Niya B
Contact
- Email: niya.b@kingston.ac.uk
- Location: Kingston School of Art, Knights Park
- Faculty: Kingston School of Art
- School: School of Arts
- Department: Department of Performing Arts
- Personal website
Research project: Towards A Transecological Live Art Practice
Abstract
My practice-as-research project will investigate the capacity of live art practices to contribute to the nascent field of trans ecology, which explores the alliances, influences and intersections of ecology and trans-gendered embodiments across human and non-human subjectivities and sites.
The project will draw its knowledge through an emplaced auto-ethnographic methodology that transgender studies scholars have used in order to connect embodied subjectivities and material environments (Stryker 2008) and produce "situated knowledges" (Haraway 1988). My methodology will follow a series of "emplacements": performative actions with and within a number of diverse ‘places' where the performing body is a component of an evolving ecology of interconnected entities (Pink 2011).
I will explore each one of these emplacements across their specific ecosystems and investigate their capacity in generating and supporting a transecological praxis.
- Research degree: Practice-based PhD
- Title of project: Towards A Transecological Live Art Practice
- Research supervisor: Dr Caoimhe Mader McGuinness
Biography
I am a multi-disciplinary artist, working at the intersections of visual art and performance on ecology, (trans)gender embodiments, class, mythology and the knowledge held in the land and the performing body.
I have exhibited and performed, among others, at Tate Britain (London), CCA (Glasgow), Site Gallery (Sheffield), BOM (Birmingham), International Print Biennale (Newcastle), Visioni Del Sud (Salento, Italy), 5th and 8th Thessaloniki Biennale (Greece), 2023 European Capital of Culture (Greece), 5th Moscow Biennale (Russia), Goldsmiths University of London, University of Leeds. I have been supported by Arts Council England, the British Council, Jerwood Arts and the Cultural Institute Leeds among others. In 2023, I became an artist-in-residence at BOM Immersive Lab.
I hold an MA in Landscape Architecture (University of Sheffield) and I am currently a candidate for a practice-as-research PhD at Kingston University, School of Art, where I am investigating the intersections of ecology and gendered embodiments.
Areas of research interest
- Trans Ecology
- Transgender Studies
- Queer Ecology
- Transfeminism
- Ecofeminism
- Live Art
Qualifications
- MA in Landscape Architecture, University of Sheffield
Funding or awards received
- 2020: a-n Bursary, Audiovisual production for immersive performances.
- 2020: Jerwood Bursary, Innovative ways of recording and performing live art.
- 2021: 'Intimate Threads', Gender plurality in the UK and the Philippines, British Council SE Asia.
- 2021: 'Ekdysis', moving image project, Arts Council England Project Grant.
- 2022: '912', Virtual Reality video project, Arts Council England Project Grant.
- 2022: Full-time MPhil/PhD studentship in the Kingston School of Art, Kingston University.
- 2023: Hackney Pride365
Publications
selected exhibitions/performances/screenings
2023
Venice International Performance Week
8th Thessaloniki Biennale, Greece
ΕΛΕVΣΙΣ, European Capital of CultureGreece
BUZZCUT, Glasgow
2022
912 VR (solo), BOM, ONCA, Site Gallery
Frame-Frequency, Rockville, USA
2021
Visioni del Sud, Salento, Italy
Camden Together, London
Ekdysis (solo), Ugly Duck, PerformanceSpace & Fringe! Film Fest
Unfix Festival
Intimate Threads, Fringe Manila-Fringe! Film Fest
Iklectic, London
2020
Tate Britain, London
Queer Art(ists) Now, London
Ekdysis (solo), Enclave Gallery, London
Trans Pregnancy conference, Leeds
2019
Re@ct: Social Change Art-Technology Symposium, Dundee
Translucent, VO Curations, London
Ecofutures Festival, London
Unfix Festival, CCA Glasgow
2018
Translucent, Leyden Gallery, London
Emergency, Manchester
2017
Twist, Queer Film Festival, Seattle, USA
SPE-Media Festival, Orlando, USA
Queer Art(ists) Now, Archive Gallery, London
Slippages, Goldsmiths University
2016
Fringe!Queer Film Festival, London
Trans:plant (solo), Archive Gallery, London
2015
5th Thessaloniki Biennale, Greece
artvideoKOELN, Cologne, Germany
2013
5th Moscow Biennale, Moscow, Russia
2011
International Print Biennale, Newcastle