life
Kinnari Saraiya, born in Bombay, is an artist and curator, but primarily, she's a storyteller. She works across film, interactive digital immersive environments, sculpture, installation, animation and drawing, which allows her to interweave complex concepts and narratives together. Her work blends myths and legends of her forefathers told to her by her grandfather, into existing colonial narratives embedded into the landscape of her present to produce an almost fictional, futuristic world, deeply rooted in the non-fictional histories and stories. Through the recovery and binding of ancient and new tools, resources, and technologies, her work constructs a portal, a time capsule that helps define, find, create, escape, and return home.
She received her BFA with honours from Arts University Bournemouth in 2020, where she was awarded the Dean’s Prize for excellence in creativity for her recent project ‘Victoria Terminus’. The same project won the runners up prize at An Indian Festival 2020 and was shortlisted for the New Emergence Art: Unity Award in 2020. She has exhibited nationally and internationally, most notably at the Kyiv Biennial 2021 Allied, curated by members of the East Europe Biennial Alliance and at the basement of the British Pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2019.
Earlier in 2021, she was recognised to be of exceptional promise by the Arts Council England.
She co-curated a worldbuilding project built on New Art City called It was a Roadside Picnic with Helen Starr, an Afro-Carib curator and activist. Set in the desert of Sahel and centered around a breathing app that is synced to breathing exercises towards a calm mental state, it is an urgent statement that art has the potential to heal. She currently works at BALTIC Center for Contemporary Art as a Curatorial Fellow, supported by Frieze and Deutsche Bank. Here she will work on multiple exhibitions across 18 months and deliver public programmes supporting them.
education
2017 - 2020
Arts University Bournemouth, BA (Hons) Fine Art. First Class Distinction
2016 - 2017
City College of San Francisco, BA Fine Art. Dean’s List Distinction
2014 - 2016
L.S Raheja School of Art, Fine Art Diploma
awards and residencies
2022
Honorary Mention, Computer Animation, Prix Ars Electronica - It was a Roadside Picnic / Beyond Black Orientalism
Weekender Residency with Array Collective, UK New Artists and Centre for Contemporary Art, Derry-Londonderry, Northern Ireland
Game Jam Residency supporting Danielle Braithwaite-Shirley's Haunting Alongside Our Shadows, QUAD and Arebyte, Derby and London
2021
The Light of Day Prize, Artquest, London
Adapt, Change & Cope, Virtual Residency, Wendy Network & MACHFELD Foundation, Vienna, Austria.
North Louisiana Virtual Residency 2021, Louisiana, United States.
Emerging Artist Residency, Orbit Gallery, Liverpool, United Kingdom
2020
PRAXIS Residency, Axis and Social Art Library, United Kingdom.
SPUR: Virtual 6 months residency; CORE artist, Chaos Magic Space. (Mentioned in Serpentine’s Future of Art Ecosystems: Art x Metaverse issue)
Curators of Colour Sponsorship Award, Ziegler Collection.
Shortlisted for New Emergence Art: Unity Award.
Winner of the Dean’s Prize for innovative use of materials, Arts University Bournemouth.
Winner of AIS Open Runners Up Award, An Indian Summer Festival.
2019
Residency and Fellowship, British Pavilion at the Venice Biennale, British Council.
2017
The Great Indian Scholarship supported by the British Council for excellence in Arts, United Kingdom.
solo exhibitions
2019
to the privileged, Outside Giardini, Venice.
to the privileged, British Pavilion basement, Venice Biennale.
selected group exhibitions
2022
forthcoming
forthcoming
forthcoming
Bioscope, Frieze Art Fair, London - programmed by Eva Langret
Time Travel across Many-Worlds, BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead - curated by Kinnari Saraiya
Nature Godded Worlds, QUAD, Derby - curated by Jodi Kwok, Helen Starr and Kinnari Saraiya
Speech Sounds, VISUAL, Carlow - curated by Iarlaith Ni Fheorais
2021
Allied, Kyiv Biennial, Ukraine.
Victoria Terminus, Vane Gallery, TSDAP on Artsy, online.
I Matter, Babylon Gallery, Cambridgeshire, United Kingdom
Touring to St. Albans Museum and Art Gallery (St. Albans), Wells Maltings (Norfolk), Peterborough Museum and Art Gallery (Peterborough)
SPUR WORLD, Online Touring Exhibition, United Kingdom.
Touring to Eastside Projects (Birmingham), Palfrey (London), Arebyte (London), Chaos Magic (Nottingham), QUAD (Derby), D Unit (Bristol – Physical Exhibition), New Art City (Online)
Hochkant Film Festival, Bremen, Germany.
36th Annual Open Exhibition Online, Southwark Park Galleries, London.
2020
Model Village, Swiss Church Covent Garden, London, United Kingdom.
Interesting Times in Venice, London Metropolitan University Gallery, London, United Kingdom.
Commissioned by the British Council, response to the research fellowship undertaken at the Venice Biennale 2019.
Heat, Vacant Museum, United Kingdom.
Drawing the Soul Towards Truth: Hindu & Muslim Sacred Geometry, Doug Adams Gallery, California, United States.
Now That We Are Free?, AIS Open 2020, United Kingdom.
Graduate Show, Arts University Bournemouth, United Kingdom. (Online due to COVID-19)
2019
The Mank, Abandoned House in Sandbanks, United Kingdom.
Enshrine, Fringe Arts Festival, Bath, United Kingdom
Arte’ Factum, Russell-Cotes Museum and Art Gallery, Bournemouth, United Kingdom
Broken Skin, BUMF Gallery, Bournemouth, United Kingdom
2018
Shadows of the Archive, Arts University Bournemouth, United Kingdom
2017
42nd Annual Fort Mason Holiday Exhibition, Fort Mason Centre for Arts & Culture, San Francisco, United States
Marching Home, Art Seed Organisation, San Francisco, United States
2016
Kala Yatri Annual Exhibition, L. S Raheja School of Art, Mumbai, India
2015
Kala Yatri Annual Exhibition, L. S Raheja School of Art, Mumbai, India
curated exhibitions
2023
forthcoming
Michael Rakowitz, BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead, Imperial War Museum 14-18 Now - new commission + solo show
forthcoming
More Than Human, BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead - group show
2022
forthcoming
forthcoming
Time Travel across Many-Worlds, BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead - group show
Mythmachine, Sahej Rahal, BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead - solo show + new commission
2021
It was a Roadside Picnic/Beyond Black Orientalism - the world as a futuristic reimagination that springs from and moves in breath, VR work