I’m Zarina Bhimji and I am in my studio at the moment and this is where I work.
I think it took me a while to admit to myself that I’m an artist.
When I made my first film that’s when I decided that I wanted to marry my work.
That’s what I decided.
This is my camera. I use it to shoot in transparency
and it’s a medium format camera. Without this I wouldn’t be able to do any work.
It’s my little baby. It was really important to me to be technically
independent because when I was a student it was a territory that was not easily accessible,
I felt. Until I’ve processed the film and looked
at my film on my lightbox, I always think I’ve got nothing in it. I always think the
trip is wasted, you know? And that’s probably how I keep myself going.
I do this sometimes when I’m tired. It’s a lot easier. At the end of the shoot I sit
on it because I think ‘thank god for that, we’re finished!’
I wanted to show you these shoes. I bought these when I was going to film in Africa.
I thought these shoes might give me good luck. I thought that these shoes were really interesting
because I was interested in the idea of evidence and the bottom of the shoes, if you took them
under a microscope, perhaps you would discover a different form of questions.
Where it’s walked. Who it’s met. What it did.
This has been in my studio for a long time. I took this photograph when I first made my
trip to India. I took this without knowing what I was doing.
All I remember was he said to me: ‘can you adopt me, can I come to England?’
But this photograph has taught me a lot because of the way he’s standing. His eyes, his
button-holes, give off what I call like a ‘puncture’, a moment of emotion. But it’s
formal. And I think maybe that’s what my work is about. Where is the emotion? Where
is the physicality? When he said ‘take me with you’, in a
way I have.
This was worn by my mum when she, I think,
met my dad the first time. It’s, I think, very old in the family. It reminds me of a
certain moment in time. It’s a different sensibility to paint on
canvas. It’s not about the embroidery. It’s about a certain kind of echo.
The colour scheme in here is really interesting and I think when I grade my films it’s been
unconsciously without knowing partly inspired by this sort of colouring.
Can I show you something that I have from my school days?
Early school was a problem because I didn’t speak English. I couldn’t read and write.
I ended up in care in a children’s home and that was where I really realised that
I need to get my act together here, if I’m going to survive. And so I just worked and
worked and worked. I remember my foster mother saying that you
might not be able to go to university, but you could do something with your hands. And
I thought, you know, wow! So I believed in that.
I think that everybody should have equal access. I sort of worry that the culture comes from
one place. I feel that culture should be coming from all sorts of voices. And I think when
I’m feeling fed up of working I remind myself why that is important.