A diaspora studio
Punjabi language, made tangible.
A New York studio shaping Punjabi language into modern art, objects, and atmospheres.
Studio note
Pinned Theory began with a feeling many of us carry quietly.
The sound of Punjabi spoken at home, even when the world outside spoke differently. The way language held warmth, discipline, humor, and memory all at once. The sense that culture lived in gestures, silences, routines, and things passed down rather than displayed.
This studio exists to honor that feeling.
To take what was lived, remembered, overheard, and felt, and give it form in a way that belongs to the present. To create work that feels familiar before it feels new. To let language sit comfortably in modern spaces without asking permission.
Pinned Theory is shaped by diaspora experience. By distance and closeness existing together. By the desire to carry something forward without freezing it in time.
Everything here is made with care for texture, pacing, and meaning. For homes, books, sets, garments, and moments where culture is felt rather than explained. If this resonates, you already understand the work.
Commissions
Working with me is a conversation first.
I listen closely, not just to what you’re asking for, but to what you’re trying to hold on to. The half-memories, the references you can’t quite place, the feeling you want a space or object to carry when words fall short. Every commission begins slowly, with trust, curiosity, and room to think together.
My work is shaped by a life lived between cultures and languages, by noticing how meaning shows up in small gestures, textures, pauses. I care about things feeling right in the body, not just correct on paper. The process is collaborative, thoughtful, and deeply personal, with enough play to let something unexpected emerge.
If you’re looking for work that feels considered, intimate, and alive, this is where it begins.
Applications
I work best where stories need a physical presence.
New York City taught me how culture moves, adapts, and survives. How language slips into design, into rooms, into clothing, into scenes on a screen. That rhythm shows up in how I approach interiors, film and photo sets, books, editorial projects, and custom cultural commissions.
There is joy in this work. In translating something deeply rooted into something contemporary. In making culture feel at home in modern spaces. I care about pacing, atmosphere, and the quiet confidence of things that don’t need to explain themselves.
Whether it’s a set, a room, a book, or a single object, I bring the same intention: to create something that feels grounded, expressive, and unmistakably lived in.
The archive
Between commissions, the studio makes things for no particular reason other than interest and joy. Small runs, experiments, ideas that wanted to exist without a long conversation. If you feel like taking something home right away, the shop holds those moments.
Think of it as a studio shelf. Reachable, rotating, and always a little unexpected.