Vishal Kumaraswamy is an artist-curator based in Bengaluru, India, working across text, film, sound, performance and computational arts. Rooted in anti-caste working principles, his practice employs traditional and experimental forms to investigate the entanglements of body, caste, language, technology, and society. He is interested in the power and potential of media technologies to imagine embodied, gestural ways of fostering the further development of Dalit cultural practices. He holds an MA in Photography from Central Saint Martins, London and his works have been shown at The Venice Biennale’s Research Pavilion, CCS Bard College, Contemporary Calgary, The Royal College of Art, SITE Gallery Sheffield, HKW Berlin and the Rencontres d'Arles 2023. He is a recipient of the 2025 Han Nefkens Foundation South Asian Video Art Production Grant, Australia Council for the Arts Transmitter Delhi X Darwin Grant, and Warehouse421 Artistic Research Grant; Vishal has been in residence with the US Consulate General Mumbai, Contemporary Calgary in Alberta, SAVAC Toronto, Vital Capacities videoclub UK, Onassis AiR and The Singapore Art Museum, and was a 2022-2024 Research Associate at the CCA Derry~Londonderry.
Vishal’s independent curatorial practice thinks through anti-caste curatorial models that foreground a range of subaltern artistic practices. He was the inaugural guest curator at Arts House, City of Melbourne, 2023-2024. He has previously curated projects with the Wrong Biennale & Sluice Biennial; is a co-founder of Now You Have Authority, a collaborative curatorial and infrastructure project; and 1/3rd of Indefinite Leave to Remain, a study-friendship with Moad Musbahi and Virgil B/G Taylor.
