Sikander’s studio is like a laboratory. The means by which she achieves her wondrous effects are austere: an X-Acto cutter as her chief instrument, and, as her material, card paper of 150 gsm thickness, bought from her local stationery shop in Bandra, Bombay, the suburb that is her childhood home. The residues of her work are what she calls her ‘negatives’: effectively stencils, these are the card-paper sheets that remain after she has cut out the elements that go into her moths, birds and insects, with negative spaces where wings, legs, crests and other limbs have been cleanly marked and removed.

Written by Ranjit Hoskote, Wandering Violin Mantis, 2019.