Nidhi Bodana

Nidhi Bodana is a multidisciplinary visual artist from Bagh (Dhar), Madhya Pradesh, India, currently based in Glasgow, Scotland, UK. She earned a First Class A+ in BVA Sculpture from Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, Gujarat, Her work has been supported by the GSA Stag Fund, the Niamh Forbes Scholarship, and the ArtDemic India Grant.

Nidhi’s work has been exhibited in India and UK, including the Abir India Exhibition at Bikaner House (New Delhi), Visayah, Mayukha, Jal Vayu, the Annual Degree Shows (MSU Baroda), Mandu Festival (Madhya Pradesh), and the Interim Show at The Glasgow School of Art. Currently, she is engaged in museum and community practice at Glasgow’s Gallery of Modern Art (GoMA). In 2023, she curated “”Flood of Memories””, a group exhibition showcasing 13 emerging artists at Gallerie Splash, Gurgaon, Delhi, India.

I don't create art to aestheticize suffering—I create to bear witness, reclaim space, and transform. My work seeks to heal, empower, and bring visibility to what has been silenced, overlooked, or rendered invisible.""

Her socially engaged practice spans sculpture, performance, participatory art, installation, painting, sound, and activism. At the core of her work is a commitment to reclaiming space for memory, for bodies, and for voices silenced by systemic neglect.
Her work challenges social norms, gender roles, and systems of erasure, while remaining deeply attuned to the historical weight carried by materials and bodies, particularly those of everyday individuals who have been overlooked, silenced, or marginalized, especially within Black and Brown communities.—bearing stories of power, control, labour, and modern-day slavery. Through this lens, she confronts inherited violence and systemic oppression not only to expose them but to transform them. Whether through performance or immersive installation, her work becomes a site of healing, visibility, and reclamation—inviting audiences to move from passive viewing to active witnessing, from silence to solidarity.
Nidhi's practice is confrontational, socio-political, intimate, and deeply rooted in the urgency of lived realities. She creates spaces where suppressed narratives are not merely observed—they are felt, shared, and transformed. Her process often begins with what others overlook: discarded materials, bodily traces, textiles, and everyday objects. These carry memory and meaning, forming the foundation of her visual language. Collaborators—often everyday individuals met through chance and shared experience—become integral to these creative spaces of resistance, empathy, and visibility.

“If You Build It, They Will Come” – The Beginning of a Living Collaboration

This project began not as an artwork, but as a shared moment of loss, injustice, and solidarity.

This project is rooted in lived experience and social injustice, specifically an incident of workplace discrimination, current lived environment that led to the spontaneous meeting and eventual collaboration with a participant who shared similar struggles. The project grew organically from this encounter, evolving into a layered narrative installation—a kind of poetic, emotional landscape—where hidden stories and erased lives are given voice and presence.

Using sculpture, performance, sound, hair, makeup wipes, and written and spoken monologue, the project confronts themes of modern slavery, systemic racism, invisibility, and transformation. The participant, a young man who aspired to become an actor, takes the lead role—both as subject and collaborator—reclaiming agency and embodying collective memory.

This is not a “social project” in the traditional sense. It avoids tokenistic engagement and instead focuses on real human connection and mutual empowerment. The stories shared are not extracted—they are lived, performed, and carried with dignity. The work functions like a slow-breathing film, constantly shaped by interruptions, chance encounters, and everyday resilience. It resists fast consumption and demands presence.

This project is unfolding, like life itself. It is a space of remembrance, empowerment, rebellion, and emotional weight. The work is both a healing ground and a stage—one that exposes the layered realities often erased by society, institutional power.

लुप्तपरतलः आत्मसंस्कारभूम:
(Erased Layers: A Landscape of Hidden Stories)

Makeup Wipes, Wax, Costume, Hair Extension, Cosmetics, Sound, Body, Collected Stories, Acrylic Sheet
Sculptural Installation Performance
Duration: 1 Hour

Featuring Performance by: Alfredo Nziko (Actor, Performer, Model)
Concept and Direction by: Nidhi Bodana (Artist)
@nz.alfy
@bodana.nidhi