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Photography by Khadija Saye

Khadija Saye: artist on cusp of recognition when she died in Grenfell in Wednesday’s fire, was being exhibited at Venice Biennale and had caught eye of influential director

The day before she died, Khadija Saye had met an influential gallery director who was blown away by the young artist’s work and wanted to meet her. After years of striving to create her work while studying and holding down a job as a care worker, it felt like her moment to shine had come.

Her work was being exhibited as part of a showcase of emerging artists at the Venice Biennale, and now an important gallery was offering to show her art. The director had wanted to meet at her studio, not knowing she worked out of the 20th-floor flat she shared with her mother.

But by Wednesday morning, instead of her name being discussed as one of the most exciting young artists to emerge out of London, it was stories of her desperate Facebook messages sent from the top of that tower that were being shared.