NICOLA SINGH
Chasing Waterfalls (2014), performance with Adriana Rojas-Víquez (design)
commissioned by BxNU BALTIC and Northumbria University
performed as part of RIFF/T, BALTIC 39, NEWCASTLE
Photo Credit: 4130 Photography
there is world sometimes (2015) performance
collaboration with Timothy Murray, Yunuen Rhi and Wojciech Kosma
commissioned by The NewBridge Project 2015
Photo Credit: Kuba Ryniewicz (rehearsals only)
all girls together, and what they really, really want (2016) performance & risograph
commissioned by Foundation Press, Sunderland
performed at BALTIC Artists Book Fair NEWCASTLE
Photo Credit: Adam Phillips
Slapping Noises (2017) solo exhibition - sculpture, cardboard cutout, workshop, plants and flowers - ikebana inspired, performance
commissioned by BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art
past of FIGURE FOUR, BALTIC 39 NEWCASTLE
Photo Credit: Colin Davison
perfect 36 (2014) performance
part of group show 'Through The Gap Increasing' curated by Sarah Bayliss
commissioned by BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, BALTIC 39, NEWCASTLE
Photo Credit: Colin Davison
Sexy Beach (2014) performance and text
commissioned by Modern Cultures, part of the 'Emotional Resources' symposium
Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art, Sunderland
Photo Credit: Charlotte Gregory
High Density Reconstituted Foam (2014) performance
commissioned by Musee Imaginaire for Northern Charter, Newcastle
Photo Credit: Josh Wilson
'the sounds here are bouncing around us and Susan and Anne and that object' (2017)
solo exhibition - print & textile, painting, found object, performance, workshop, audio
commissioned by BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art for BALTIC 39, NEWCASTLE
Photo Credit: Josefin Bengtsson & Fiona Larkin
A improvised performance that loosely derives from a collaborative practice organised by Wojciech Kosma since 2011. Over the course of two evenings, the unscripted, un-themed interactions between performers were offered to an audience. Relational notions of friendship, intimacy and performativity were tested.
Part of the BxNU Respond Programme and 'RIFF/T', an exhibition of expanded painting curated by Matt Hearn. A durational, improvised performance that explored motion within the still image - waterfalls, holograms, scenes from the Karate Kid were explored through dance, textile and print.
A solo exhibition that experimented with ways in which language can be heard, visualised and choreographed, produced as part of Singh’s practice-led PhD. Inc. performance, photography, risograph printmaking, sculpture and ceramics.
A text and movement based work that explored the limits of cut and paste plagiarism from a variety of texts, including lyric, theory and fiction. The work focused on irritating the relationship between voice and subject.
A movement performance exploring the act of gyration. A printed text was disseminated post-performance, creating a kind of afterword or post-script to the performance. Specially commissioned for a symposium on art, intimacy and the public sphere.
Solo exhibition/performed-exhibition. A programme of collaborative workshops and performance exploring the 'voice' in the process of speaking, making and moving. Articulated through an eclectic mix of text, audio and objects. Collaborations with Harriet Plewis, Hannah Buckley and Helen Collard.
A participatory choreographed parade that traversed Newcastle City Centre, UK - through open public spaces, into buildings, up and down stairwells and across roads. The project explored the inherent performativity of public and private space through the expressive power of the parade as a vechicle for communication and solidarity.
we stand out the most when we stand out together (2013) performance
collaboration with xsite architecture
commissioned by Wunderbar Festival, UK
Photo Credit: 4130 Photography
In Praise of Shadows (2013) performance
collaboration with xsite architecture
commissioned by Wunderbar Festival, UK
Photo Credit: 4130 Photography
A architectural intervention and acoustic experiment, with Rhodri Davies, Paul Dunmall, Chris Greive, Impossibility Knox, Mark Sanders and Sue Tompkins. A hole was cut between two floors in a disused building, and an acoustic programme of experimental music took place between the aperture - with the performers on the first floor and the audience sat on the ground floor.
Text and screen-based performance in which images and words meet to apply direct and difficult pressure onto each other. The performance used video projection, song and text to broadly explore tense or hidden desires.
chiffon sponge (2017) performance
commissioned by LUX Scotland
crossing the line, curated by Gayle Meikle, Glasgow Film Theatre, Glasgow, 2017
animal energies (2017) performance - collaboration with Rachel Aggs, Rachel Harwood, Serena Korda, Susie Green, Heather-Bonnie Reid, Flora Whiteley, Hannah Kirkham
commissioned by BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art for FAMILY DAY, Newcastle
Photo Credit: Sarah Boutell
Sweet Spot (2017) solo exhibition - textile, drawings, performative props, audio
Jerwood Visual Arts, London
commissioned by 3-Phase Prize - Jerwood Foundation, Eastside Projects & WORKPLACE
Photo Credit: Anna Arca.
