A Chakkiwala surrounded by grain-powdered hindalium containers in Lower Parel; fiery orange hues of the Fall foliage in Quebec; labourers mounted on scaffolds at a construction site in Baroda. Present any of these scenarios to Mumbai-based visual artist Teja Gavankar, 31, and she will arrive at a geometric design or an unobserved symmetry in each. She will first describe the shape of the setting monosyllabically - round, rectilinear, oval, cubic, square - before taking to richer analyses of its other physiognomies. Gavankar, a resident of Borivli, sees design schemes in everyday spaces, as is evident in her first solo, Other's Spaces, an assemblage of paper drawings, sculptures and an installation called Split Corner, which had a month-long stay before wrapping up yesterday at Montreal's Optica, a centre for contemporary art.

Back home, and true to her not-repeat-but-reinvent dictum, Gavankar is now building on Other's Spaces for an architecture exhibition at Jaipur's Jawahar Kala Kendra scheduled for next month. She has been handed a special brief - to contribute to the conversation on spatiality through works that focus on boundaries and edges of buildings and cities, which signify social inclusions and exclusions.