In pictures: Anna Boghiguian's The Sunken Boat at Turner Contemporary

This week we had the chance to take an early look at Turner Contemporary's latest exhibition, The Sunken Boat: A Glimpse Into Past Histories, by Egyptian artist Anna Boghiguian.

The exhibition features three installations, The Salt Traders; The Square, The Line and The Ruler; Ambiguous Philosophers/Ambiguous Politicians; and The Sunken Boat, which is a new commission for Turner. Playful and conjuring up pop-up picture books, shadow puppet sets and children's drawings, the whimsical childlike qualities belie weighty themes.

The works explore systems of power, oceanic trade histories and geopolitical power plays of the past and present. They also look at the impact of climate change on our seas.

Anna spent three weeks in town making The Sunken Boat, which is something the gallery hopes to do more of, Turner's director Clarrie Wallis told me.

Clarrie described Anna as an artist's artist; well respected and well-known in the art scene, but perhaps lesser known outside. She hopes the exhibition will put Anna's art in front of a new, and wider audience.

For me, the highlight of the press show was Anna herself. A formidable and decisive woman who will return to Margate to celebrate her 80th birthday on January 1 next year. She had a fierce curiosity and asked more questions than answered.

When asked if she would like to comment on the exhibition, following an introduction by the show's curator Sarah Martin, Anna's reply was a succinct "no". After smelling cigarettes on one journalist, Anna wanted to know more about what brand of fags he smoked and the price of a packet than to talk about her work.

Our chat was not much different. After a lengthy conversation about a popular ful (an Egyptian stewed bean dish) we both knew about in Cairo and another about the man who potentially triggered one of Melbourne's Covid lockdowns, I asked her what was it about the sea that lured her in.

"It's very hard to draw the sea," she said. Had she spent much time living coastal, I wanted to know.

"No," Anna replied. And that, was that.

While you might miss out on delightfully awkward conversations with the artist, you can still see her work, and her razor sharp depiction of Putin, as the Sunken Boat opens today and runs until October 26.