I AM SPARKLING, N.V. Parekh and his portrait studio clients, Mombasa, Kenya, 1940-1980

134pp., b/w & colour illus., hardback, Damiani, Bologna, 2022

ISBN: 9788862087612

Includes a preface interview with the artist Wangechi Mutu.

"I Am Sparking is an outstanding survey of unique portraits defining a photographer's vision and a community's identity. A remarkable accomplishment by art historian Isolde Briemaier representing new scholarship and a revised reading of portraits framed to encourage critical thinking about photography in East Africa. A must read though multiple lenses including fashion, family history and portrait photography." Deborah Willis, Professor and Chair of the Department of Photography, Tisch School of the Arts, New York University

"It is almost cinematic to turn the pages of I Am Sparkling. The fashion, the history, the sheer elegance of a diaspora - a gorgeous representation of cultural intersection - immortalized in a series of photographs." Arjun Bhasin, costume designer for film and television, including A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood and A Suitable Boy 

Of Indian origin, N. V. Parekh (1923–2007) trained in Mombasa, Kenya, with local photographers in the 1930s before founding his own portrait studio in 1942. He became an influential portrait photographer whose studio attracted clients from East Africa and beyond.

Isolde Brielmaier is Deputy Director at the New Museum in New York, Curator-at-Large at the International Center for Photography 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.