Bayjoo has already established a reputation for his research-led work across various mediums (film, photography, performance and sculpture) through appearances at the Diaspora Pavilion at the 59th Venice Biennial 2022, and Sharjah Biennial in both 2019 and 2023. Bayjoo’s champion for The Wick is William Lunn, founder of Copperfield gallery. He said: “While many artists have rightly focused their attention on issues of colonialism and slavery few have looked beyond the purely human dimension of their legacy. What stands out about Shiraz Bayjoo is his aim not only to research these ‘colonies’ but to return some dignity to the people, plants and animals impacted.”

“While plantation slavery had huge and lasting impact on humans, in clearing land for sugar and cotton entire eco systems were wiped out. His upcoming exhibition memorialises plant species now extinct, save for those on ‘life-support’ in botanical greenhouses, and he does this by building the human story into the layers. Besides the negative connotations of a cotton French lace table cloth proposing that Europeans set the table to devour the world, I appreciate that he also makes some room to celebrate the good in humanity: the exhibition does not memorialise in a somber way, it celebrates these plants as if they were loved ones and it thinks of the people that are still choosing to nurture the last of these plants in botanical collections today.​​”

In other works at Copperfield, seeds and shells interwine and plants are cast in bronze – the result of working with a foundry during a residency in Thailand, usually employed in making statues for temples. Honouring plant and animal life also hints at the kindness and care in humanity, too – the person who tends and nurtures, a possible co-existence between the natural environment and humankind that seems lost in today’s climate emergency.

It is these complex, multi-layered critiques that make Bayjoo such an intriguing artist for our times. With commissions in the pipeline including a new film project for Kew Gardens (commissioned by ICF and Delfina Foundation) there is will be plenty of chances to encounter Bayjoo’s works in London, each one an opportunity to reflect on our interactions with the environment and how we might find our way out of the legacy of European postcolonialism.