow. In 2017 Shah was Artist in Residence with Kuona Trust in Nairobi, and in 2019 she was the recipient of the Light Work + Autograph ABP Artist in Residence programme in Syracuse, New York.

Shah is a co-founder of Fòcas Scotland, a photography initiative set up to support emerging photography in Scotland, and is a photography tutor for Open College of Arts. She is also a member of the board of trustees for Street Level Photoworks, Glasgow. In a recent interview Shah reflected: 'I feel like it’s a really interesting time for women of colour at the moment, there is more presence and representation compared to what it was like in the ’90s when I was growing up. There still needs to be more, but I feel like there are so many more platforms to express yourself now and opportunities to connect with other women' (Shah, Desiblitz, 5th August 2019). Shah's work has been exhibited internationally, including at Detroit Center of Contemporary Photography (2013); Focus Festival, Mumbai, India (2015); Chobi Mela IX, Dhaka, Bangladesh (2017), as well as extensively within the UK, including at Tramway, Glasgow (2014); Autograph APB, London (2018), Street Level Photoworks, Glasgow (2019), Impressions Gallery, Bradford (2020) and Towner International, Towner Gallery, Eastbourne (2020). Arpita Shah lives and works between Edinburgh and Eastbourne. Her work is held in UK public collections including the National Galleries of Scotland.

Public collections

National Galleries of Scotland

Related organisations

Edinburgh Napier University (student)
Fòcas Scotland (co-founder)
Open College of Arts (tutor)
Street Level Photoworks (trustee)

Selected exhibitions

Towner International, Towner Gallery (2020)
Nalini, Impressions Gallery, Bradford (2020)
Nalini, Street Level Photoworks, Glasgow (2019)
Too Rich a Soil, New Art Gallery Walsall (2019)
Purdah: The Sacred Cloth, Autograph APB, London (2018)
Are Teenage Dreams So Hard to Beat? Travelling Gallery (2018)
Copan Chai, An Lanntair, Isle of Lewis (2017)
Portrait of Britain, British Journal of Photography (2016)
Portrait of Home, Hillhead Library, Glasgow (2015)
Tramway, Glasgow (2014)
Night Contact, Brighton Photo Biennial (2014)
Commonwealth Family Album, Glasgow Green (2014)
The Albert Drive Project, Tramway, Glasgow (2013)
Nymphaeaceae, Street Level Photoworks, Glasgow (2012)
Ghar (Home), Lochgelly Gallery, Fife (2012)

Ben Uri archive

Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [Arpita Shah]

Ben Uri Research Unit

for the study and digital recording of the Jewish, Refugee and wide Immigrant contribution to British visual culture since 1900.

Arpita Shah photographer