Absence of Us is an interdisciplinary, long-term project that transforms used garments into narratives of memory, identity, and resilience. Esha Sadr reconsiders clothing not merely as a consumer product, but as a second skin—objects that carry personal histories and traces of absent bodies. The exhibition explores her experience as an immigrant, present in the U.S. while absent from her home country.

The work unfolds in four parts. A large hand-sewn installation forms a human-geographical map of garments donated by immigrants. Mixed-media sculptural works on canvas preserve fabrics in resin, bronze, gold leaf, and orchid flowers. A circle of raw materials invites visitors to contribute garments for future transformation. Video works layer participants’ voices, connecting intimate stories to broader narratives of migration, displacement, and social freedoms.

Through Absence of Us, viewers are invited to reflect on what we carry, what we leave behind, and what endures, transforming everyday clothing into lasting monuments of memory and identity.

Esha Sadr is a multidisciplinary artist, writer, and researcher based in Washington, DC. Her practice spans sculpture, performance, video, installation, and text to explore themes of migration, collective trauma, memory, and resilience. Since 2012, Sadr has exhibited and performed internationally, including in the United States, Iran, France, Germany, Spain, Turkey, Morocco, and beyond. Her long-term project, The Memorable Hands Museum, co-created with Ramin Etemadi, honors notable diasporic figures through cast sculptures and video portraits.

Her work has been featured in institutions such as the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art, Akademie der Künste (Berlin), Kadıköy Sineması (Istanbul), Gunnersbury Park Museum (London), Cité Internationale des Arts (Paris), and DC Arts Center. She has presented lectures and talks at the University of Bonn, Charles University Prague, ITI (Berlin), and the Interweaving Performance Cultures Center at Freie Universität Berlin. 

Sadr has published four books and over 40 essays on art and cinema. She is a member of the Washington Sculptors Group and has participated in numerous international panels and residencies.

My work exists at the intersection of loss and resilience.
Every day, we destroy something beautiful.
Every day, we create something beautiful.
That’s who we are.

As a woman shaped by life across borders, I explore the emotional weight of migration, memory, and identity. Working across sculpture, installation, performance, video, and text, I use documentary strategies to trace the fragile architecture of personal space—what we carry and what we leave behind.I often incorporate worn garments, stitched textiles, and ephemeral materials to embody absence, fragility, and transformation. These tactile structures become maps of movement, trauma, and longing—insisting on the stories that resist erasure. Through intimate acts of making, I transform personal memory into collective experience. My practice creates quiet spaces for reflection and confrontation, preserving what is disappearing and giving form to the invisible borders that shape our lives.