NICOLA SINGH
Email: perform.nsingh@gmail.com
Instagram: @nicolasingh
Soundcloud: www.soundcloud.com/nicolasingh
Nicola is a multi-disciplinary artist, researcher and pedagogue based between the UK and India.
Her work is rooted in contemporary performance art. Her research interests are voice, sound and song as cultural signifiers, as tools for spiritual practice and as a means of interrogating language. She work's across sonic traditions, with improvisation techniques and via different modes of listening. She is interested in trans-national techniques of mantra and meditation, and how language, sound and repetition are used as transcendental vehicles in these practices. She also uses mantra-like repetition and improvisation to demonstrate the mutability and difficultly of language.
Nicola integrates her expanded vocal technique with the influence of Yogic breath practices and classical North Indian vocal music. She is currently training in Dhrupad with Pandit Uday Bhawalkar.
She also experiments with modes of listening and somatic practice in performance, pedagogic and social justice settings. Most recently, using Yoga Nidra as a tool to support global majority activists in connecting to ancestral wisdoms.
She uses prop and costume to play with the aesthetics of sound, as well as exploring the physicality of the ‘improvising body’ – testing out embodied states as performative devices. Experiments include weight training and ritual fasting as a precursor to vocal improvisation.
She also makes speculative and post-performance works on paper, often working into and re-memorializing photographic performance documentation.
Her current threads of research include:
- Mantra Purusha (therapeutic application of the Sanskrit alphabet through chant and bodywork)
- Mumble Rap (subgenre of hiphop characterized by unclear enunciation)
- Gibberish as vocal practice
- Protolanguages
- Indonesian Ketjak Ramayana Monkey Chant Ritual
- Peruvian Icaro prayers
- Murchha Pranayama (breath-work to induce fainting), Plavini Pranayama (breath-work for floating on water)
Recent teaching posts include Senior Lecturer in Art Theory and Practice at Manchester Metropolitan University (2021 - 2024) and Teaching Fellow, Leeds University (2019 - 2021). She holds a practice-led PhD entitled 'On the thesis-by-performance: a feminist research method for the practice-led PhD' from Northumbria University, Newcastle (2017).
Singh is the Adrian Piper Multidisciplinary Research Fellow 2025 - 2026.
Her work was acquired by the Government Art Collection in 2022.
EDUCATION
PhD (practice-based) Fine Art, Northumbria University, Newcastle (2013 – 2017)
MRes (practice-based) Fine Art, Northumbria University, Newcastle (2012 – 2013)
MA Curating Performance, Sunderland University, Sunderland (2009 – 2011)
BA Experimental Music and Visual Art, Dartington College of Arts, Devon (2005 – 2008)
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS
[forthcoming] ‘journal’, PP&A Research Consortium (December 2025)
‘Burping Baby’, HEKH Journal, New Delhi (August 2025)
‘Punjabi Princess, Smoking Black Cloud’ Artist Book, COPY Publishers, 2024
Text for ‘Poetry and Performance, Henry Moore Foundation & Corridor 8, 2022
Kink In The Arc, Paul Becker, 2023
Artwork for ’Radical Gestures’, Artlicks, 2021
3-Phase Publication, Eastside Project/Jerwood Visual Arts/Workplace Gallery, 2019
Artwork & Text ‘The Catwalk’, Orlando Magazine, 2017
Artwork & Text ‘Choreographies and Labour’, Konstfack, Stockholm, 2017
SELECTED COMMISSIONS
[forthcoming] ‘Cosmic Dancer’, PP&A Research Consortium (December 2025) FILM
‘Fallin’, PP&A Research Consortium (October 2025) PERFORMANCE
‘Sincere Seeker’, Cubitt Gallery, London, UK (September 2025) SOLO EXHIBITION
‘Heaven’s Chimney’, Listen Gallery, Glasgow UK (2025) GROUP EXHIBITION
Manē la'ī jāva (take me)', SPACE Studio, Baroda Gujarat (2024) PERFORMANCE
‘Seeker H2O’ HH Art Spaces, Goa (2024) PERFORMANCE
‘Please, Please, Please’ Response to The Waiting Room, ArtAngel, London (2023) PERFORMANCE
‘Antibodies’ Tetley Art Gallery, Leeds and HH Art Spaces, Goa (2023) PERFORMANCE & RESIDENCY
FEED, Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester (2023) AUDIO WORK
