Zaat: Exploring womanhood through metal and memory

The Gallery at British Council, Kasturba Gandhi Marg, presents Zaat by Royal College of Art Graduate Sonakshi, a powerful sculptural installation that unravels matrilineal memory through the language of heirloom, metal, and meaning.

The exhibition runs from 11 June through 31 July 2025 as part of Study UK: Creative Connections II. Born in Agra and now based in London, Sonakshi Chaturvedi brings together her expertise in painting, enamelling, and gemology to question how women's histories are remembered—or systematically erased. The exhibition confronts the inherited roles of bride, mother, and grandmother, foregrounding untold longings encoded within craft traditions of the Indian subcontinent. A Fresh Voice in Contemporary ArtFresh from completing her MA in Jewellery & Metal at the prestigious Royal College of Art (2024), Sonakshi represents a new generation of artists bridging traditional craft with contemporary artistic practice. Her unique background as both a Graduate Gemologist and researcher with Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (Ministry of Culture) positions her with the requisite capabilities to question the cultural significance of adornment and inheritance in South Asian societies.

“Zaat began as a way to fortify my own nostalgia, but it evolved into an act of reclamation—tracing heirloom objects that held the silent resistance of women remembered only as mothers, brides, grandmothers. Through sculpture, I archive their matrilineal inheritance as material memory—for future female ancestors to know them not just by the roles they played, but as individuals with dreams, agency, and voice” explains Chaturvedi.

Exploring Material MemoryThe title "Zaat" refers to identity or the core sense of being. Visitors to Zaat will encounter a series of sculptural forms crafted in brass, white metal, cold enamel, resin-based enamel, and gemstones—each inspired by objects from the artist’s grandmother’s wedding trousseau. At first glance, these forms appear worn, metallic, and subdued—echoing the weight of tradition and domestic expectation.

But within, they burst into candy-like, psychedelic interiors—revealing a hidden world of colour, desire, and youth.

These contrasting surfaces act as metaphors for how generations of women, often remembered only as wives, mothers, or grandmothers, concealed vivid inner lives beneath uniform roles. Zaat transforms these heirloom-inspired forms into vessels of material memory—preserving not just what was passed down, but what was never said.The artwork forms part of the British Council's Best of British series, celebrating UK alumni who are shaping global cultural discourse. The Study UK: Creative Connections II programme highlights the international impact of UK education in fostering artistic innovation and cross-cultural dialogue.