Chudamani Clowes explores the possibility to undo colonial histories and legacies in her reimagined series of busts depicting the leaders of the erstwhile British Empire. Rendered as colourful effigies with barnacle-like surfaces, the works deliberately depart from the ideals associated with Greco-Roman and classical sculptural traditions.

Through the repetitive act of pressing cookie cutters together, Clowes repurposes a domestic tool of standardisation and control into a playful yet incisive strategy of subversion. In the process, the once-dominant figure is fragmented, and reimagined to offer an alternative reading of power.

Hema Shironi’s work is shaped by decades of relocation experienced by her family, movements closely intertwined with Sri Lanka’s socio-political developments since the early 1990s.  Shironi weaves through tender memories to build a narrative of home and community that transcends developmental agendas and geographic boundaries. The artist challenges conventional notions of belonging, with a focus on kinship built through shared experience. 

The artist employs the practice of needlework to thread through and across her reflections, recounting the many journeys, cultures and experiences that she assimilated as she moved from one place to another. Passed down along the matrilineal line from mother to daughter, needlework becomes both method and metaphor in her practice.