Expressions in your histories, overshadow my memory (2024-

Derived from a photograph first published in the East Africa Standard in 1972 and images from my family archive, the wallpaper brings together familial images alongside a publicly circulated photograph to consider how collective histories are encountered, negotiated and carried through personal experience. The background image depicts a South Asian woman being directed onto a bus by Ugandan army officers during the expulsion period. The gestures within the image – the pointing, the firm stance and the performance of authority – became a point of departure for the work.

Repeated across the surface are white silhouettes derived from family photographs of myself at younger ages. Positioned in relation to the newspaper image, these forms create a tension between intimate and public forms of image-making, placing lived experience alongside inherited and collective narratives. Through repetition, the work considers how photographs mediate relationships across time and how images continue to shape encounters with histories that remain incomplete.

The pink tone introduces a subtle sense of unease. Referencing the colour cast associated with military-grade film used to identify potential targets, it draws attention to systems of looking and control embedded within visual culture. Across the wallpaper, these layered images remain unresolved, opening space between visibility and obscurity, proximity and distance.

Expressions in your histories, overshadow my memory (2024-ongoing)
Site specific wallpaper; dimensions variable