Riya Chandwani is a Mumbai-based visual artist. She completed her Master’s degree in Painting from Sir J. J. School of Art, Mumbai. Her artistic practice explores themes of displacement, longing, historical lineage and femininity, often reflecting on the inherited trauma of partition through metaphorical and allegorical forms. She works across drawing, painting, embroidery, paper burn and installation, and her art seeks to give voice to stories of migration, loss and resilience.

“Tre darř”, created with tissue cloth, embroidery and iron rod structure, forms part of a larger installation titled Tadahe Milandasi, inspired by a Sindhi poem by Sheikh Ayaz that speaks of reunion after pain and separation. The installation reimagines the three locked doors from the artist’s childhood home, symbols of safety, fear and memory, into delicate translucent panels embroidered with locks and Sindhi text written in Urdu script.

These fragile, stitched doors embody the layered emotions of migration and the longing for home. They become thresholds between past and present, memory and loss, evoking both protection and vulnerability within the shared history of displacement.