What themes were you trying to explore with this solo exhibition?

I’m still dealing with [comments] like: “You can’t do that because that’s our tradition.” “We don’t wear that.” “We don’t talk like that.” “We don’t look like that.”

What part of our [South Asian] tradition is tradition and what part of our tradition is just patriarchy disguised as tradition? Why can’t we just take this time now to ditch some of these traditions that are just used to police women and used to convince women to police each other.

I want us to exhaust some of these topics — I want us to talk about them so much that we’re tired of talking about them. That’s how I want us to progress. If we can’t learn to love ourselves, in the wise words of RuPaul, “How the hell you gonna love anybody else?”

What drives you and where do you get your inspiration from?

We moved to Canada in 2000, a year before 9/11. Being called a terrorist, a Paki — direct racism and the violence that stems from it was a huge surprise for me. I grew up feeling like I did something wrong.

The documentation of what was going on started when I was experiencing real trauma, real pain, which for a kid is a lot to deal with. And how do you express that? I had art.