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PROJECTS
Becoming Enough
This project draws from Soundarya's personal experiences, tracing the journey of a child who excelled in academic work, sport, and art, but grew up in a culture where achievement was always expected and rarely acknowledged. The absence of recognition carried into adulthood as a search for constant validation and self-worth. Rooted in South Asian family dynamics, the work explores identity, belonging, and generational healing.
Through staged, metaphorical portraits and performative images, she revisits moments that shaped her resilience, reclaiming her narrative and transforming ordinary scenes into spaces of empowerment, reflecting on relationships, memory, and the quiet strength of Becoming Enough.
Through staged, metaphorical portraits and performative images, she revisits moments that shaped her resilience, reclaiming her narrative and transforming ordinary scenes into spaces of empowerment, reflecting on relationships, memory, and the quiet strength of Becoming Enough.
Light That Followed Her
This series began after Soundarya moved from India to the UK, when she started noticing how selfhood shifts across different places and ways of being seen. Working from printed black-and-white self-portraits, she intervenes with jewellery carried from home or gifted by the women in her life, each piece holding its own history and meaning.
The jewellery becomes a quiet language of womanhood and belonging, revealing how identity is shaped by what we carry, what we inherit, and how the body is read in a new context. Placing these objects onto neutral prints and rephotographing them brings the past and present into the same frame, creating portraits that hold both the familiarity of home and the strangeness of migration.
The jewellery becomes a quiet language of womanhood and belonging, revealing how identity is shaped by what we carry, what we inherit, and how the body is read in a new context. Placing these objects onto neutral prints and rephotographing them brings the past and present into the same frame, creating portraits that hold both the familiarity of home and the strangeness of migration.
Cross Woven
Cross Woven celebrates cultural intersectionality through styling, textiles, and storytelling, with future series set to integrate diverse cultures from around the world. This ongoing project began with two photo series blending Indian textiles with traditional styles from the UK, including garments like kilts, brought together through Indian fabrics and jewelry, as well as Chinese cultural elements. By bridging heritage and contemporary expression, Cross Woven creates a visual dialogue that explores the richness of cultural fusion and the evolution of identity through fashion.
Women of Chennai
Women of Chennai is a photo series created as part of Madras Month 2022, celebrating inspiring women from Chennai whom I’ve had the privilege of knowing over the years. Each participant is portrayed through two images — one highlighting her professional identity and another capturing how she wishes to be seen beyond her work. Dressed in their favourite ethnic wear, the women are photographed against iconic backdrops across Chennai, with visual elements inspired by the city’s rich cultural fabric, including its dance, music, art, architecture, jewellery, and transport. This series is a tribute to the spirit, diversity, and strength of Chennai’s women.
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