A solo show by Masuma Halai Khwaja, at O Art Space Gallery in Lahore reexamines historical inquiry and lived experience. Through her practice Masuma examines how dominant narratives are constructed, sustained and unsettled within postcolonial contexts, where memory and symbolism operate as enduring sites of meaning.

Textiles and fabric have long shaped Masuma’s artistic practice. Through embroidery, collage, and material intervention, used tapestries, garments are cut, fragmented and reassembled to construct new narratives. This process of deconstruction and repair detaches materials from their original contexts, allowing history to be retold from the perspective of lived experience rather than distant observation. Garments and fabric function as carriers of cultural memory and political meaning. In South Asia, clothing such as the sari and kurta shalwar has been mobilized to emphasize identity. Forms including the sherwani and sari blouse are employed for embedding unresolved histories and unaddressed traumas, narratives rooted in specific cultural contexts yet resonant beyond them.

Drawing on running stitch techniques reminiscent of Kantha work, traditionally practiced by Bengali women using repurposed cloth, the embroidery references histories of labor, care and survival. The meditative quality of stitching is deliberately set against the violent imagery it conveys, creating a tension between process and content.

The work also addresses migration shaped by conflict and aspiration, reflecting on the emotional weight of displacement and the complexities of transitions that do not always fulfill their promised outcomes.

Masuma’s work position textile as both material and metaphor, bearing witness to histories that persist through memory, migration and lived experience.

CAPTION
Gardens Of The Past, Textile collage on tapestry and oil, 23 x 35 inches, 2025
Adoration Of The Magi, Textile collage, 36 x 56 inches, 2017
Replacing The Lotus, Textile collage on tapestry, 27 x 29 inches, 2025
Casting Nets At The Ebbing Tide 1, Textile collage on tapestry, 22 x 64.4 inches, 2025
Casting Nets At The Ebbing Tide 2, Textile collage on tapestry, 25 x 57 inches, 2025