Zarina Bhimji at the Whitechapel Gallery

Your Sadness is Drunk, Zarina Bhimji, 2001-2006 © Zarina Bhimji. Courtesy Haunch of Venison

The Whitechapel Gallery presents the first major UK survey of British photographer, film-maker and installation artist Zarina Bhimji. The exhibition traces the development of her work over the last 25 years and premieres her new film, Yellow Patch (2011), inspired by trade and immigration routes across the Indian Ocean between India and Africa.

Bhimji, who was nominated for the Turner Prize in 2007, creates poetic photographs and films which capture human traces in empty landscapes and buildings, often focusing on places haunted by their histories. The Whitechapel Gallery exhibition features her debut film Out of Blue (2002) alongside previously unseen photographic series and storyboards, and early installations from the 1980s.

The exhibition opens with the film Yellow Patch (2011), shot on location in India. An exploration of space with a characteristically evocative use of sound, the film focuses on distinct details of the landscape and architecture. It is simultaneously premiered at the Whitechapel Gallery, London, and The New Art Gallery, Walsall. The Whitechapel Gallery presentation displays for the first time storyboards relating to Bhimji’s in depth research process for Yellow Patch.

The film Out of Blue (2002) opens with a panning shot of the beautiful countryside of Uganda, but this is soon disturbed by a soundtrack of fire, birds and human voices. Shown alongside these films are works developed early in the artist’s career. These include the multimedia installation, She Loved to Breathe – Pure Silence (1987), which is an investigation of immigration protocol in Britain during the 1970s, and a set of giant polaroids shot in the Victoria and Albert Museum’s Gamble Room from 1989. Previously unseen sketches and development work for the films, lightboxes and large format photographs from the Love series (2001-06), taken in Uganda as part of the research that led to the film Out of Blue (2002), Red and Wet series (2000-12), and landscape photographs of Zanzibar taken in 1998 are also on view.

Zarina Bhimji is organised in collaboration with Kunstmuseum Bern.

Yellow Patch (2011) simultaneously premieres at The New Art Gallery Walsall.

Supported by Amrita Jhaveri, Karima and Gaurav Burman and the Acne White/Art T-shirt Project.

Whitechapel Gallery

77-82 Whitechapel High Street

London E1 7QX

Tel: 020 7522 7888

Exhibition dates: 19 January – 9 March 2012,

Galleries 1, 8 & 9