previews
“Invisible City: Philadelphia and the Vernacular Avant-garde”
The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts Museum
Philadelphia
Philadelphia
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PRINT September 2019
FAR FROM HOME
Zehra Jumabhoy
ONE MORNING this past spring, a small volume arrived in my mailbox. At first I was mystified by the unexpected gift. The book isn’t a catalogue. It isn’t a memoir. It isn’t strictly prose. Nor is it wholly poetry. Across its ninety-seven pages, Directions to My House includes diaristic fragments, poems, family photographs, and reproductions of artworks. These scattered components, alternately deadpan and personal, add up to a provisional portrait of their elusive author: the “Indian” artist Zarina (surname: Hashmi—though she prefers to be known by her given name).
Zarina’s book, written with