Ishgun Lamba: Invisible Ink

Ishgun Lamba, Invisible Ink (installation documentation), 2026

Ishgun Lamba: Invisible Ink

March 18 – April 8, 2026
Opening Reception: March 18, 2026, 7 – 8pm
assemblage, Toronto

Invisible Ink invites viewers to witness the internal silence of living in a body under attack by its own immune system, and how typography can assist in making this legible. Through the creation of an original typeface informed by lived experience, Lamba translates the fluctuating states of chronic illness, including fatigue, flare, fragmentation, and remission.

Traditional typography prioritizes clarity, legibility, and permanence. Invisible Ink rejects these conventions. Instead, it treats the alphabet as a system that mirrors the instability of the body. The work translates non-verbal, embodied experience into a visual language. It invites viewers to look closely.

Ishgun Lamba, Invisible Ink (installation documentation), 2026

Through this installation, Invisible Ink positions typography not only as a carrier of words, but as a witness to pain, a metaphor for fragmentation, and a tool for making the invisible visible.

The goal is not to explain the illness in clinical terms, but to represent its internal reality in a visual, sensory, and conceptual way. By embedding instability within the body of the letters, the project responds to the limitations of both medical jargon and oversimplified symbolism. This work is situated at the intersection of design and the human body, exploring how form can carry feeling and visual communication can bridge the gap between personal and collective understanding of these experiences.

Ishgun Lamba, Invisible Ink (detail), 2026

Ishgun Kaur Lamba is a communication designer and interdisciplinary artist, currently based in Toronto. Working across type design, installation, and publication, her work moves between research and experimentation, treating design as both communication and inquiry.

For more information:
www.behance.net/ishgunkaurlamba
@ishgun.lamba

assemblage
assemblage is a public-facing storefront space dedicated to the exhibition of emerging and established artists. assemblage embraces “liveliness”: our research and activities consider questions such as: how are we interconnected with our environment, communities, and non-human ecosystems? Knowledge sharing and dissemination take the form of workshops, exhibitions, publications, and seminars. Our goal is to remain fluid as we embrace complex issues, acknowledge entanglements, and foster inter- and cross-disciplinary practices.

assemblage
2015 Dundas Street West
Toronto, ON M6R 1W7
assemblage-gallery.com

Accessibility:
assemblage is accessible. As a storefront gallery, works are viewed from the street.

assemblage acknowledges the ancestral territories of the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Haudenosaunee, the Anishinaabeg and the Huron-Wendat, who are the original owners and custodians of this land. We also acknowledge the Métis, Inuit, and Indigenous urban communities who share these lands.