The Pakistani artist invited Ayesha Le Breton to share her body with her practice, and preview her new series of mouldings at Hannah Traore Gallery.

To this day, my mum, both lovingly and worriedly, calls me besharam—Urdu for “shameless”—be it when I decided to pierce my right nipple four years ago, or when I FaceTime her as I leave my apartment in a sheer top and mini shorts. A mix of concern and admiration ripples through her utterance as she sweetly explains that she’s proud of how at ease I am in body. That confidence is not a constant—it ebbs, flows, and dips—but as Misha Japanwala carefully coats my right nipple in bright green silicone, I feel steady.

It was that very word or feeling—shameless—that drew me to Japanwala. I first met the Pakistani artist in 2022, to write about Beghairati Ki Nishaani: Traces of Shamelessness, her debut solo exhibition at Hannah Traore Gallery in New York’s Lower East Side. Moulding femme, queer, and transgender bodies in her hometown Karachi, Japanwala invoked shame as a tool of liberation, reclaiming the censorship she and so many others face in our culture. Voluptuous breastplates, gaping bellybuttons, and intricate hands are chemically aged in bronze, copper, and gold coatings, recontextualising her subjects as precious artefacts. But the glaring nipple collage was a spontaneous and pivotal addition, made possible by more than seventy-five people who responded to a last minute open call. This process now anchors her practice.

Three years later, as we settle into the couch in her New Jersey home, Japanwala reflects on that first run of nipple moulding sessions, describing them as magical. The undertaking has since evolved into recurring invitations for anyone to celebrate their breasts, and opportunities for the artist to build an sincere archive of people’s existence, documenting their bodies exactly as they are. I can’t help but feel excited and eager to contribute despite the vulnerability and permanence required for such an intimate exchange—the possibility of catharsis mere paces away.

As Japanwala leads me upstairs to her home studio, statuesque casts painted in rich and bold palettes command my attention. Folds, rolls, creases, and stretchmarks protrude proudly. Sarsabzi (meaning “lushness” in Urdu) couldn’t be a more apt title for the bounty before me. Talking through the inspiration for this new collection, Japanwala shares her focus and rejection of the word blemish. Rubber gloves on and studies of stomachs in hand, she points out the intricate imprint of a C-section, stretchmarks, and the four-inch scar from when a participant donated part of her liver to her father. With Japanwala’s latest body of work, the marks and texture we typically scrutinize and abhor appear unaltered and cherished. It feels like an exercise in honesty. On that note, I laugh to myself as I think back to earlier that morning—the irony of standing in front of my bathroom mirror examining my nipples, tweezers in hand, fighting the urge to pluck the sparse hairs staring back at me and wanting to immortalize this part of me in its smoothest, yet unnatural form.

As I await the blend that will soon enshrine my nipple, I take in Japanwala’s corpus mounted on the walls, lining shelves, stacked on racks. It suddenly hits me that I’m one of over three hundred others that she’s moulded. The gravity and healing nature of her work is palpable. To my left, Japanwala carefully weighs the silicone mixture. I am ready, top rolled up and protective plastic sheet over my legs. *Heaven Must Be Missing an Angel *pulses from the speaker as she applies a couple of layers of the turquoise silicone to my breast, then adds plaster on top. It’s cool and rubbery on my skin. We easily fall into chit chat while the mould sets—I feel safe and comfortable, true to the care Japanwala exudes. Within ten minutes, the process is complete. There was no specific weight lifted, nor insecurity resurfaced—rather, an immovable tranquility settles within me. Perhaps what’s radical is that it all feels natural.

Over samosas, we discuss what treatment I want for my custom cast—an ultra-saturated pick synonymous with Sarsabzi, or a shimmering gold as a nod to when we first connected? I have big plans for it: it will be the pièce de resistance in my room, hanging above my bed.

Japanwala has the rare and undeniable gift of inspiring people to revere their bodies. At the opening reception for Sarsabzi, women excitedly pose in front of studies of their own bodies, beholding them across the sprawling gallery walls and atop towering plinths. Every fold, wrinkle, and dimple laid bare and emboldened by deep crimson, rich chartreuse, or canary yellow. Entwined and undulating casts of multiple muses also offer a visual reminder of how we can hold and heal each other—each piece a pledge to relinquish shame and love oneself.

Crucial to Sarsabzi is a growing nipple installation that transforms a blank alcove into a collective mural of confidence and defiance. Visitors can commission and share their own nipple casts, with ten percent of proceeds donated to Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital in Karachi in memory of Zahra Khan. Japanwala first moulded Khan the night before her double mastectomy three years ago. She passed away from cancer complications earlier this summer.

Last Friday, when I stopped by the gallery to shoot the installation, I was promptly struck by the emotional releases unfurling. Between sittings, Japanwala was wiping tears away, processing the sorrow and strength of her mourning visitors. The woman she’d just moulded had received a call on her way to the gallery with news that her friend passed away after six years of battling breast cancer. She wept as we crossed paths on the way out. We hugged, and she told me how comforting the session with Japanwala had been. The next woman in line was here to honor her late sister, who she lost to breast cancer a couple of years ago. She kindly let me photograph her session, exuding nothing but happiness. Pain, grief, or joy—are all welcome here, a testament to Japanwala’s tenderness.