On Permanent Display, Kings Cross, London.
To fill the void of connection left by the pandemic and the absence of community events, I started, ‘The Strangers Yearbook’, at the beginning of the first UK lockdown. It documents how people were feeling during this time of uncertainty. I asked participants to send a selfie and a description of how they were feeling on Instagram,, which I would then paint and post online. Each one-a-day, sketchbook painting is an immediate expression of my response to the image and words. The project lives as an ongoing Instagram gallery of more than 150 paintings, and I am continuing to paint one each day as lockdown continues.
“I am really impressed by ‘The Strangers Yearbook’ – the fact it’s self-initiated and how it encouraged people to share their personal stories along with a digital and revealing portrait of themselves caught on their phone. For some, it was a platform to speak to a larger world about what they were going through and how they felt. Karimah told a different story every day with their words, but their stories also became a visual diary as she painted their portraits. She found a way to connect a global community that was sharing the most unifying and lonely year most of us will experience in our lifetime.”
-Trino Verkade, Sarabande Founding Trustee
