“What Was Here?”: Ashima Dhir Sehgal’s first solo exhibition in India

Contemporary artist Ashima Dhir Sehgal, who works under the name A.D.S., will present What Was Here?, her first solo exhibition in India, at LTC Gallery, Bikaner House, New Delhi, from October 7 to 11. The exhibition looks at how places, objects and materials can retain traces of human presence, memory and time.

Working across textile, photography, sculpture and installation, Sehgal explores what remains after people leave a place and how materials can preserve fragments of lives, gestures and experiences. Partly inspired by encounters with historic architecture in India, the works look beyond familiar structures to the lives and memories associated with them.

The exhibition brings together architectural images that gradually become layered, fragmented and obscured. Sehgal uses stitching, staining, burning, perforating, abrading and unravelling to alter materials including silk organza, discarded threads, cocoons, ash, charcoal and ink. The processes become a way of examining how memory changes and accumulates over time.

Several works extend beyond the picture plane into three-dimensional forms, allowing texture and material to occupy physical space. The exhibition culminates in a house installation made from fragments, textiles and light, turning architecture from an image into a space that visitors can enter.

Sehgal’s practice developed after she moved from law towards art, working without formal art education across painting, textile, photography, sculpture and installation. Her work has been shown at exhibitions and art platforms in India and abroad, including Serendipity Arts, Kala Ghoda Arts Festival, ARTMUC Munich and Arte Genova.

When: October 7–11

Where: LTC Gallery, Bikaner House, New Delhi