Neeraja Durga

Neeraja D is an artist and doctoral student in the Department of History. Her work engages contested notions of belonging and postcolonial identity to address the invisible and affective force exerted by archives. Her past research and material exploration were based in conditions of precarity, instability and insecurity. Her doctoral research examines the history of labour migration between colonial India and Burma to locate traces of displacement and repatriation.  

 

She holds an MFA from Cornell University’s Department of Art, Architecture and Planning, and an MA from the University of Hyderabad. She was a faculty member at the Srishti Institute of Art, Design and Technology, teaching graduate courses in studio art and interdisciplinary art-based research for six years. She has also taught diverse groups of learners through art-based and community-run non-profit organisations. Her work has been funded by generous grants from the Inlaks Shivdasani Foundation, the Serendipity Arts Festival, and the Cornell Council for the Arts. She is one half of the collaborative identity N/A, a correspondence-based artist duo.