Collages, 2025

The project developed during the residency at Nila House, as part of the program initiated by Villa Swagatam, continues my exploration of memory, identity, and belonging.

The installation, composed of several sculptural objects, delves into the notion of cross-cultural identities and questions the effort to create a home beyond the idea of a mere built structure.

Inspired by my nomadic roots and family history, this project places emblematic domestic objects at the heart of a reflection on the idea of home and belonging. In the early 20th century, my Armenian family exiled from Isfahan to Calcutta, carrying only a few precious belongings—textiles, small ceramics, and their ancestral craft knowledge. I grew up listening to my grandmother’s stories about this legacy, absorbing through her words the textures, colors, and rhythms of a world I never knew but always felt tethered to.

To me, objects are powerful storytellers. They anchor us in our memories and connect us across time and space. Collages is, in that sense, the opening chapter of a new visual book I intend to write. The pot, the carpet, the lamp, and the chair—reinterpreted here—define a symbolic space while evoking an aesthetic shaped by Caucasian, Persian, and Indian influences.

This project explores the symbolic and poetic dimensions of the home. It considers design as a vessel of memory: by assembling archives—both familial and historical—it blurs the lines between fiction and reality, proposing a sensitive cartography of memory where hybridities are embraced and uniformity is rejected.

The work also places materiality, craftsmanship, and the artisans themselves at the core of this narrative process. Each object carries the traces of gestures passed down through generations, becoming a medium for stories to travel and evolve. These pieces are not merely decorative—they are fragments of an intimate archaeology, where heritage meets contemporary creation.