Architectural Memory (wall series),2023-2025
This work forms part of an ongoing wall series in which I excavate surfaces from the spaces I occupy—sites that, while geographically distant, share atmospheric and architectural similarities.
The wall, though seemingly mundane, holds layers of memory that reveal something about how we function. By recreating them, I uncover subtle details beneath the surface—a hidden institution or system that silently communicates with us, shaping the way we move and interact. I'm fascinated by the process of reconstructing, digging, and repairing walls to understand how they possess a presence, how they communicate, and how we unconsciously decode their messages. My practice investigates this legibility, focusing on how materials speak to us, shaping their form based on what they require and how they interact with the surrounding space.
Echo; Or, A Resonance, 2024 - 2025.
While archaeologists excavate objects to connect us with ancient cultures, I ask whether sound, too, can be unearthed—whether we can excavate “Anthrophony,” the sounds of human history.
In Museum of Sound, a project developed with Vasl Artists’ Association, Karachi, I explore the sonic potential of Harappa’s ancient ruins. Scattered with centuries-old bricks, made me think about the an ordinary form of a brick:how something so mundane can possess a presence and meaning, capable of being reproduced as an artefact that encodes memory. Through recording the acoustic environment of these ruins, I investigate whether sound, like physical remnants, can be retrieved and understood as part of a broader historical and cultural narrative.
(Museum Series by Vasl Artist’s Association, Karachi)
Reimagining History, 2023-ongoing
This project is an inquiry into the authenticity of half-remembered childhood objects and architectural fragments from my grandmother’s pre-Partition home in Lahore’s walled city. These elements—once integral to daily life—are now deteriorating, their meanings eroded by time, and shifting cultural narratives. Focusing on components like the Takht Posh, (I argue) originally a worship shelf in Hindu households and later recontextualised as the Shah Nasheen in Mughal courts, I became interested in how colonialism and Partition reshaped the symbolic function of such forms. I began transforming these remnants into contemporary artistic objects—resonant, yet displaced. Reactivating their material presence, especially as they decay under the extreme weather conditions of the subcontinent, becomes a way to resist nationalist erasures. These structures are living markers of shared cultural histories, revealing how fragility, loss, and resilience can challenge dominant narratives and help address the sectarian and nationalist violence of Partition that continues today.
(Museum Series by Vasl Artist’s Association, Karachi)
Reading a Room, 2023
A solo show at Byat Al Mamzar, Dubai.
This project explores the act of recreating half-remembered objects—forms blurred by time yet persisting with a powerful visual presence in the mind.
These reconstructed structures emerge from spaces of memory and damage, engaging the complex relationship between remembering, recreating, and repairing. Their visible fault lines evoke an intimate sense of order, suggesting that damage itself holds meaning and memory. Wrestling with the idea of repair means that you can slow things down and focus. But you can’t erase the damage. It also questions whether remembering is, in part, a form of forgetting, or quiet destruction, as we reshape what we recall. These forms are not merely reconstructions, but representations of the invisible, the lost, and the quietly persistent past.