Kajia Saye born in London in 1992 was a British – Gambian artist and photographer, who tragically lost her life in the Grenfell tower Disaster in 2017. At aged 16 she won a full scholarship to the prestigious Rugby school where her passion of photography first began to grow she went on to take a BA in Photography at UCA Farnham, where she first began to experiment with her Gambian identity in relation to photography. In early 2017 Saye, completed nine tintype photographers from she project she entitled ‘Dwelling: in this space we breathe’ these self portraits where on Gambian spiritual practises.This project was set to be exhibited at the Venice Biennale, which is a prestigious international art exhibition held every two years in Italy. Her works was meant to be included in a project entitled ‘ Disopra Pavilion’, in which a group of contemporary artist from racially diverse backgrounds presented work on the theme of migration and displacement. Each image was a self -portrait, in which State performs a different, time- honoured, Gambain spiritual ritual. For the project she drew on her own self interest and explored the emotions, feeling and consequences of her journey and heritage.

These images were created to look a certain way, inspired by the Victorian era of tintype photography, in which the image in created by using a wet metal plate and collodion solution. Tintype photography is affected by the environment that they are developed in such as the constancy of light and the temperature the the area. I personally think that she decided to present her work in this format  because there are very few portraits of black woman in the 19th century, when this type of technology was being used. It gives the images a sense of incongruous to them which then makes the viewer think about the the historic documentation of black people throughout photography. When I look at the image the first things that I connect it to is images to slaves from the 19th century as black people where only send document in this type of photography, when then where being documented  as a part of their plantations owners property. Making the images became impactful for Saye, ‘whilst exploring the notions of spirituality and rituals, the process of image-making became a ritual in itself’. In the images Saye in wearing a traditional Gambian headwrap, and is holding an incense burner which is an item considered to be sacred in The Gambia. The image looks as if it was taken in a studio, it is unclear if Saye took this image using a clicker so she would have been pressing the shutter, as her hand is out of the frame, or whether there was somebody on set with her. Saye’s eyeliner looks as if she is looking up to the burning inses, this may be a symbolic sign, because the inse is used is spiritual practices, that maybe she is trying to seek approval from a higher power. The fact that she is facing away from the camera in his image, may be representing the fact that she like many other black woman face prejudice, and are see as the stereotypes set around they are seen to be connected to.