Ben Uri Research Unit

Born: 1992 London, England

Other name/s: Ya-Haddy Sisi Saye

Biography

Photographer Khadija Saye was born in Hammersmith, west London, England on 30 July 1992 to Gambian parents. Brought up in nearby Ladbroke Grove, she was immersed in a dual-faith upbringing, attending church with her Christian mother and mosque with her Muslim father. This deep connection to spirituality and her Gambian heritage profoundly informed her artistic practice. She later expressed, ‘like many first generationers, I remain caught between two worlds amid owning my African heritage and recognising my blackness’ (British library documentary). A standout student, aged 14, Saye was awarded the Arnold Foundation Scholarship at renowned Rugby public school, where her passion for photography was encouraged. She subsequently studied photography at the University for the Creative Arts (UCA) Farnham. For her 2013 graduation project, Crowned, she presented photographs of her closest female friends and family, emphasising the power and identity of Black women through their hair. This series was chosen for the 2014 Discerning Eye exhibition at the Mall Galleries by artist Nicola Green, who subsequently employed Saye as a studio assistant.

In 2016, Saye participated in a workshop at London's Autograph, focusing on 19th-century collodion tintypes, during which she experienced being both photographer and sitter. Tintype photography involves creating images on a thin sheet of metal coated in enamel. It is a delicate technique that can be unpredictable as it is easily affected by external factors. In 2017, Saye employed this technique for her renowned series of nine self-portraits, Dwelling: in this Space we Breathe. Through staged rituals, she captured herself engaging with objects from her parents' religious backgrounds, blending her African, Christian, and Islamic heritage, the tintype method conferring a unique, atmospheric quality to the self-portraits. Saye acknowledged the parallel between the ritualistic Gambian spiritual practices seen in the images and the lengthy, elaborate process of tintype, noting that ‘whilst exploring the notions of spirituality and rituals, the process of image making became a ritual in itself’ (Tate website). As noted by Holly Black, tintype ‘casts ghostly folds and smears across the print and present dense, beautiful shadows, like something from an ancient, collective dream' (Black 2018). The objects, deeply rooted in African spirituality, included prayer beads (Kurus, 2017) and incense pots (Andichurai, 2017). With the series, Saye aimed to 'explore how a portrait could serve as a declaration of one's faith, morality, spirit, and well-being' (University of Warwick). Created after Saye experienced a personal trauma, the images evoked self-restoration and offered a profound reflection on spirituality, trauma, and the body, with Saye’s ‘dignified and mysterious stillness’ contributing to the works’ ‘startling impact’ (Williams 2020). The austere and yet deeply intimate black and white self-portraits reflected her profound engagement with the embodiment of trauma in the Black experience and her journey into her Gambian roots and dual-faith upbringing. The images also paid homage to the African photographic studios prominent before the digital era. In Nak Bejjen (Tate collection), which translates from Wolof into English as ‘cow horn’, Saye is depicted sitting sideways, adorned in dark attire. With her head lowered, she is seemingly at prayer, while another individual, mostly obscured from view, stands behind her. This figure's extended arm, draped in a white knitted sleeve, enters the frame, placing a horn-shaped item at the base of Saye's neck, suggesting a ritual performed by Gambian healers to extract impurities from a person’s body.

In 2017, Saye collaborated with master printer, Matthew Rich, Jealous, and The Studio of Nicola Green to transform one of her tintypes, Southiou, into a silkscreen print (in an edition of 50) using a high-resolution raw scan. In the same year Saye's series, Dwelling, featured in the Diaspora Pavilion at the Venice Biennale, where Saye was honoured as the youngest exhibitor, presenting her works alongside prominent Black artists such as Isaac Julien and Yinka Shonibare.

Tragically, just a month later, Saye and her mother perished in the Grenfell Tower fire in London, England on 14 June 2017. The fire destroyed all of Saye's work, with the exception of the six tintypes displayed in Venice and three others she had recently submitted for high-resolution scanning, intended for silkscreen reproductions. However, the raw scans of the tintypes were retrieved and used to create a collection of silkscreen prints. Saye’s self-portrait Sothiou was displayed in a small memorial gallery at Tate in 2017. The Dwelling series has been exhibited in many museums and galleries nationwide, including at Victoria Miro, London in the group exhibition Rock My Soul, curated by Isaac Julien in 2018; Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge (2018); British Museum (2021); Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford (2023). Khadija Saye Arts at IntoUniversity, inspired by the life and in memory of Saye, was founded in 2019 by Nicola Green with IntoUniversity. In the UK public domain, Saye’s work is represented in the Tate Collection, University of Warwick Art Collection and Government Art Collection.

Related books

Gareth Harris, ‘Chris Ofili’s Mural on Grenfell Tower Tragedy Unveiled at Tate Britain’, The Art Newspaper, 12 September 2023
Katy Hessel, The Story of Art Without Men (London: Hutchinson Heinemann, 2022)
Kate Bryan, Bright Stars: Great Artists who Died too Young (London: Frances Lincoln, 2021)
'Gilda Williams on Khadija Saye’, Artforum International, Vol. 59, November 2020
Stuart Jeffries, ‘Exhibitions: Khadija Saye/ Rineke Dijkstra’, The Spectator, 18 July 2020
Alexandra Topping, ‘Khadija Saye: Artist Was on Cusp of Recognition When she Died in Grenfell’, The Guardian, 17 June 2017, p. 6
Sanaz Movahedi, ‘Khadija Saye, my Dear Artist Friend Whose Laughter I will Never Forget’, The Observer, 17 June 2017, p. 8
David A. Bailey and Jessica Taylor, Diaspora Pavilion, exhibition catalogue (London: International Curators Forum, 2017)

Public collections

Selected exhibitions

Dwelling: In This Space We Breathe by Khadija Saye, Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford (2023)
Group exhibition, Faith Museum, Bishop Auckland (2023)
The Lindisfarne Gospels, Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle (2022)
The Story of Art as it’s Still Being Written, Victoria Miro, London (2022)
Masterpieces in Miniature: The 2021 Model Art Gallery, Pallant house, Chichester (2021-22)
Unfinished Business: The Fight for Women’s Rights, group exhibition, British Library (2021)
Khadija Saye: in This Space we Breathe, British Library (2021)
Dwelling: In This Space We Breathe by Khadija Saye, Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford (2021)
Breathing Out, Art in Romney Marsh Visual Arts Festival, St Georges Church, Ivychurch (2021)
Dwelling: In This Space We Breathe, as part of Breath is Invisible, 236 Westbourne Grove. London (2020)
Rock My Soul, Victoria Miro, London (2019)
Dwelling: In This Space We Breathe, as part of Actions. The Image of the World Can Be Different, Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge (2018)
Post War and Contemporary Art, Christie's, London (2018)
Actions. The Image of the World can be Different, Kettle's Yard, Cambridge (2018)
Memorial, Tate Britain, London (2017)
Diaspora Pavilion, Venice Biennale, Palazzo Pisani S Marina, Venice, Italy (2017)
Discerning Eye, Mall Galleries, London (2017)

Ben Uri archive

Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [Khadija Saye ]

Ben Uri Research Unit

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

Khadija Saye photographer