Shawn Nayar

Shawn Nayar is a performing artist who traces diasporic histories, exposing the violent ruptures embedded in their colonial sutures. The tumultuous nature of these violences is externalised in the contortions his body reaches for in its efforts to express them. These distortions are a constant across multimedia expressions, as Nayar lurches between intrinsic movement pieces, multimedia installations, and performance lectures.

Nayar’s work is innately malleable and transforms across different sites: activated installations in contemporary art spaces morph into interactive performances in queer clubs. By allowing his body –in these embodied adaptations– to inhabit a variety of lived complexities and submerged histories, his performances seek to create collective encounters that encourage audiences to engage –presently– with colonial legacies.

These encounters have previously unfolded as rhythmic fictions within Ponyboy, Riposte, and Torture Garden’s clubnights, stretching waning nights through durational ecstatic movements. In the breaking sun, these works have then crawled through modalities to perform on international stages: including Actoral Festival (France), Edinburgh Art Festival and Take Me Somewhere (Scotland).