I Build to Remember, and I Break to Continue Remembering

Asyraf works almost entirely in cement. He casts thin panels and then treats them less as objects than as surfaces to be read, keeping the scratches, the trowel marks, the patches where the mix discoloured or the surface pitted as it set. From a distance the panels can look almost like monochrome paintings, quiet fields of grey and off-white. Stand closer and they declare themselves as cement. The material is everywhere in our cities, from pavement slabs to flyovers to apartment blocks, and Asyraf takes interest in what it usually hides: the haste in which it was poured, the small failures of the surface, the marks left by whoever finished it before moving on to the next job. He treats cement as a record of the labour that made it, rather than as the smooth background of modern life.