
Hema Shironi Sri Lankan, b. 1991
A Bundle of Joy features a poignant series of fabric bundles, each carefully embroidered with outlines of houses, landscapes, and unnamed neighbourhoods. These embroidered images reflect Hema Shironi’s personal journey of migration across Sri Lanka, particularly her family’s relocation from the Central to the Northern Province in 2010, after the end of the civil war. Drawing on her childhood experience of frequent moves, Shironi recalls creating makeshift luggage from bed sheets to simplify the process. The stacked bundles in this piece capture the emotional weight of displacement, prompting a quiet but powerful reflection: what does a migrant choose to carry when faced with an uncertain, unfamiliar future?