Chila Kumari Singh Burman has been making art around the clock for over 40 years. Her lifelong work of multimedia storytelling recasts our understanding of feminine power and British-Punjabi identity in a way that is intensely personal yet audaciously political, and speaks to the resilience of migrant heritage. On most nights, she draws in a sketchbook that she keeps next to her bed, often leaving pencil marks and oil-pastel smudges on her sheets. During the day, she can be found working in Hackney, East London, in her studio, which the artist dubs her “second bedroom,” alluding to the intimacy of the space and the amount of time she spends there.
On a Sunday afternoon in October, I walked along quiet streets and through unassuming estates before arriving at the repurposed building where her studio is located.