HOME Manchester Artist Experimental Film (2022) PERFORMANCE
‘The Work We Share’ with Noski Deville, Cinenova Feminist Film Archive & CCA Brighton (2022) PERFORMANCE
‘Moon Monkey Mouse Bear’ Quench Gallery, Margate (2022) PERFORMANCE
‘Dark Matter’, Workplace Foundation, Newcastle (2021) GROUP EXHIBITION
‘Power Grab’ w/ Helen Collard, Projections NE 2020 & Tyneside Cinema, Newcastle (2020) FILM
Watercolour Challenge, hosted on Instagram by Lindsey Mendick and Rafal Zajko (2020) GROUP EXHIBITION
‘Don’t look so sad’ Pre-Amble, David Dale Gallery, Glasgow (2020) PERFORMANCE
‘Don’t look so sad’ PRINT PRESENT PERFORM, The Tetley, Leeds (2020) PERFORMANCE
‘NGL’ Workplace Foundation, Newcastle (2020) PERFORMANCE & GROUP EXHIBITION
‘A Reading: Claudia Rankine’s ‘The White Card’, Underpinning, Aberdeen (2019) PERFORMANCE
‘The Sounds Here’ Slate Weekender, Site Gallery, Sheffield (2019 PERFORMANCE
‘Monkeys Made on Tinder Dates’ IMT Gallery, London (2018) GROUP EXHIBITION
‘Sticky Thumbs and Fingers’ Northern Print, Newcastle (2018) SOLO EXHIBITION
‘Pushing Attention’ Eastside Projects, Birmingham (2018) SOLO EXHIBITION
‘Soft Body’ Hongti Art Centre Busan, South Korea (2018) SOLO EXHIBITION
‘City Stir’ Sidney Cooper Gallery, Canterbury (2018) SOLO EXHIBITION
‘within [her] reach’ Workplace Gallery, Gateshead part of 3-PHASE (2018) GROUP EXHIBITION
‘I see this feel in the shape of a smile’ Beacons & Caustic Coastal, Salford (2018) GROUP EXHIBITION
‘Sweet Spot’ Jerwood Visual Arts, London (2017) SOLO EXHIBITION
‘the sounds here […]’ BALTIC 39, BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Newcastle (2017) SOLO EXHIBITION
‘You’re torturing me David. Torture me so I can learn’ New Art Centre, Boston USA (2016) GROUP EXHIBITION
SELECTED AWARDS & RESIDENCIES
Adrian Piper Multidisciplinary Fellowship, (Sept 2025 - Sept 2026)
Manasamitra Mentoring Programme, (October 2022)
Xarkis Festival, part of D6 Contested Desires, Cyprus (July 2022)
La Bonne Women and Girls Center, part of D6 Contested Desires, Barcelona (2022)
‘Leach 100 Porthmeor Residency” SPACE, Porthmeor Studios, St Ives (2021)
Hospitalfields Summer Residency (2019)
ART HOUSE Solo Presentation Residency (2019)
Research Residency, D6 Culture (2019)
New Artist Bursary, Northern Print, Newcastle (2019)
UK/KOREA 2017 – 2018 Artists Residency Exchange Programme, British Council (2018)
3-Phase Artist Award – Jerwood Visual Arts, Eastside Projects & Workplace Gallery (2017)
Artist International Development Fund, Arts Council England (2016)
SELECTED TEACHING/GUEST SPEAKER
‘What’s up with Wellness’, Axis Web, Leeds (March 2025)
‘Listening Academy’ Invited Speaker, Sarai Academy, New Delhi (2024)
Visiting Artist Talk, Swansea School of Art, Swansea (2024)
Visiting Artist Talk, Birmingham School of Art, Birmingham (2022)
Visiting Artist Talk, Falmouth University University, Cornwall (2021)
Senior Lecturer in Fine Art & Curating, Manchester School of Art, MMU (2021 - present)
Teaching Fellow, Leeds University Ba Hons & MFA Fine Art Practices, Leeds (2019 - 2021)
Visiting Lecturer, Performance-Lab Masterclass, Royal Conservatoire Scotland (2021)
Visiting Artist Talk, Teesside University, Middlesbrough (2020)
Visiting Lecturer, Performance Strand, Newcastle University Fine Art Ba Hons, Newcastle (2019)
Visiting Artist Talk, Newcastle University, Newcastle (2018)
Visiting Artist Talk, Northumbria University, Newcastle (2018)
Visiting Lecturer, Stockholm Royal Academy of Art, Stockholm (2016)
SELECTED WORKSHOP COMMISSIONS
NAE Conference, with Migrants in Culture, Norwich (April 2023)
Migrants in Culture and Healing Justice London ‘Routes and Roots’, London (January 2023)
Bloomberg New Contemporaries ‘New Writing Programme’, Hospitalfields, Arbroath (2022)
Alternative Crit Structures, PANIC Artists Programme, The Tetley, Leeds (March 2022)
‘New Writing Workshop’ Bloomberg New Contemporaries, Leeds Art Gallery, Leeds (2019)
Turner Prize Public Program (Public Workshop), Ferens Art Gallery (2017)
Invisible Knowledge (Public Workshop), CCA, Glasgow (2016)
COLLECTIONS
Government Art Collection (acquisition March 2021)
BOARD MEMBER & ASSOCIATES
Ubuntu Women's Shelter Board Member, Glasgow (March 2022 - present)