ARTIST STATEMENT
“Culture is not static inheritance, its a living archive carried through memory, craftsmanship, and human connection “
REINGA (2026) A wearable sculpture developed through extensive research into Te Rerenga Wairua (Cape Reinga), Māori concepts of wairua, and the relationship between cultural memory, landscape, and craftsmanship. Every element is individually handcrafted as part of a broader artistic archive exploring identity, heritage, and belonging.
Sheetol Chawla is a New Zealand-based wearable sculpture artist whose practice explores culture as a living archive.
Through long-term research, hand craftsmanship, and immersive installation, she creates sculptural works that preserve stories while encouraging dialogue between cultures.
Through long-term research projects inspired by history, spiritual traditions, and cultural heritage, her practice investigates the ways in which societies preserve meaning across generations. Drawing from diverse cultural narratives and historical sources, she creates immersive bodies of work that explore the intersections of identity, place, belief, and collective remembrance.
Her projects are conceived as chapters within an expanding artistic archive dedicated to cultural dialogue and understanding. Each body of work emerges from sustained research into the histories, philosophies, and symbolic languages of particular communities, landscapes, and civilizations. Through this process, art becomes a space where cultural memory can be encountered, contemplated, and shared.
Between Cultures
Born in India and based in Aotearoa New Zealand, Chawla’s artistic practice is deeply informed by the experience of migration and the realities of living between cultures. Her position between different cultural landscapes has shaped an ongoing exploration of belonging, identity, cultural continuity, displacement, and memory.
This perspective allows her to consider how cultural identity evolves when individuals move between places, communities, languages, and traditions. Rather than viewing culture as fixed or inherited unchanged, Chawla approaches it as something continually reinterpreted through personal experience, memory, and contemporary life.
Her work is particularly interested in the connections people maintain with heritage, ancestry, place, and collective memory. Cultural references often become a means of examining how identity is formed, preserved, questioned, and transformed across generations and geographical boundaries.
At the centre of this exploration is the understanding that culture provides more than historical knowledge or tradition. It can offer a sense of connection, belonging, meaning, and orientation, particularly for those navigating multiple cultural identities. Through her practice, Chawla reflects on how memories, symbols, stories, and inherited traditions can continue to create a sense of home even when physical circumstances change.
Her work therefore occupies a space between the personal and collective, drawing from lived experience while engaging with broader questions of migration, cultural memory, identity, and belonging in an increasingly interconnected world. These themes continue to inform her evolving practice across diverse bodies of work, creating meaningful dialogues between inherited traditions and contemporary cultural experiences.
“Every body of work begins with research and ends with dialogue”
EOS ( 2023 ) Inspired by Eos, the Greek goddess who brings the first light of day, this wearable sculpture explores the symbolic power of dawn as a moment of transformation, hope, and renewal. Meticulously handcrafted over thousands of hours, the work represents the opening chapter of an ongoing artistic archive dedicated to preserving cultural narratives through sculptural craftsmanship and immersive storytelling.
Themes of Exploration
Many of her projects explore how stories, traditions, spiritual beliefs, and cultural landscapes help shape individual and collective identity. Whether drawing inspiration from Māori understandings of Te Rerenga Wairua, the symbolism of Kaali, the shared relationship between people and oceanic environments, or the historical legacy of Renaissance patronage, each body of work investigates the role culture plays in helping societies understand who they are, where they come from, and how they relate to others.
Her work is driven by an understanding that culture provides more than historical knowledge—it offers a sense of connection, meaning, and orientation within an increasingly interconnected world.
Central to the practice is the belief that artistic creation can contribute to cultural diplomacy by connecting people, histories, cultures, and nations. By engaging with stories that transcend borders and generations, the work reflects on both cultural uniqueness and shared human experiences that unite diverse communities.
Through projects inspired by the histories, philosophies, spiritual traditions, and cultural legacies of different nations, the practice contributes to dialogue around cultural understanding, mutual respect, and meaningful connections across borders. Each body of work becomes a cultural conversation, creating opportunities to honour heritage, deepen understanding, and strengthen relationships between people, places, and communities.
Art becomes a space for exchange, dialogue, and shared reflection, allowing cultural narratives to be experienced beyond their original contexts while revealing common values, emotions, beliefs, and experiences that connect people across time and distance.
The practice therefore positions wearable art as both creative expression and a vehicle for cultural dialogue, using material, symbolism, storytelling, and craftsmanship to bring diverse perspectives together and encourage greater appreciation of cultural difference.
“Art can preserve memory long after words are forgotten”
Looking Forward
The archive is not conceived as a record of completed works, but as an evolving collection of cultural conversations.
Each project becomes another chapter within a lifelong practice dedicated to preserving stories, fostering understanding, and contributing to cultural dialogue across generations.