Sweet Spot (2017) - performance collaboration with Harriet Plewis & Jenny Moore
Jerwood Visual Arts, London
commissioned by 3-Phase Prize - Jerwood Foundation, Eastside Projects & WORKPLACE
Photo Credit: Hydar Dewachi
A capella vocal performance in which the performers improvise, react and respond to the space, each other and a loose set of lyrics. The performance speaks back to the initial, collective moments of exhibition making – a workshop with women artists that explored the organisation of language around the female body and voice.
Large-scale textile installation, 'performative props', audio work and live performance - the results of a series of collaborative workshops that explored the organisation of language around the body and the voice within an intersectional feminist framework.
City Stir (2017) solo exhibition - textiles, photography, audio, performance & site-specific performance with Susie Green & Heather Bonnie Reid
commissioned by Sidney Cooper Gallery, Canterbury.
Photo: Janina Sabaliauskaite (film photography of site-specific performance-to-camera)
Performance, audio recording, sculptural objects and a large-scale installation made in response to Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven’s poem ‘Appalling Heart’ (1920). The traces of an original site-specific performance were presented in new context of the gallery.
Multifaceted participatory performance designed for an intergenerational audience. The theme explored our affinity to certain animal energies and to our animal selves. Developed with a cast of collaborators in workshop settings.
I See This Feel In The Shape Of A Smile (2018) group exhibition - paintings, pigment on Hanji paper
commissioned by Caustic Coastal, Salford as part of Signs | Beacons
curated by Rebecca Halliwell Sutton
Photo Credit: Caustic Coastal
A series of work exploring performative drawing with pigment on Korean Hanji paper. The drawings and a text that were produced in parallel with one another - documenting sensations in relation to the body and to emotions, preserving intimate observations about the politics of a felt or feeling experience.
A series of large-scale drawings by the artist and participatory workshops, made via a somatic practice of touch and movement - a feminist gesture to cultivate a haptic and sensual relationship with one’s own body through an expanded drawing practice.
Soft Body (2018) solo performance - painting, ceramics, performance
commissioned by Hongti Art Centre
part of UK/KOREA Residency for British Council/BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art
Photo Credit: Nicola Singh
within reach (2018) group exhibition - paintings, pigment on silicon fabrics, text
Workplace Gallery, Gateshead
commissioned by 3-Phase Prize - Jerwood Foundation, Eastside Projects & WORKPLACE
Photo Credit: John MacKenzie. Text Extract.
Experiments in performance and expanded painting - the works display the traces of an intimate, choreographic relationship between body and materials. A text piece, written in parallel to the artist’s physical exploration, acts as a journal of touch and sensation.
Slippery Skin (2018) performance
commissioned by Post Paradise, Birmingham
Photo Credit: post paradise
Improvised sung/spoken performance using a text that grossly documents an intimate physical exchange. A rhythmic backing was provided by the audience.
The dinning room of H and G's house (2018) solo exhibition - film & photography
with Kate Sweeney, Phyllis Christopher and Janina Sabaliauskaite
commissioned by ArtHouses, Newcastle
Photo: Phyllis Christopher
Film and photography project exploring intimacy and erotics in queer kinship, meditated through a set of materials. Commissioned by ArtHouses, who specialist in presenting contemporary art projects in domestic settings.
Will Hold A (2018) performance collaboration with Harriet Plewis
commission by Mutters, New Victoria Gardens, Glasgow
curated by Mattie Roberts
Photo Credit: Amy Holt
A series of poses referencing scenes of 'radical intimacy' - scenes from literature and lived experience. Performed to a recording of the artists having a 'private conversation', soundtracked by a trap dance track sample.
'Monkeys Made on Tinder Dates' (2018) group exhibition
part of Chop Leisure curated by Mark Jackson
commissioned by IMT Gallery, London
Photo Credit: IMT Gallery
Part of an ongoing project in which Singh follows the pedagogic prompt 'Make A Monkey Out of Clay' from Paul Klee's 'Teaching Notes', Cooper Union Gallery. For IMT she followed the prompts with dates she organised via the online dating app Tinder.
Pushing Attention (2018) solo exhibition - print, textile weaving, performance
commissioned by 3-Phase Prize - Jerwood Foundation, Eastside Projects & WORKPLACE
Photo Credits: Zunaira.Muzaffar & Stuart Whipps
Solo exhibition of performance, printmaking, textiles and text which explored different representations of form, touch and movement through a discursive and changing relationship between photography and an experimental free-standing weaving.
A response to the provocation from curatorial collective TOTALLER to develop 'an ARTWORK AS WEAPON'. Presented as an artwork via improvised sung/spoken word, Singh chose the concept of honesty as a weapon. Image right shows TOTALLER install.
Honesty As A Weapon (2018) performance
commissioned by TOTALLER for NewBridge Projects, Gateshead
Photo Credit: Lesley Guy
A sung and spoken performance exploring the mutability of language through cut and paste techniques of writing, via repetition and through tempo and mood.
