Vishal Kumaraswamy
ವಿಶಾಲ್ ಕುಮಾರಸ್ವಾಮಿ

Artist, Curator, Community Worker

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Vishal Kumaraswamy is an artist-curator from Bengaluru, India working across text, film, sound, performance and computational arts. As an artist he employs experimental technologies to create media-based works that address critical concerns around Caste, Race and Technology. He has an MA in Photography from Central Saint Martins, London and his works have been shown at The Venice Biennale’s Research Pavilion, CCS Bard College, Contemporary Calgary, The Royal College of Art, SITE Gallery Sheffield, HKW Berlin and the Rencontres d'Arles 2023. In 2024, his works were included in The Routledge Companion to Global Photographies.

Vishal has been in residence with the US Consulate General Mumbai, Contemporary Calgary in Alberta, SAVAC Toronto, Vital Capacities videoclub UK, Onassis AiR and The Singapore Art Museum. He is a recipient of the Australia Council for the Arts Transmitter Delhi X Darwin Grant, the Warehouse421 Artistic Research Grant and was recently a 2022-2024 Research Associate at the CCA Derry~Londonderry.

Vishal’s independent curatorial practice is focused on developing anti-caste curatorial frameworks that foreground a range of subaltern practices. He was the inaugural guest curator at Arts House, a City of Melbourne in 2023 & 2024 for which he was nominated for the Creative Australia Asia Pacific Awards in Innovation. He has previously presented projects at 4A Center for Contemporary Asian Art Sydney, Wrong Biennale & Sluice Biennial. Vishal is a 2024 ICI curatorial intensive participant and a 2023 Liverpool Biennial & British Council Curator’s week delegate. He is a 4th of Now You Have Authority, a collaborative practice through which he has curated exhibitions, residencies, and delivered workshops at the Tate Modern’s Tate Exchange Program and Tanzfest Aarau. He is a 3rd of Indefinite Leave to Remain, a study-friendship along with artists, writers and curators Moad Musbahi and Virgil B/G Taylor.

Education

- PhD, DXARTS, University of Washington (2024-2028)
- Home Workspace Program, Ashkal Alwan (Online, Independent Study, 2021)
- M.A. Photography, Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London (2017)
- Bachelor of Commerce, Bangalore University (2009)

Fellowships

- Curatorial Intensive, Indonesia 2024, Independent Curators International
- Tailor Made Fellowship, Onassis AiR, Athens 2023 2023
- Research Associate 2022 - 2024, Center for Contemporary Art,
Derry Londonderry, Ireland

Residencies

- Singapore Art Museum, 2022-2023
- Future of Memory Residency, China Residencies, 2022
- Onassis AIR 2021, Athens, Greece
- Artist in Residence: Vital Capacities, videoclub UK, 2021
- ADA-DADA, 2021, SAVAC, Toronto, Canada
- Collider: Artist Residency, Contemporary, Calgary, Canada
- Arcs of A Circle, U.S Consulate, General, Mumbai

Commissions

- Indefinite Leave to Remain, Movement Radio, Athens, 2021
- AAJA x Deptford X, 2021, UK
- Rerouting, Contemporary, Calgary, Canada, 2022
- SITE Gallery Fresh Takes, 2021, Sheffield, UK
- Platform Art Projects, UK
- Reclaiming AI Futures, Mozilla Foundation
- Empathy Loading, Furtherfield and Royal College of Art, (London, UK)

Awards

- Han Nefkens Foundation South Asian, Video Art Award 2025
- Shortlisted, Creative Australia, 2025 Asia Pacific Art Awards in Innovation (Curator)
- Shortlisted, Discovery Award 2023, Louis Roederer Foundation,
Rencontres d’Arles (Artist)

Grants

- Liverpool Biennial & British Council Follow on Fund, 2023
- The Liverpool Biennial x British, Council Curators’ Week 2023
- Tender Absence Glocal Class, 2023
- Transmitter Darwin X Delhi, Australia Council for the Arts, 2021, 2022, 2024
- Warehouse421 Artistic Research Grant, 2021
- Tender Absence Online Performance Grant, 2020
- Artists for Artists Masterclass Microgrant, 2020

