Varsha Nair, an interdisciplinary artist from Baroda, India, pursued her painting studies at the Faculty of Fine Arts, Maharaja Sayajirao University. Her artworks and projects have been showcased globally, including exhibitions at prestigious venues such as Tate Modern in London, Art in General in New York, Cities on the Move 6 in Bangkok, WTF Gallery in Bangkok, Lodypop in Basel, Khoj International in New Delhi, and most recently at documenta 15 in Kassel.
INSTALLATION
Performance
ViDEO
1999 Womanifesto II:
The Second International Women’s Art Exchange
Video Installation by Varsha Nair and Virginia Hilyard
If it were always a fist or always stretched open, you would be paralysed.
(Extract from Birdwings by Jelaluddin Rumi)
The movement between strength and vulnerability is traversed in slow motion a nd is left open to interpretation within and beyond the frame. Through the depiction of a massage, this work talks of an imbalance, of tensions that lurk beneath the skin and that are disguised in a culture driven by surface and beauty. This video installation was set up opposite Wat Po, a Thai Budd hist temple which houses a massage school.
PAPERS & ARTICLES
Shudders in the Cradle
By Varsha Nair
This is from a collection of essays published in conjunction with the First International Women's Art Festival and for the exhibition "From My Fingers, Living in the Technological Age" at the Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts, organised by the museum and the Taiwan Women's Art Association (pp 111-118).
Artists Retreate to Countryside
By Varsha Nair
The article published in SPAFA JOURNAL, a publication of the SEAMEO (Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organization) Regional Centre for Archaeology and Fine Arts, Volume 12, Number 1, January-April 2002.
No Work Is Good Work
By Varsha Nair
Available at Asia Art Archive Hong Kong for onsite access only
Published in art4d, Dec 2001 – Jan 2002, Vol. No. 78, Issue December 2001-January 2002, pp. 30–31
Womanifesto: An Exhibition of Woman's Art in Bangkok
By Varsha Nair
Published in ArtAsiaPacific, Issue 26, April/May/June 2000, a magazine covering contemporary art and culture from Asia, the Pacific, and the Middle East.
Womanifesto II — jogging ahead
By Varsha Nair
Published in n.paradoxa: international feminist art journal, volume 4, July 1999 Sculpture/Installation pp.91-94.In this article, the co-organisor of Womanfesto II in Bangkok discusses the project and the work of participating artists Amanda Heng, Nilofar Akmut, Sanja Ivekovic, Or-Anong Klinsiri, Jittima Pholsawek, Nguyen Dam Thuy, Ko Hyun-Hee and Sermsuk Thiensoonthorn. "Womanifesto is in every way an artist-initiated event and our network has grown steadily in a direct way, mainly through personal contact and friendship."