Record

CodeDS/UK/544
Person NameBhimji; Zarina (1963-); Photographer
Dates1963-
Dates and Places1963 Born in Uganda
1974 Forced to emigrate to England during rule of Idi Amin
1983-1986 Studied at Goldsmiths College, University of London, London
1987-1989 Studied at the Slade School of Fine Art, London
1998 Visited Uganda for the first time since her family’s expulsion from the country
HistoryBhimji was born in Uganda in 1963, to Indian parents. During the presidency of Idi Amin, Bhimji and her family were forced to emigrate to England due to his expulsion of Asians from the country. This experience has had a lasting impact on Bhimji’s work, particularly her photography series Love (1998-2007), and her film installation Out of Blue (2002), created following her research visit to Uganda in 1998. These two works deal with ideas of expulsion and absence. Bhimji has noted many childhood experiences which have influenced her work, such as her subscription to an early feminist magazine as a young girl and her experience of racism in the U.K. These events in Bhimji’s childhood find exploration within the themes present in her work, such as migration, place, and the human experience. Bhimji’s work is particularly interesting because it is not explicitly political; while she explores many political issues within her art, these are often hidden within the layers of the piece, and therefore one often has to search for the meaning.

Bhimji studied at both Goldsmith’s College and the Slade School of Fine Art during the 1980s, and also became a member of the Black British Arts Movement in this decade. Bhimji’s work has been displayed by numerous art galleries, and in 2007 she was shortlisted for the Turner Prize, for her film Waiting.
ActivitySelected Solo Exhibitions

2012 Zarina Bhimji, Whitechapel Gallery, London, UK and Kunstmuseum Bern, Switzerland
2012 Zarina Bhimji: Yellow Patch, The New Art Gallery Walsall, UK
2010 Who Knows Tomorrow, Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin, Germany
2009 Zarina Bhimji: Out of Blue, Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL, US
2007 Zarina Bhimji, Haunch of Venison, Zürich, Switzerland, and Galerie Lumen Travo, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
2006 Zarina Bhimji, Haunch of Venison, London, UK
2004 Institute of International Visual Arts, London, UK
2003 Matrix, Wadsworth Athenium Museum of Art, Hartford, CT, US
2003 Art Now, Tate Britain, London, UK
2001 Talwar Gallery, New York, US
1998 Cleaning the Garden, Harewood House, Terrace Gallery, Leeds, UK
1995 Kettle's Yard, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
1992 I will always be here, Ikon Gallery, Birmingham and tour

Selected Group Exhibitions

2011 He disappeared into complete silence, De Hallen Museum, Haarlem, The Netherlands
2011 ARS1: Africa in Kouvola, Kouvola, Finland Götebourg International Biennal, Götebourg, Sweden
2010 29th Bienal de São Paulo, Pavilhã o Ciccillo Matarazzo, São Paulo, Brazil
2009 Capturing Time, Kadist Art Foundation, Paris
2008 Third Guangzhou Triennial, Guangdong Museum of Art and Times Museum, Guangzhou, China 2007 Turner Prize 2007, Tate Liverpool, Liverpool, UK
2006 How to Improve the World: 60 Years of British Art, Hayward Gallery, London, UK
2006 Zones of Contact, Biennale of Sydney, Sydney, Australia
2006 Snap Judgments: New Positions in Contemporary African Photography, ICP, New York, US 2005 50 Years of Documenta 1955-2005, Kassel, Germany
2005 British Art Show 6, Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead & UK tour
2005 Experiments with Truth, The Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia, US
2004 strangerthanfiction, Leeds City Art Gallery, UK
2004 In Our Time, Works from the Moderna Museet Collection, Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden
2003 Istanbul Biennale, Istanbul, Turkey
2003 Fault Lines, Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy
2002 Documenta 11, Kassel, Germany
2001 The Short Century, Museum Villa Stuck Munich and tour to Berlin, Chicago and New York 2001 East 2001, Norwich Gallery, UK
1997 No place (like home), Walker Arts Center, Minneapolis, US
1997 Public Relations, Stadthaus Ulm, Germany
1997 Life's Little Necessities, Johannesburg Biennale
1997 The Quick and the Dead: Artists and Anatomy, Hayward Gallery, London, UK and tour
1996 In/Sight, Guggenheim Museum, New York, US
1994 Iniva inaguaration exhibition, Iniva, London, UK
1993 Antwerp ' 93, MuHKA Museum, Antwerp, Belgium
1990 Shocks to the System '90s Political Art, Arts Council Collection
1990 Intimate Distance, The Photographers' Gallery, London, UK and tour
1989 Whitechapel Open, Whitechapel Art Gallery, London
1989 Towards a Bigger Picture, Victoria & Albert Museum, London, UK and tour
1988 The Essential Black Art, Chisenhale Gallery, London, UK and tour
1987 Dislocation, Kettle's Yard, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
1986 From Two Worlds, Whitechapel Art Gallery, London, UK and tour
Source“Zarina Bhimji”. Africanah. Accessed July 5, 2024. https://africanah.org/zarina-bhimji/.
“Zarina Bhimji”. Whitechapel Gallery. Accessed July 5, 2024. https://www.whitechapelgallery.org/exhibitions/zarina-bhimji/.
“Zarina Bhimji”. Artists, HENI. Accessed July 5, 2024. https://heni.com/artists/zarina-bhimji.
“Zarina Bhimji”. Brooklyn Museum. Accessed July 5, 2024. https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/eascfa/about/feminist_art_base/zarina-bhimji.
“Zarina Bhimji”. Whitechapel Gallery. Accessed July 5, 2024. https://www.whitechapelgallery.org/exhibitions/zarina-bhimji/.
Borchardt-Hume, Achim, Kathleen Bühler, and Doro Globus, ed. Zarina Bhimji. Whitechapel Gallery: London, 2012.
Correia, Alice. “Zarina Bhimji: Light, Time and Dislocation”. Third Text 26, no. 3 (2012): 359-363.
Dhar, Jyoti. “Zarina Bhimji’s Poetic Confrontation of Postcolonial History”. Aperture. Jan 28, 2021. Accessed July 5, 2024. https://aperture.org/editorial/zarina-bhimji-poetic-confrontation-of-postcolonial-history/.
Young, Allison K. “Lady of Silences: The Enigmatic Photo-Text Work of Zarina Bhimji”. British Art Studies. July 18, 2021. Accessed July 5, 2024. https://www.britishartstudies.ac.uk/index/article-index/zarina-bhimji/ships-and-souvenirs/gasworks-ballooning-and-the-visual-gas-field/death-writing-in-the-colonial-museums/negotiating-a-courtship-between-courts/lively-limning/ecosystem-of-exhibitions.
Catalogue
RefNoTitle
CWA/2/2/20Zarina Bhimji, Prodeepta Das, Ashwin Gatha, Sunil Gupta, Sunil Janah, Mumtaz Karimjee, Abida Khan, Samina Khanour, Sarita Sharm, Padma Shreshtha: Darshan - Ten Asian Photographers, 1987
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