Statement of Artistic Practice:

I make art that draws from the universal experience of shifting places, finding new homes, and adjusting and absorbing into new spaces. Through knowledge production in the form of paintings, drawings, ceramics, textiles, and installations, I practice decoloniality. While looking closely at the land and the ground beneath us, I work with the complex themes of migration, land ownership, identity, & belonging.

My relocation from Pakistan to India in 2009 increased my fascination with maps, borders, city limits, and geographical locations. I find it surprising that borders can create and divide places at the same time. Since then, I have created memorabilia through objects, photographs, and memories directed towards counter-mapping and alternative archiving. Moving to the UK fuelled it further, and I delved into merging archival data with visual storytelling through colours, patterns, markmaking, and crafting techniques.

Material exploration and tactility of the mediums play a significant role in all my projects. In India, I learnt to make my own paper and extract pigments from plants and refined these practices at the specialised studios in the UK. Women of my family passed down the tradition of stitching and embroidery to me as a child; and these materials became a core part of my practice.

My initial artworks were inspired by the migration journey and lived experience as a Pakistani migrant in India alongside memories of home and a search for belonging. After moving to the UK, I got fascinated by the archival data from colonial India and created art in response to the colonial systems that continue to shape my present-day life, cause human and nature migration & displacement, and inform identity politics.

Using world-building as a tool, I currently make art to explore interconnections between ecological urgency and how environmental concerns & cultural belonging continuously transgress geopolitical borders.