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: An Eco-transfeminist Live Art Practice
Abstract
I will investigate ‘eco-transfeminism' as a new conceptual paradigm that explores the alliances, influences and intersections of ecology and gendered embodiments across human and non-human subjectivities and sites. Considering the rapid deterioration of ecosystems and the acceleration of the climate crisis on one hand and the renewed conflicts around transgender politics as expressed within some fringes of feminism and the media on the other, such alliances are both current and urgent.
The project will draw its knowledge through an emplaced auto-ethnographic methodological model, with and within three distinct typologies of ‘place': the rural (as a place of origin), the urban (as a place of living) and the digital (as a newly-intensified global place). Through the use of innovative digital technologies, I will explore each of these places across their specific ecosystems and investigate their capacity in generating and supporting an eco-transfeminist praxis.
- Research degree: Practice-based PhD
- Title of project: An Eco-transfeminist Live Art Practice
- Research supervisor: Professor Maria Chatzichristodoulou
- Other research supervisor: Dr Caoimhe Mader McGuinness
Biography
I am a transfeminist artist, working at the intersections of visual art and performance. I explore theme related to ecology, posthumanism and (trans)gender politics. I seek to establish intimacy with my audience, creating a meditative space of vulnerability, affect and interdependence.
I have exhibited and performed, among others, at Tate Britain (London), CCA (Glasgow), Site Gallery (Sheffield), BOM (Birmingham), NEoN festival (Dundee); 5th Thessaloniki Biennale; 5th Moscow Biennale; International Print Biennale (Newcastle); Goldsmiths University of London; University of Leeds.
I have been supported by Jerwood Arts, Arts Council England, the British Council and the Cultural Institute Leeds among others. This year I am a resident artist at BOM Immersive Lab.
I was recently awarded with a scholarship for a practice-as-research PhD at Kingston University, School of Art, where I will utilise digital technologies to investigate the intersections of ecology and gendered embodiments across human and non-human subjectivities and sites.
Areas of research interest
- Transgender Studies
- Ecofeminism
- Queer Ecology
- Transfeminism
Qualifications
- MA in Landscape Architecture, University of Sheffield
Funding or awards received
- 2022: Full-time MPhil/PhD studentship in the Kingston School of Art, Kingston University.
- 2022: '912', Virtual Reality video project, Arts Council England Project Grant.
- 2021: 'Ekdysis', moving image project, Arts Council England Project Grant.
- 2021: 'Intimate Threads', Gender plurality in the UK and the Philippines, British Council SE Asia.
- 2020: Jerwood Bursary, Innovative ways of recording and performing live art.
- 2020: a-n Bursary, Audiovisual production for immersive performances.