82” x 185”
Canvas, thread, gold leaf, paint, lentils, wheat berries, assorted textiles,
2023
Testimony reflects on my family's experience of displacement following the Partition of British India in 1947. Inspired by the architecture of my grandparents' home in Punjab, the installation brings together inherited history and deeply personal memory: the sun-scorched courtyard, the rhythm of overhead fans, the sound of my grandmother's voice calling us to eat, long summer holidays, and the profound sense of safety I found there as a child.
Constructed from canvas, grains, fabric, sequins, gold leaf, and other materials drawn from my family's history, the work does not reconstruct a particular house. Instead, it evokes architecture as it is carried through memory—fragmented, embodied, and continually reimagined. The niches embedded within the structure recall the small recesses in my grandparents' home that held everyday objects, becoming quiet markers of human presence, care, and ritual.
Through Testimony, I consider architecture not simply as shelter, but as a witness to migration, belonging, and the ways memory continues to inhabit us long after a place has been left behind.
Testimony was first exhibited at the Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University as part of Spirit House, before traveling to the Henry Art Gallery at the University of Washington in Seattle. The exhibition will continue to the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver in fall 2026.
Canvas, thread, gold leaf, paint, lentils, wheat, assorted textiles,
2023
Canvas, thread, gold leaf, paint, lentils, wheat, assorted textiles,
2023
Canvas, thread, gold leaf, paint, lentils, wheat, assorted textiles,
2023
Canvas, thread, gold leaf, paint, lentils, wheat, assorted textiles
2023
Canvas, thread, gold leaf, paint, lentils, wheat, assorted textiles
2023
Canvas, thread, gold leaf, paint, lentils, wheat, assorted textiles
2023