From Uganda to Haunch of Venison gallery in London and Zurich, it’s been a long journey for photographer-cum-filmmaker Zarina Bhimji. And when on Tuesday London’s Tate Gallery announced her name amongst this year’s quartet of short-listed artists for the prestigious Turner Prize, Bhimji could not have been happier.

“I was truly delighted with this wonderful news. Christoph Gruneberg, Director of Tate Liverpool and Chairman of the 2007 Turner Prize Jury, informed me that my name has been short-listed for this year’s award,” she said.

She has been short-listed for her recent solo exhibitions at the Haunch of Venison gallery in London and Zurich.

Though a large body of her work focuses on Uganda, “this work is not all about her memories of the African nation.” “It’s about the universal feelings of love, grief, spirituality, beauty and extermination,” she says.

Bhimji, 44, migrated to Leicester with her family in 1974 after Ugandan Asians were ordered to leave the country by dictator Idi Amin.

Although her journey of life has little to do with India, the country attracts her a lot. “I keep visiting the country regularly. I like the works of M F Husain and Amrita Sher-Gil a lot. However, I don’t see myself just as an Indian or an African or an English. I am an artist,” she says.

While leaving Uganda, Bhimji was old enough to absorb the trauma of forced migration and young enough not to be scarred forever. “That erasure, elimination and extermination might have dotted my work. I am not a documentary photographer. I am an artist,” says Bhimji.

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