Until these calamities be overpast, 2018. Zalika Azim.
in case you should forget to sweep before sunset
Zalika Azim
Opening Reception: Tuesday, March 12, 2019 | 6-8pm
Exhibition dates: March 6 – April 13, 2019
Public Conversation with Dr. Deb Willis, Chair, Department of Photography & Imaging: Wednesday, March 27, 2019 | 7pm
Baxter St at the Camera Club of New York is pleased to present in case you should forget to sweep before sunsetby 2018 Workspace Resident and DPI alum Zalika Azim ('14), open now and running through April 13, 2019. Featuring multiple lens-based works as well a new photographic installation, the forthcoming exhibition explores notions of home, memory, migration, and remigration.
Referring to southern lore, the title in particular, pulls from a common superstition which suggests that “the home should not be swept past sunset.” For believers, doing so puts one at risk of sweeping away the spirits of ancestors who may provide protection to the family home. In case you should forget to sweep before sunset is not only an engagement with ancestral knowledges and southern sensibilities, but is also a play on expectations of time, space, and narration.
Drawing from instances recalled through shared family memories, alongside historical events and speculation, Azim unravels and reworks the photograph to construct overlapping, non-linear narratives that foreground the many ways in which fact and fiction collide. Through these layered works, Azim presents the viewer with landscapes that collectively act as repositories, projecting multiple occurrences simultaneously.
Incorporating found photographs taken and collected by her late grandmother Mary E. Lemons between the 1930s and 2000s, the artist asks critical questions about the historical impact of photography on African American life: How do modes of disruption and code function as markers of protection, specifically with regard to locating safe spaces and notions of home? How do the politics of repetition shed light on migration and ritual?
About Zalika Azim
Zalika Azim (b.1990) is a New York-based artist conceptualizing her practice through photography, installation, performance, collage and sound. Exploring the complexities of personal and collective narratives, her work investigates the ways in which notions of memory, displacement, and the body are negotiated in relation to nationhood and the American landscape. Azim’s work has been exhibited within the United States and abroad, including the International Center of Photography, Pfizer, 8th Floor Gallery, Diego Rivera Gallery, the Instituto Superior de Arte and The Dean Collection. Zalika holds a BFA in Photography and Imaging from the Tisch School of the Arts and a BA in Social and Cultural Analysis from New York University.