ASHIMA DHIR SEHGAL (ADS)
Contemporary Textile and mixed Media Artist
Ashima Dhir Sehgal (ADS) is an Indian contemporary textile and mixed media artist whose practice explores the relationship between architecture, memory and material. Working across photographic transfer, silk organza, hand embroidery and sculptural installation, she creates works that exist at the intersection of photography, textile and object making. Through a process of layering, stitching and material intervention, she investigates how places retain emotional histories and how materials become repositories of lived experience.
Her ongoing body of work, Architecture of Silence, examines the unseen structures that exist within architecture and landscape. Rather than presenting architecture as a fixed physical form, her work considers it as a living archive shaped by memory, ritual and time. Photographic images are transformed through embroidery, transparency, abrasion and controlled acts of alteration, allowing the surface itself to embody processes of accumulation, erosion and repair. In these works, thread functions simultaneously as drawing, structure and gesture, creating compositions that invite contemplation while dissolving the boundaries between image, textile and sculpture.
Working primarily with photographic transfer on silk organza, natural silk thread, cocoons, ash, burnt wicks and other organic materials, Ashima develops a material language in which transparency and layering become integral to the viewing experience. Her works change with light, distance and movement, encouraging slow observation and revealing shifting relationships between presence and absence, permanence and impermanence.
Ashima has established an international exhibition practice across India, Europe, Southeast Asia and the United States. She was honoured to represent India during the celebration of 75 years of diplomatic relations between India and Indonesia, presenting her work in Bali as part of this landmark cultural exchange. Following the exhibition, works from the series entered the permanent collection of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), Jakarta.
Her work has been exhibited at the Museum of Arts and Design, New York through Artisti’26, Arte Genova, the Sanremo Biennale, ArtMUC in Munich, the Indian Embassy in Berlin, ARMA Museum, Museum Pasifika, the Serendipity Arts Festival in Goa, the Kala Ghoda Arts Festival in Mumbai, Alliance Française de Delhi, AIFACS, the India Art Festival, and numerous international exhibitions across France, Germany, Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia and the Philippines. Her textile practice has also been selected for the Florence Biennale 2027, one of the world’s most respected international exhibitions of contemporary art and design.
Her works are held in institutional and diplomatic collections including the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), Jakarta, Museum Pasifika, Bali, the Consulate General of India, Bali, the National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT), India, Ahluwalia Contracts (India) Ltd., and in the collections of the Ambassador of the Philippines to Indonesia and the Ambassador of Armenia to India, alongside private collections across India, Europe and Southeast Asia.
Ashima has participated in artist residencies in Naggar in the Indian Himalayas and Vietnam, where research into architecture, landscape and material culture has further informed her evolving practice. Her work has been featured in international publications including Artist Talk Magazine, Cultural Canvases, and the Artisti’26 Contemporary Art and Criticism Dossier, reflecting the growing international recognition of her work.
She holds a Bachelor of Laws (LL.B.) from the Faculty of Law, University of Delhi, and a Bachelor of Commerce (Honours) from Panjab University. These academic foundations, combined with years of independent material research and artistic experimentation, have shaped an interdisciplinary practice that continues to expand the possibilities of contemporary textile art.
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Studio
Studio 13
Anand Lok
New Delhi 110049
India
Contact
Website
https://www.adsartstudio.in
Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/ads.artstudio/
Email
ashimadsehgal@gmail.com
Telephone
+91 98100 64738
ARTIST STATEMENT
Architecture of Silence
What remains after a place has been abandoned? What continues to exist when memory begins to erode? How does material carry histories that language cannot?
These questions form the foundation of my practice.
Architecture of Silence is an ongoing body of work that explores the relationship between architecture, memory and material through photographic transfer, silk organza, hand embroidery and ritual interventions. Rather than documenting buildings or landscapes, I am interested in the invisible structures they contain. These works investigate traces of human presence, acts of devotion, fragments of lived experience and the quiet persistence of time.
My process begins with photography, but the photograph is never the final image. It becomes a surface to be excavated. Through stitching, layering, abrasion, staining and controlled burning, I dismantle the certainty of the photographic document and reconstruct it as a site of remembrance. Thread becomes a line of thought, a path of repair and a form of drawing in space. Silk organza allows images to exist between appearance and disappearance, while ritual materials such as burnt wicks, ash, cocoons and organic elements bring their own histories into the work.
I think of these materials not as symbols but as witnesses. Each carries a memory beyond my own, and together they create an archive where architecture is understood not simply as a physical structure, but as a vessel for human experience.
Silence, within my work, is not emptiness. It is an architecture in itself. It is a structure shaped by absence, endurance and accumulated memory. It exists in the spaces between stitches, within translucent layers that conceal as much as they reveal, and across surfaces transformed through repeated acts of making and unmaking. I invite viewers to slow down, to move closer and to inhabit these quiet spaces where meaning unfolds gradually.
Although rooted in personal observation, these works are not autobiographical. They are invitations to encounter shared histories of place, ritual and belonging. They explore how environments absorb emotion and how memory becomes embedded within material long after human presence has disappeared.
My practice is driven by a desire to create spaces for contemplation rather than conclusion. I am interested in work that listens before it speaks. Rather than offering fixed narratives, I seek to create works that remain open to multiple interpretations across cultures and experiences.
In Architecture of Silence, thread becomes architecture, architecture becomes memory, and memory becomes a living material through which silence continues to resonate.
