STATEMENT OF WORK

              My work emerges from the intersection of erotics, traditional objects, and the
creation of a queer safe space—a realm where my deepest imaginations take form. Growing
up in Pakistan, where queerness was shrouded in silence, I often dreamt a thousand times of
an alternate reality where my queer body could exist freely. Through my work, I materialize
these fantasies, building a world where love, desire, and power are tenderly woven into each
piece.
              I grew up carrying immense shame about the female body. Everything about being a
woman was either objectified or cloaked in taboo and muffled. While my brother had the
freedom to go to the pool or gym, I was denied the same experiences. This deep-seated
disparity and internalized shame fuel the subversive themes in my art, where I reclaim and
celebrate the female body as a source of autonomy, strength, and rebellion.

              Erotics, as Audre Lorde described, holds deep power, acting as an agent of
transformation and reclaiming. While casts of objects like mattress, pillow, self-care tools,
and female body allude to spaces where I already realised my freedom, I think of my
mother, leaning against the windowpane for stolen moments of solace as she was forbidden
to even walk outside the house. The grids of the window left marks on her forehead, quiet
imprints of her confinement. The window panels, once symbols of her stillness, reappear in
my work, reshaped and reimagined. Through biomorphic and humorously erotic massage
tools, I weave her story into my own—a narrative of freedom and reclaimed agency, healing
across time and space.
              I also use objects like TOPI (Hat), JAY’NAMAZ (Prayer Rug) and PAYALA (Bowl)
that rooted in cultural familiarity—symbols of tradition to ground my practice. Yet, by
casting these objects in materials like wax, pva glue, concrete and resin, coloured with a
mixture of graphite, iron powder, glass flakes with turmeric and chilli powder, and subtly
distorting the forms, I reshape their significance, creating a bridge between the tangible and
the imagined. This act of subversion transforms these objects into vessels that carry both the
past and present, coexisting in a prophetic vision of hope. The cohabitation of two
seemingly opposite worlds—a dream and a reality—takes place in my sculptures, fostering
a dialogue that reclaims space for queer narratives and embodiment.
              The tension between the objects lies a blasphemy against patriarchy. Toying with
objects from past and present, I reclaim agency over my story, celebrating the complexities
of queerness through the merging of cultural traditions and imaginative new worlds. It is
within these soft spaces that a futuristic love story unfolds—a narrative where past wounds
meet present resilience and future possibility.