ABOUT ME
Born 1981 in Pamplemousse,Mauritius
Lives and works in Bombay(India) and Auckland(New Zealand)
Nandita Kumar is a new media artist who works at the intersection of art, science, technology and community to create interactive installations. She explores the elemental process through which human beings construct meaning from their experiences, by creating sensory narratives through sound, video/animation and performance, smartphone apps, customized motherboards, and solar/microwave sensors. Through her installations, interactive sculptures, paintings and animations, which seamlessly integrate new media and materiality, Kumar reflects on the striking contradictions within the industrial and natural landscape.
Nandita’s interest lies in propelling the human race towards sustainable development, which not only focuses on environmental protection but also social nurturing. Her process envisions a desirable future state for human societies in which living conditions and resource use continue to meet human needs without undermining the integrity, stability and beauty of natural biotic systems. Simultaneously, Nandita explores the impact of innovative technologies on human lives and natural ecosystems through her practice. She employs technology as though it were a natural element in an extended ecosystem. As a result, her works are hybrids, rooted in human nature while a pervasive electronic layer is integrated seamlessly.
As part-machine, part-artistic intervention, they function to challenge our uncritical reception towards technological advancement and re-imagine conventional approaches to environmental sustainability by democratizing data. In the process—whether environmentally, politically, technologically—she wants to create a more well-informed and active participant in the shaping and refiguring of our future. Her body of work explores concepts related to biomimicry, future food, urban design, impact of technology and data transparency through the lens of the five elements (Earth, Water, Air, Fire, Ether). Nandita’s projects are heavily research-based, leading her to become interested in “the data”, its representation and how one communicates the same to a larger audience.
In her research, she attempts to locate inherent patterns, modes of sustainability, cultural hybridity, technology, and the synergy between nature and our current urban environment. Nandita has shown in varied festivals and exhibitions throughout the world including Pompidou, ZKM, LACMA, REDCAT, ISEA, Je de Paume, The New Zealand International Film Festival, Film Anthology Archive NY, Indian Art Fair, Rome International Film festival, Stuttgart Animation Festival, The Academy of Television Art and Sciences in Los Angeles and been included in Best of Sydney Underground Festival DVD. “Ghar Pe/At Home” (2011-2012), a community art project she curated, has been documented online by Asian Art Archive (Hong Kong). Her work has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, The Asian Age, Hindustan Times, The Indian Express, Take on Art (India), Australian Art Collector. Nandita has received the ASU-Leonardo Imagination Fellowship and has also been a speaker at the Museum of Contemporary Art (Sydney) and TEDx.
She holds a joint Bachelors’s Degree from MS University, Baroda(India) and Elam School Of the Arts, Auckland University, (New Zealand), and has completed her Master’s Degree in Experimental Animation at California Institute of the Arts, Los Angeles(USA).
ARTIST TALK
