CV_BIO_CONTACT

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.

Nicola is Senior Lecturer in Art Theory and Practice at Manchester Metropolitan University and 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).

Email: performance.nsingh@gmail.com
Instagram: @nicolasingh
Soundcloud: www.soundcloud.com/nicolasingh

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)

FORTHCOMING COMMISSIONS
'Sincere Seeker', solo exhibition, Cubitt Gallery, London (March 2025) SOLO EXHIBITION
‘Punjabi Princess, Smoking Black Cloud’ Artist book for COPY independent publishers (August 2024) PUBLICATION
'Seeker He2', performance, HH Art Spaces, Goa (March 2024) PERFORMANCE

SELECTED COMMISSIONS
‘Please, Please, Please’ Response to The Waiting Room, Art Angel, London (July 2023) PERFORMANCE
‘Antibodies’ Tetley Art Gallery, Leeds and HH Art Space, Goa (March 2023) PERFORMANCE & RESIDENCY
FEED, Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester & Leeds Art Gallery, Leeds (2023 - 2024) SOUND 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 (April 2022) PERFORMANCE
‘Dark Matter’, Workplace Foundation, Newcastle (2021) GROUP EXHIBITION
‘Power Grab’ w/ Helen Collard, Projections NE 2020 & