Weight of Me
Kirti Virmani
The weight of me is the weight of all women
that have preceded me —
Mothers, grandmothers, aunts, sisters…
The weight of me is that of a holy book
|wrapped in red on the mantle of our 4 walled home.
The weight of me now is an empty journal,
wrapped in red, for me to write my own story,
to add my own weight.
To build my 1000 walled home.
Plaintiff Press is proud to support Kirti Virmani's first solo show and artist book launch in the UK. A year’s exploration through collective and inherited memory, Kirti crafts a experience of conflicting and conjoining narratives that crosses oceans as well as generations. Her solo exhibition features print installation, sculpture to address belonging, identity and expectation.
Kirti’s practice is iterative, based on variables and reinterpretation. It’s narrative arch is one we recognise deep within ourselves. She questions place through the voices that inhabit them, the stories that pass through and onto those that come after. She has been selected to develop this body of work at Plaintiff Press, pushing the boundaries between print, installation and storytelling.
Exhibition hosted at ASC Cleaver Street Project Space & Plaintiff Press, London, June 2026.
The Artist Book
Weight of me is an artist book comprising a set of five envelopes, a work that explores themes of identity, home, and holding space. Just as letters and journal pages are folded into envelopes, we inhabit homes, families, histories, and inherited ways of being. For me, the envelopes become homes: fragile architectures that contain memories, dreams, voices, and traces of those who came before us. Functioning as vessels for echoes, whispers, breaths, conversations, and silences, the envelopes invite readers to unfold and inhabit the work. Developed alongside the site-specific installation weight of me, housed in the now-defunct Lambeth County Court in London from 18– 29 June 2026, the publication exists as an independent artwork while extending the project's exploration of journal archiving, of what it means to hold and be held, and to carry the weight of many voices within our 1000 walled home.
Edition of 200
Accompanied by a text from the artist and journal excerpt from the archives.
Produced at Plaintiff Press
Kirti Virmani
Artist
Indian-born artist based between London and India, Virmani works across photography, printmaking, and sculptural forms. Her interdisciplinary practice centres around ideas of rebellion within and hope. This new body of work is about an ongoing interest in observing inherited objects and architectural and archaeological remnants, through a feminist lens to make visible the invisible perspectives that have been normalised.
Her practice reflects on the weight of the self and the weight we carry collectively, navigating the tensions between intimacy, inheritance, and holding space. Virmani holds a Master’s in Print from the Royal College of Art and has exhibits across the UK and India.