Dwelling: In This Space We Grieve

MA Degree Show, Central Saint Martins. London, 2019

It may not be clear why I have chosen to install an empty bottle fridge, filled with the sounds of grief, as my final degree show piece. The premise of this work is to offer a libation, within a space where the serving and spilling of drinks is forbidden. For I am mourning the death of my neighbour, friend and colleague Khadija Saye; because I cannot be in this space without thinking of her. She was the one who brought me here two years ago, to see a previous version of this degree show and made me promise that I would join her as a prospective student; so that we could both graduate together in the summer of 2019. Yet I stand here alone today, because a few weeks after that fateful encounter, Khadija was killed in the fire of Grenfell Tower. A blaze that was apparently caused by the faultiness of an immigrant’s fridge.