Our World, Our Making

Old map, print, hand embroidery
Dimensions: 500mm x 350mm

2019

Part of a group exhibition and performance presented as an indirect response to David Raymond Conroy’s residency and retail space at Seventeen Gallery, London.
Curated by Neringa Dastoor

 

In Our World, Our Making, Pathak engages with the layered histories embedded within cartographic representations—specifically, an old British colonial map. This work-in-progress subtly interrogates how boundaries—both geopolitical and psychological—are never fixed, but in constant flux. Through minimal yet intentional hand-embroidery, she reclaims the map not as an authoritative document, but as a porous, emotional terrain.

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The act of stitching becomes a quiet intervention: a tool of care, repetition, and re-inscription. Here, embroidery is not simply decorative but conceptual—a way of reimagining landscapes as lived, felt, and formed through subjective experience. The piece speaks to themes of belonging, identity, and the enduring impact of colonial legacy, while proposing an alternative: our world, our making—a shared and evolving authorship of space and meaning.

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Rather than positioning herself as a commentator, Pathak enters into a dialogue with the map as both object and symbol, gently subverting its authority through tactile, personal labor. In doing so, she invites viewers to reflect on how inherited perceptions of place are constructed—and how they might be unravelled and remade.