I Am Sparkling: N. V. Parekh and His Portrait Studio Clients—Mombasa, Kenya 1940-1980

N. V. Parekh was an influential portrait photographer whose studio, located in Mombasa in the 20th-century, attracted clients from East Africa and beyond. I Am Sparkling: N. V. Parekh and His Portrait Studio Clients—Mombasa, Kenya 1940- 1980 is a discrete examination of an historically-significant artist and his distinct clientele; and the temporal, geographic, and cultural milieu in which their collaborations flourished. The manuscript is based on a rarely accessed photographic archive and is complemented by extensive interviews with Parekh’s diverse clientele, with a particular focus on women as clients of studio photographers. The manuscript also includes a preface interview with the artist Wangechi Mutu.

Isolde Brielmaier is Deputy Director at the New Museum in New York and Curator-at-Large at the International Center for Photography (ICP) in New York, and Professor of Critical Studies in the Department of Photography, Imaging and Emerging Media at Tisch School of the Arts at New York University. She is also Editor at Large at Air Mail, Graydon Carter’s new media venture. She edited and contributed an essay to Culture as Catalyst: Visual Culture & Social Issues (Skidmore College/Tang Museum Press, 2020), and is working on a book of portraits of contemporary Black artists in collaboration with Henry Louis Gates Jr. of Harvard University and photographer Awol Erizku.

 

 

Title: I Am Sparkling: N. V. Parekh and His Portrait Studio Clients—Mombasa, Kenya 1940-1980
Publisher: Damiani, 2022
Author: Isolde Brielmaier, preface by Wangechi Mutu
Photographer: N.V. Parekh
Format: Hardcover
Size: 16.5 x 24 cm, 144 pages
ISBN: 9788862087612