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A Lot On My Plate by Jaipur-based photographer and installation artist Vriddhi Sawlani, explores grief, memory, and the complexities of familial relationships through two deeply personal installations. 'Portrait of Her' pays tribute to her late mother through 36 etched brass plates inspired by Rajasthani wedding traditions, transforming memory into an act of cultural and emotional reparation. In contrast, 'He Broke Us' examines the fractured relationship between the artist and her father through shattered ceramic photographs, archival imagery, and scent-based interventions that evoke memories of alcohol and familial dysfunction.
Grief can be an incredibly powerful catalyst. The absence and loss of someone can stretch your understanding of creativity and imagination, and, in turn, your understanding of human emotion. I had never experienced grief until very recently in my life, and one thing I can say with absolute certainty is that I'm not sure that feeling of emptiness and irrepressible sorrow ever truly leaves us.
It becomes like a stem, a pole, or a fence that we grow around like a vine. It becomes the structure that holds us together, a core part of who we are. It's been two years, and I no longer know who I am without my grief.
For Vriddhi, a photographer and installation artist based out of Jaipur, grief was one of the foundational emotions explored in her recent exhibition, 'A Lot On My Plate', which took place at 1218 Studios in Bengaluru on June 13 and 14, 2026.
The exhibition also explores the complicated and sometimes dysfunctional personal relationship between Vriddhi and her parents. Split into two parts: 'Portrait of Her', which is her attempt to document her and her mother’s relationship almost a decade after her passing; and ‘He Broke Us’, which captures the rupture and breakage of a relationship between her and her father.
Portrait of Her consists of 36 brass plates, each etched with memories shared between the artist and her mother. Drawing from a Rajasthani tradition in which newlywed brides are gifted thalis engraved with their names or those of their families, Vriddhi attempts to give her mother something she never received. Because her mother married outside her caste, she was denied these customary tokens of community and belonging.
The plates thus become a form of cultural and emotional reparation, paying homage to the woman her mother was beyond her marriage and beyond her role as a mother. They serve as an act of remembrance and respect, acknowledging a life that was not always documented or celebrated. The work is also an attempt to capture and preserve moments that were never recorded as they unfolded. Through memory alone, Vriddhi pieces together a life, allowing each engraved phrase to function as both archive and prompt. The text on every plate evokes a distinct visual for each viewer, transforming the artist's deeply personal experiences into something universal, where individual memory becomes a space for collective reflection.
"These memories are the core question of what I was asking myself: how do you photograph something that doesn't exist. I lost my mother ten years ago, and I was going back to that emotion of not having her and then realising that as a photographer I dont have enough images of the memories we spent together. But also these memories were really impactful and vivid in my head, so I started writing them down."
Vriddhi about 'Portrait Of Her'
'He Broke Us' draws from a family archive of photographs taken over several years, images that once documented moments of closeness between the artist and her father. Many of these photographs were taken by the artist herself as a child, when admiration and affection shaped the way she saw him. Viewed years later, however, the images hold a different meaning. The photographs are printed onto ceramic plates and then shattered by the artist herself. The resulting fragments remain scattered across the installation, echoing the slow and cumulative nature of familial rupture. A custom scent based on the artist's olfactory memory of alcohol permeates the space, lingering and serving as a constant reminder about how you can never escape from some memories. By using smell as a medium to trigger memories of experiences that your body had registered long before your mind had, 'He Broke Us' captures the difficulty in articulation and the pain embroiled with growing up in a dysfunctional family.
"I took these photographs when I was 10 or 12 and I was looking at a father that I absolutely loved, he's the life of at the party and hes so social. I always had this point and shoot with me because he gave it to me as a kid and I would always go and photograph him only. 15 years later, when I looked at the photographs again and I realised what I was documenting was an addiction that actually broke the entire family," reflects Vriddhi while talking about He Broke Us.
Central to the work is the dining table, an object traditionally associated with gathering, and familial unity. The installation invites viewers to inhabit the perspective of a daughter who spent years observing dynamics she could sense but not yet name.
Portrait of Her and He Broke Us documenting the traces left behind by the artist’s parents. One work attempts to reconstruct a life through fragments of memory; the other dismantles a carefully preserved archive to reveal the harm hidden beneath it.
In 'A Lot On My Plate', grief is not presented as something to be overcome, nor is trauma framed as a wound that neatly heals with time. In transforming personal experiences into material objects, etched brass plates, shattered ceramics, lingering scents, Vriddhi creates a space where private grief becomes collectively legible.
