I arrived in South Africa on the day of Diwali, the festival of lights. In India, it marks renewal and new beginnings. It was also the first time I was living and working independently in another country. The timing of the residency felt particularly significant. I had been in ongoing conversations with my grandfather around genesis and origin myths across Asian traditions. These exchanges were grounded in oral histories and lived belief rather than formal study. Being in the Cradle of Humankind while holding these conversations in mind created an unexpected continuity.

The journey to NIROX unfolded under a dense, clouded sky. Purple jacaranda trees lined the road, their blossoms scattered across the ground. The landscape revealed itself gradually. As the distance from the city grew, I became increasingly aware of scale, both spatial and temporal. I felt like a pale blue dot among many others, part of a much larger field of movement and histories. My introduction to NIROX came through movement across the reserve. Riding behind an electric bucky accompanied by Leroy, along winding trails, we passed foraging paths and open clearings. Zebras moved in quick bursts, antelope stood alert yet still, and giraffes remained shy at a distance in a landscape that was active without any spectacle. I visited the Lion and Rhino Reserve. Seeing lions, wildebeest, and warthogs in close proximity brought a renewed awareness of coexistence across species. This encounter returned me to questions of scale and continuity that had been present throughout the residency. Life moved through multiple registers at once, human and non-human, immediate and ancestral.

This attention to continuity and deep time followed me into the Sterkfontein Caves. Being there felt like standing close to the Cradle of Humankind itself. It was a remnant of the past that continues to be visited with anticipation for the future. Visits to the University of Pretoria and the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg extended this engagement with early human presence. I found myself drawn to rock carvings in Joburg, and rich traces of gold metal craftsmanship in Pretoria as part of the Gold in South Africa - travelling exhibition, courtesy of Johan Thom, artist and one of the first residents at NIROX. These were among the earliest expressions of creativity, not made for display but as assertions of existence. This became a pivotal point in my research focusing on place-based making in historical ecologies.

People shaped the residency as deeply as the place. My conversations with Atang Tshikare unfolded over time and developed into a close sibling-like friendship. Our dinners were complimentary to the conversations about indigenous spiritual systems of the Global South, surprisingly drawing parallels between African and Indian cosmologies. Central to most conversations was the food - prepared by Dorah and Maria. Preparing a pot of biryani for the NIROX team and Professor Dilip was my way of expressing gratitude, through the familiarity of a shared meal. Exploratory trips and meals with my co-residents at NIROX and Villa Legodi were equally explorative.

Exploratory trips at Sterkfontein Caves and Kloofzicht with fellow residents at Kromdraai

Human and non-human agency emerged repeatedly as a point of inquiry, especially in relation to ecology and ancestral knowledge. My workspace quietly absorbed these experiences. Monkeys regularly appeared at the windows, the calls of the hadeda ibis became familiar markers of time, and how the royally blue kingfishers returned to the same tree with consistency. Work unfolded alongside these rhythms, shaping how attention and duration were experienced.

Workshops have consistently been central to my practice, either as a primary framework or as an embedded component of a project. As part of the residency, I hosted a workshop with children from Ubuntu Greens, Kromdraai. The prompt asked what they felt was precious to take forward into the future. Through drawing and storytelling, the children articulated aspirations and values with clarity. The session reinforced the role of imagination and narrative in shaping how futures are understood.

Workshop at Nirox with Ubuntu Queens, Kromdraai

My work began to address both the intangible and the elemental. Earth, water, fire, air, and space became guiding references. The inquiry moved between the finite and the infinite, the personal and the mythical. Stones and creatures emerged as metaphors through which these ideas could be approached without illustration.

The material language of the work reflected this crossing of contexts. Indian and South African wool fibres were combined with found stones, coloured pebbles, wood from fallen trees, and collected charcoal. Each material carried its own history and conditions of use, grounding the work within multiple geographies. I realised my work through hand-felting in sheep wool - one of the most ancient techniques in one of the most regenerative materials.

Extending the dialogue from the personal to the communal, and from intimate scale to immersive space, the exhibition was titled Samsara. The work continued to evolve through the presence of those who engaged with it. Returning visitors such as Laurent, a dear friend who left behind a book on India and conversations to carry forward, added another layer of exchange. The presence of Benji Liebmann and his family, conversations with Amy Mantooth around rebirth, Prof. Dilip Menon, Atang Tshikare, and the words and wishes of my co-residents Catherine, Egle, and Caroline, all became part of the work’s ongoing life.

I spent time sitting within the space that had held the making process and now housed the finished works. Each artefact carried traces of land, dialogue, movement, and care. The residency did not feel like a conclusion, but a pause within a continuing cycle, where making remains responsive to memory, place, and relation. After the exhibition, a day before my departure, I shared the work with my grandfather and my family, and thanked them for the conversations, patience, and inherited ways of thinking that had quietly led me to this experience.

The large scaled work titled Samsara, 8 feet x 15 feet