Hema Shironi (b. 1991, Sri Lanka) is a multidisciplinary artist who lives in Colombo. Her wide-ranging artistic practice combines embroidery, mythological imagery, bricolage, and installation to inquire concepts of cultural identity. Her work is deeply rooted in observance of the history of colonization, civil war, displacement and migration, which she highlights through personal stories and experiences of living in Sri Lanka. As a child, her family often moved from one place to another and she eventually found herself questioning the bonds that communities and individuals make. Her work is driven by the nostalgia of the numerous places she has called home and how each community belonging to those places grapples with concerns of language, culture, memory, myth, gender, and equality. She completed her BFA (2014) from the Ramanathan Fine Arts Academy, University of Jaffna, Sri Lanka and MFA (2019) at Beaconhouse National University, Lahore. Her work has been featured at the Critical Zones conceived by ZKM, Centre for Art and Media Karlsruhe (2022), Colomboscope (2019 and 2022), Matara Art Festival (2023) and the 13th Taipei Biennial: Small World, hosted by the Taipei Fine Arts Museum. Hema has also completed an Artist Residency at House of Kal, Sri Lanka (2021).