Talks

- Curators Conversation with APRE Art House Mumbai
- ಒಡಲಾಳ Odalala Artist talk with Peter Waples Crowe and Subash Thebe Limbu
- ಒಡಲಾಳ Odalala Artist Talk with Elyas Alavi and Sajan Mani
- ಒಡಲಾಳ Odalala Dispatches with Race Matters Anti-caste radio
with Elyas Alavi and Jagath Dheerasekara
- Okkoota ಒಕೂ1ಟ Artist Talk with Sancintya Mohini Simpson, Kirtika Kain
and Eugenia Lim
- Moderator, Holding Deadlock, AI Ancestral Immediacies, HKW Berlin
- Visions and Disappearances with Olenka Carrasco and Soumya Sankar Bose
Rencontres d’Arles 2023
- Circle Back, Gender at Work India
- Artist Talk at Composite, Melbourne
- Dialogs @ Future Fantastic
- SITE Salons – Vishal Kumaraswamy x Tyrone Issac Stuart
- Panelist – The Curator’s Suitcase at maxim-gorki theatre, Berlin
- Divided by Three Equals Three, Movement Radio
- Reclaiming AI Futures, Centre for Internet Studies India
- Artist Talk, Smarter Digital Realities, Goethe-Institut India
- APAM Panel Discussion Transmitter Darwin x Delhi
- AI & India, Glassroom Community Event, The Bachchao Project & Tactical Tech
- Otherly X Vishal Kumaraswamy
- In Conversation: Vishal Kumaraswamy & Zarina Muhammad (The White Pube)
- Speaker, CoLab Fellowship Jaaga, British Council, & Goethe Institut India

Workshops

- Students Biennale Workshop, Kochi Biennale Foundation, 2023
- Investigating Digital Publishing
(Curatorial Practices MA, Srishti Institute of Art, Design and Technology), 2020

Publications

- The Routledge Companion to Global Photographies
- Foam Magazine #66 MISSING MIRROR
- Catalogue: Awaaz: Essential Interference, CCS Bard
- Catalogue: Savdhaan – Regimes of Truth Apex Art
- Catalogue: Building Bridges, Emergent Art Space
- Curatorial Essay Catalogue: ALAM عَملَ
- Catalogue: Les Rencontres Internationales de la photographie d’Arles 2023
- Online Publication: pinch/zoom/scroll/hover for BLEED ECHO
- Online Publication: Unseen, untouchable, tactile AI
- Online Publication: Reflections from the Liverpool Biennial x British Council
- Online Publication: Critical Collective
- Online Publication: Mourning as Presence Alternative South Asia Photography Art
- Shifting the Angle of Shine, Yao Collaborative
- Online Publication: STIR Magazine Vishal Kumaraswamy looks at race & caste
- Online Publication: Bengaluru’s Rivers, VOILÀ
- Online Publication: Aesthetica Magazine
- Online Publication: Being together is not enough

Conferences & Symposiums

- 50th Annual Meeting of the Society for Social Studies of Science (4S)
Reverberations, Seattle 2025
- South Asian Diasporic Artists Symposium, 2025, 2026
- Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition, ICCV 2021
- NeurIPS Conference Workshop on Machine Learning for Creativity and Design 2020

Teaching

- Video Art Foundations, DXARTS, University of Washington
(Autumn 2025, Winter 2026)
- Associate Lecturer, University of the Underground 2022
- Knowledge Partner - Material Technologies, The Digital Everyday 2022-2024

Performances

- Transmitter, Darwin Festival, 2022, Australia
- Yaava Kathe, Remote Closeness, 2021
- Kathe, Tender Absence, 2020

Last Updated 24.10.31

Artist

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ವಿಶಾಲ್ ಕುಮಾರಸ್ವಾಮಿ

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