Sri Lanka–based artist Hema Shironi brings her deeply personal yet politically charged practice to New Delhi with her solo exhibition Homes Wrapped in Cloth, Borders Raised in Flags, presented by Shrine Empire at Bikaner House from 14 to 25 September 2025. The exhibition previewed on 14 September 2025, 6–9 PM, and remains on view daily from 11 AM to 7 PM at the CCA Building, Ground Floor, Bikaner House.
Exploring War, Memory, and Displacement
Born in 1991 in Kandy, Shironi grew up during the protracted Sri Lankan civil war, an experience that continues to shape her practice. Her work draws upon her family’s matrilineal heritage of storytelling and the intergenerational traumas of displacement, layered with her father’s belief in social justice. Through techniques such as stitching, quilting, applique, embroidery, and patchwork, she transforms found fabrics, mesh, paper, and other materials into installations that reconstruct narratives of love, memory, loss, and resilience.
The exhibition interrogates the human cost of war and nationhood. By sculpting the Sri Lankan flag into barbed wire or juxtaposing military symbols like tanks with floral motifs, Shironi exposes the contradictions of liberation narratives and the violence embedded within nationalist imagery. Her use of tactile, brightly coloured fabrics contrasts the softness of domestic textures with stark reminders of displacement camps, militarisation, and fractured homes.
Contesting Narratives
In works that reframe religious, cultural, and political symbols, Shironi challenges both official history and imposed truths. A lotus flower, once politicised as a symbol of peace in the south as the north endured war, reemerges in her applique alongside figures of mothers and children, questioning how nationalism co-opts motherhood and womanhood. Similarly, her representations of hastily built state housing for displaced communities confront the gap between material shelter and the irretrievable essence of home.
Through these assemblages, Shironi creates spaces where multiple histories coexist—Tamil and Sinhalese, personal and collective, hopeful and traumatic. As exhibition text author Radhika Hettiarachchi notes, the artist prompts viewers “to engage with many truths, many histories and many experiences… beyond territories and boundaries, and structures and frames.”
About the Artist
Shironi obtained her BFA from the University of Jaffna’s Ramanathan Fine Arts Academy (2014) and her MFA at Beaconhouse National University, Lahore (2019). Her works have been exhibited widely, including at the 11th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art (Brisbane, 2024), the 13th Taipei Biennial (2023), and ZKM Centre for Art and Media, Karlsruhe (2025). Her practice navigates themes of colonisation, migration, and belonging, and her works are part of the permanent collection of the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art (QAGOMA).
About Shrine Empire
Founded in 2008 by Anahita Taneja and Shefali Somani, Shrine Empire has established itself as a key space for South Asian contemporary art, supporting process-driven and research-based practices that connect aesthetics with socio-political concerns. Its programming, including exhibitions and projects, brings together local and international voices, while its outreach arm, the Prameya Art Foundation, extends its cultural engagement.
Exhibition Details
Homes Wrapped in Cloth, Borders Raised in Flags
Hema Shironi
On View: 14–25 September 2025, 11 AM–7 PM
Venue: Ground Floor, CCA Building, Bikaner House, New Delhi
Cover Image: Hema Shironi | Wheels on The Bus Go round and Round
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