I am Chandni Jeswani, an architectural historian working on sacred urbanism, genius loci theory, and diasporic spatial memory.

My research begins with a single question: what happens to the spirit of a place when that place is transformed, erased, or lost? I trace how meaning persists across contested and historically ruptured geographies — through ritual practice, collective memory, and the architectural forms that survive, absorb, or resist erasure. Varanasi is my primary site. Renaissance Florence offers a comparative lens on patronage and institutionalization; the Gulf and Sindhi Hindu diaspora contexts trace what happens when the originating geography is lost entirely.

I trained in History of Art with Curating at Birkbeck, University of London, graduating with Distinction. My work has appeared with MIT Press, Routledge, Cambridge University Press, and Tate Papers, and has been presented at the Association for Art History annual conference at Cambridge, ENSA Paris-Malaquais, and the Werner Oechslin Library Foundation colloquium in Mendrisio. I am currently completing a PhD by publication in sacred urbanism and institutional memory.

For collaborations, commissions, and research inquiries, get in touch.

Modes of Practice

Research Archival and field-based investigations into sacred urbanism, genius loci theory, heritagization, and diasporic spatial memory — generating original frameworks for understanding how sacred meaning is made, contested, and lost across historically ruptured geographies.

Curatorial Practice Exhibitions and cultural programming approached as research methods rather than display platforms — built around what objects, texts, and spatial practices have historically constituted rather than merely represented, and how that distinction reshapes the logic of an exhibition entirely.

Cultural Strategy Advisory work for cultural institutions and heritage bodies, bringing historical depth and original interpretive frameworks to questions of meaning, positioning, and institutional narrative around sacred, contested, or culturally complex sites.

For collaborations, commissions, and research inquiries reach out to chandnijes@gmail.com

For collaborations, research projects, or inquiries, please get in touch here