Zineb Sedira

The Artist Studio and the Sea, 2011 - 2022

‘The artist’s studio and the sea’ is a reconstruction of Sedira’s south London studio. A shelving unit serves as a whimsical self-portrait of the artist as an obsessive collector of oceanic memorabilia: model ships, old maps, books on paper boats, a tin of chocolate sardines. Sedira is the child of immigrant parents who arrived in France in the 1960s, fleeing war-torn Algeria. In 1986, she travelled by boat again when she emigrated to the UK. For her, the sea – in general, but mainly the Mediterranean to which she is most connected – is loaded with symbolism; of migration, transport, trade, identity, family, death. These themes have played a formative role in Sedira’s lived experience and cultural identity.