Creative workshop and contemporary art gallery STPI is presenting Zarina: Directions to My House. This is the largest solo exhibition of prints by the renowned Indian American artist and printmaker in Southeast Asia, with over 50 works from 12 lenders across multiple cities. NATHANIEL GASKELL, Director of Exhibition Programming at STPI, tells us more about her and how both seasoned print enthusiasts and newbies can approach the exhibition for a deeper understanding of her work from 6 June to 1 August 2026.
About Zarina
Zarina Hashmi (1937-2020) is one of the most significant printmakers of the late 20th to early 21st centuries. She is considered a key figure in minimalist and diasporic practice of prints.
Printmaking wasn’t Zarina’s original specialisation – born in Aligarh, India, she received a Bachelor of Science in mathematics from the Aligarh Muslim University in 1958. Following encounters with papermakers during a visit to Rajasthan in the late 1960s, her passion for prints was awakened. She began studying a variety of printmaking methods in Thailand, Paris and Tokyo, and lived and worked in New York City.
Zarina redefined the print medium by using it to express a deeply personal and political language of exile, migration and home – particularly for South Asian and diasporic art histories. Reduced to simple geometric forms, her stark renderings of maps, borders and architectural layouts carry a profound emotional weight shaped by the trauma and violence of political displacement.
Anchoring Zarina’s practice is a keen attention to language and poetry, where austere compositions are frequently accompanied by Urdu calligraphy. In Home is a Foreign Place (1999), a series of 36 woodblock prints is indexed by words rendered in Nastaliq script – “threshold”, “door”, “courtyard” – articulating ideas of home associated with her mother tongue.
Zarina’s later work extends the material possibilities of paper. Through mark-making methods like puncturing, scratching, sewing and reconstruction by crushing, casting and collaging, the artist captures the transience of belonging, tracing her lifelong journey of making and remaking home.
Why should someone come along to Zarina: Directions to My House?
Zarina’s work speaks to universal experiences: searching for home, navigating identity, and holding onto memory. This makes her work especially relevant today. The exhibition offers a rare opportunity to encounter this work in a setting that’s both comprehensive and deeply human.
STPI is uniquely positioned to foreground how Zarina’s minimalist vocabulary redefined what printmaking can hold – formally, politically and emotionally – and to bring this conversation into a Southeast Asian context at a time when questions of home, borders and belonging are pressing.
I’m new to prints – how should I approach this exhibition?
A helpful way to approach Zarina’s work is to slow down and look closely at her prints, which are rich in meaning. Think about the ideas running throughout her works: themes of home, memory, migration and belonging.
Exhibited alongside her prints are printing plates, woodblocks and tools. These outline her behind-the-scenes processes while emphasising the act of mark-making: cutting, engraving and incising. Together, these materials offer a rare glimpse into Zarina’s artistic development and early experimentation, which are central to her exploration of memory and inscription.
Alongside the exhibition, STPI will also present a series of public programmes inspired by Zarina’s work. This includes a Curator’s Tour with Sarah Burney followed by a Spoken Word Performance on the opening day (6 June, 2pm to 2.45pm; 3pm to 5pm), collagraphy classes, cartography workshops, poetry and free guided tours by STPI docents. A full schedule is available here.
Do you have a personal favourite piece that will be exhibited?
I’m always drawn to Home is a Foreign Place, which combines Zarina’s engagement with modernism and minimalism, but with the warmth that woodblocks provide. It’s a deeply political and personal work for the artist. But the broader themes are very relatable, especially for anyone who’s lived between places, and for whom ideas around home, belonging and place are familiar questions.
How has Zarina’s work shaped print for printmakers after her?
Zarina expanded what printmaking could be. She treated print not just as a reproductive medium but as a deeply personal and conceptual form of expression. Her practice pushed technical boundaries – experimenting with woodblocks, paper, and mark-making – while also translating printmaking processes into sculptural and installation forms.
Equally important is her voice: she brought themes of diaspora, identity and memory into a minimalist visual language. This opened new ways for printmakers to engage with narrative and lived experience.
Other than being the largest in Southeast Asia, how is this exhibition different from previous ones?
This Annual Special Exhibition at STPI delves further into Zarina’s pioneering work with print.
What distinguishes Zarina: Directions to My House is its depth and scale. In addition to over 50 works from multiple international lenders, the exhibition includes archival and process materials, such as printing plates, woodblocks and tools.
It’s also curated by Sarah Burney, Zarina’s former studio manager, which brings a uniquely personal and informed perspective.
Together, these elements allow visitors to understand not just the finished artworks, but the thinking, process and lived experiences behind them.
About STPI
STPI (Singapore Tyler Print Institute) was established in 2002 to promote artistic experimentation in the mediums of print and paper. Housed in a restored 19th-century warehouse in Robertson Quay, it is home to a contemporary art gallery, guest workshop, printmaking presses and equipment, paper mill, artist studio and apartments.
STPI is one of the leading destinations for contemporary art in Asia. It’s part of the national Visual Arts Cluster, alongside the National Gallery Singapore and the Singapore Art Museum.
STPI is at 41 Robertson Quay.
6336 3663 | stpi.com.sg
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