'The Mountain & Other Tales of She Transformed' (2019) set design
ongoing collaboration with Hannah Buckley
commissions by Yorkshire Dance, The Lowry & Leeds International Festival
Photo: Sara Teresa
Set design for Hannah Buckley's movement work 'The Mountain and Other Tales of She Transformed'. In workshops, participants are guided through somatic, movement and experimental, collaborative drawing exercises onto large-scale, free standing black boards with chalk. The set tours with the performance.
Fragments of Whatsapp voice notes composed into song. Reassuring refrains, joyful and uncomfortable self-reflections and moments of deep dependence between the two friends were selected from their private correspondence. Presented via a choreographic
structure that related back to the one-at-a-time like nature of the voice note flow.
'I AM YOUR PROTEIN SHAKE' (2019) performance collaboration with Harriet Plewis
commissioned by PUG, Caedmon Hall, Gateshead
Photo Credit: Chris Bishop
'Sticky Weeds' (2019) performance and film
commissioned as part of D6 Culture In Transit Research Residency, Newcastle
Photo Credit: Sarah Boutell
A improvised spoken word performance that expressed Singh's intersectional experiences of race and migration - from the standpoint of a British Panjabi, mixed heritage, women of colour. Improvisation is used as a tool to experiment with honesty, candor and risk, and as a remedy against the silencing affect of the racial imaginary.
Love Lane' (2019) performance, film & installation
commissioned by ArtHouse part of Solo Residency, Wakefield
Photo Credit: Jules Lister
An improvised spoken word performance and installation which navigated Singh's one month residency in Wakefield - focusing on the town's status as a City of Sanctuary and it's Home Office Dispersal Unit, which is directly opposite Wakefield’s HM Prison.
'In Training For The Horror' (2019) performance & film
produced as part of Hospitalfield Summer Residency, Arbroath
Photo: Cicely Farrer (left) Matthew Parkin (right - camcorder film still)
A spoken, sung and shouted improvised performance, sited in one of the historic painting galleries at Hospitalfields. The performance aimed to test a way of expressing racial trauma and connecting this to practices of active and embodied listening.
'NGL' (2019) performance & film
commissioned as part of 'Everything Must Go' group show, Workplace, Gateshead
Photo Credit: Sarah Boutell (film still)
A improvised vocal performance experimenting with mantra and/or the idea of a casting a spell or making a promise in front of others. Repetition is used to test and stretch semantic meaning of repeated words.
Two part performance that uses the act of improvisation as a means to try and have,
what sometimes feel like, pretty desperate conversations. Language is pit against speech, song and movement - and around real and imagined objects. Presented at Pre-Amble, David Dale Gallery, Glasgow and PRINT PRESENT PERFORMANCE Tetley, Leeds.
'don't look so sad' (2019) performance
commissioned by David Dale Gallery, Glasgow
part of PreAmble curated by Jude Brownrigg
Photo Credit: Isobel Lutz Smith (right) Jules Lister (left)
POWERGRAB (6:00) (2020) film collaboration with Helen Collard
commissioned by Projections North East 'Artists in Cinema, Tyneside Cinema, Newcastle
Photo Credit: Emma Dalesman (DOP)
Collaboration with Helen Collard. A performance to film that captures a series of physical, emotional and psychological training exchanges. Commissioned for 'artists in cinema' series. Camera – Emma Dalesman; Sound – Stuart Wright & Alessandro Pascale.
'Gloomy Fantasy' (2021) performance to camera
commissioned as part of D6: Contested Desires Residency Project, Newcastle
Photo Credit: Lauren de Sá Naylor
Free improvisation - movement, vocal and text to (phone) camera. 'I moved around a local community centre hall, speaking, singing and sounding. I wore a butterfly costume - which was a bit like a double medallion, whilst my friend and artist Lauren de Sá Naylor crawled around the floor and around me filming on her phone.
commissioned by Artlicks Magazine, published in Ed. 26
exhibited in 'Dark Matter' group exhibition, Workplace, Newcastle
Image Credit: John McKenzie
'Gloomy Fantasy' (2021) performance to camera (research project)
commissioned as part of D6: Contested Desires Residency Project, Newcastle
Photo Credit: Lauren de Sá Naylor
Re-staging performance through drawing - a series of works made by drawing into photographic documentation from a previous performance work. [from left to right]
'Comparing forearms with Rach and Kate'; 'Finding a voice by Amrit Wilson'; 'Speaking Aloud' (2021) -pen, pencil and oil pastel on inkjet print-outs (27 x 19cm)
'Chocolatey Faces' film and performance (2021)
commissioned as part of Leach 100/Porthmeor Studios Residency, St Ives
Image Credit: SHARP
An improvised performance of breath-work, vocals and movement, incorporating installation and prop. The performance abstractly revealed Singh's experiences of gendered racialisation with the purported beauty of St Ives whilst on artist residency.
'Moon Mouse Monkey Bear' performance (2023) with Ted Rodgers and Hardeep Pandhal
commissioned by Quench Gallery, Margate
Image Credit: Stephen Daly
Singh improvises with Mohanam raga from Carnatic music, which is associated with the emotions courage and compassion. She interrupts the flow with sun/spoken word improvisations. And a bear dances in her imagination.