Niv Rajendra

Artist Statement

Niv is a socially engaged artist and Ayurvedic healer. Through her work she explores how the renewal and reinstatement of Indigenous spiritual knowledge can repair damaged relationships in human communities; between humans and the land; and between living and non-living entities. She emphasizes reciprocity and dialogue and adapts her creative media to the situations of the beings with whom she works. For instance, The Decomposing Guava (2021) uses guavas, cultural analysis, and digital photography to interrogate contemporary norms of social order. Other works use Sydney sandstone and beetroot thoran as well as live performance, community service, essays, and education (as a social form) to re-imagine kinship and create spaces of togetherness.

The questions that motivate her are:

• How do we make art together in environments that are in crisis?

• How do we more meaningfully embody the values of care and compassion?

• Where did we come from? Where are we going?
  This last question especially reflects her own migrant status. Over the course of the Covid-19 pandemic, Niv found herself in Eora Nation (Sydney, Australia), then San Rafael, Colombia and finally Huichin, USA. Traditional land acknowledgment and ancestral spiritual practices have been essential tools for place/home making. Building intimacy with the land helped to remind her that an ethical life and creative practice cannot rest on a prior distinction between the material and the spiritual. 

She continues to collaborate with the non-human world as a way to bring the political and social margins of contemporary society to the centre. Grounded in the everyday ritual of noticing and deep listening, this practice calls attention to worlds beyond the consumerist and the callous.