Rida Zahra - The Quiet Lives Of Things

Taymour Grahne Projects is pleased to present The Quiet Lives Of Things by Rida Zahra (b. 2001, Lahore, Pakistan) opening virtually on February 17th, 2026.

In her latest body of work, Zahra shines a light on the quiet realities of objects, positioning often humble domestic goods as active participants in forming personal and cultural memory. Zooming in from her earlier depictions of expansive interiors, here objects are rendered as powerful subjects in their own right. Dramatic lighting and cumulative compositions lend these forms heightened intensity, underscoring their significance through their intimate entanglements with human histories.

In her influential essay The Force of Things, Jane Bennett proposes that objects carry an active material agency, which she terms thing-power, through which all matter participates in networks of memory and meaning. Objects, in this sense, exist beyond anthropocentric ontologies, possessing their own agency in a relational exchange with humans: just as objects are shaped by human behaviour, human behaviour is likewise shaped by the materiality and histories of objects. In Zahra’s work, objects embody thing-power - unwatched and unaccompanied by human figures, they exist in assemblages which extend their use values, becoming not merely vessels for memory, but actively participating in mythmaking themselves. 

Zahra’s compositions are shaped by her travels, drawing from antique markets in Notting Hill, shops in Lahore and the mahals of her ancestral village of Gul da Kot. While returning to her village, Zahra photographed the decorative objects found in her neighbours’ mahals. These rooms dedicated to the display of decorative and collectible objects hold particular significance as spaces to articulate taste and style, while also serving as sites where objects are gathered for passage across generations. In this series, assemblages of objects reflect both the artist’s personal history and the collective cultural histories of the places she has visited. By bringing together objects from different regions, some deeply personal and others encountered in passing, Zahra draws connections across geographic borders, foregrounding the shared values and meanings that objects carry across contexts.

Often, for Zahra, it is the most unassuming objects that carry the greatest personal significance. When moving from Lahore to London, it was cutlery from home that proved most comforting, a reminder that the rhythms of daily life persist regardless of distance. In this body of work, the hierarchy of objects is flattened through Zahra’s careful use of light, as both silverware and culinary items glisten alike. Magpie-like, we are drawn to the glimmers and twinkles, desiring objects once delineated as ‘high’ or ‘low’ with equal intensity. 

In Table For One, the distinction between the everyday and the exceptional is collapsed through common ritual. An unassuming wooden stool stands upon a blue and white tiled floor, contrasted by the tabletop above, which glitters with tableware, pearls and candles. Here, the ordinary act of eating alone becomes a moment of celebration, animated by the objects that facilitate it. The act itself is rendered dramatic, even ceremonial, through the charged presence of the vessels involved. Meaning is generated not only by the human subject, but by the objects themselves, whose material presence bestows significance upon the moment. The contrast between the ‘high’ and ‘low’ suggests that ordinary moments can be the most revelatory and theatrical.

Throughout the body of work, motifs of theatricality recur across Zahra’s compositions. Curtains, striped backdrops and circus-like awnings operate as staging devices, positioning objects as active participants rather than static displays. In Once Upon a Stage at Night, stars descend like stage props beneath an arched awning that frames the scene. A table draped in rich red cloth becomes a stage, while vases and ornaments assume the presence of actors. Although objects are not conventionally meant to perform, here they exceed the role of props, asserting themselves as dynamic subjects. The lushness of these scenes is drawn from their theatrical reference and careful staging, defying the myth of the object as inert and static and revealing instead a field of objects animated through their own material and cultural significance.

The thing-power present in these works extends beyond the canvas, shaping how we encounter and value the material world around us. Through lighting, deft paintwork and theatrical staging, Zahra elevates objects to the status of subjects, challenging hierarchies that privilege rarity over everyday material life. In doing so, she invites viewers to reconsider how meaning circulates not only through people, but through and from the objects that accompany and shape daily experience. The Quiet Lives Of Things proposes a way of seeing in which value is not fixed but continually produced through material relations that stretch across geographies, histories and cultures.