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Carry the Shadows Home
publication: artwork collection Carry the Shadows Home explores deep diasporic threads of memory, identity, and belonging. Gathering eleven artists, this publication examines what we carry through movement, memory, ritual, protest, and tenderness, in a collective search for home.
What emerges is not only the work itself but the relationships it nurtures — between artists, audiences, and communities. These practices show that identity is never singular, that joy can be an act of resistance, and that community is built piece by piece: one table, one meeting, one invitation at a time.
The stories gathered here insist that we are more than the narratives imposed upon us. They remind us that home is not just where we come from, but also where we choose to stand together — specific, plural, unafraid.
Featuring work by: Amak Mahmoodian, Anusheh Zia, Aya Haidar, Haroun Hayward, Kalpesh Lathigra, Mohammad Tariq, Mohammed Adel, Rehan Jamil, Sarah Ali, Sofia Karim, Zaineb Abelque.
Foreword by Aisha Zia
Designed by Jeffrey Choy and Omar Zia
Edited by Sherif Dhaimish
Published in 2025 by 62 Gladstone Street & Pendle Press
148mm x 210mm (portrait), 72pp, softback
Exhibition
This publication accompanies Bridging Landscapes II, an exhibition at Peterborough Museum & Art Gallery in 2025 as part of Platforma Festival with Counterpoints Arts, curated by Aisha Zia and supported by Arts Council England.
Notes On Design
Books are core to memorialising lived experience. After over a decade in
the design field, my work shifted to a more personal artistic practice when
my hometown of Hong Kong plunged into political chaos. The crisis was an
inevitable domino effect of its colonial history, a mess left by a hastily drafted
British treaty that essentially said, “Let’s put a pin in this for 99 years and
people in the 1990s will sort it out.” As it turns out, they did not. The city
turned to chaos, with protesters rejecting China’s totalitarian control against
politicians, and police forces playing out their power fantasies.
This led me to create Umbrella Uprising (2020) — a book now banned in Hong
Kong and China due to its critical voice — which solidified my conviction that
publications can be powerful acts of resistance. Its existence now likely
endangers my personal safety if I were ever to return. Yet, rather than being a
source of fear, this consequence has become a point of clarity. If anything, it’s
proof that a collection of mere images and words can be so powerful that an
authoritarian state feels the need to silence it, and that the existence of our
stories can topple a country, if there are enough of us who dare to share them.
This act of political preservation runs parallel to the deeply personal act of
cultural survival that defines the migrant experience. When you live in a place
where your first language gets rusty, and the food is not what you grew up
with, it forces you to decide what memories you carry and how you keep
them alive. My practice is built on that necessity of using books and visuals
to create spaces for stories that are marginalised, censored, or at risk of
being forgotten. Contributing to a publication like Carry the Shadows Home
feels so resonant. It continues the same essential work: making sure that our
nuancedstories are seen, held in hands, and preserved. I hope these stories
offer you a space for reflection as much as it offers us.
Jeffrey Choy