Korean-Canadian Zadie Xa’s practice focuses on familial legacies, interspecies communication and diasporic worlding. She uses water and marine ecologies as metaphors for exploring the unknown whilst also alluding to abstract notions of homeland.
We designed her first monograph to accompany her solo exhibition House Gods, Animal Guides and Five Ways 2 Forgiveness at the Whitechapel Gallery in 2022. The book is wrapped in a cloth dust jacket featuring a detail from her immersive painting The Word for Water is Whale. The large title, stamped in holographic foil, draws directly from the visual language of her performance costumes, echoing the vibrant and layered worlds throughout her work.