From the series Monsters, Female Desires, and States of Dislocation

These uncanny forms interpret an array of objects, including swords, vessels, cannons, amulets, and masks—the types of images that might feature in Western coffee-table books on Islamic and Indian art. Sikander’s representations transform the inanimate objects into human-animal hybrids, imbuing them with agency. Her approach, she explains, was “an inventive and ironic play on the colonial histories of dispersing, rupturing, archiving, cataloguing, and institutionalizing art and artifacts of native cultures.” The distinct pattern created by the coagulation of ink on the sheets suggests reptile skin, ideal for rendering these subjects.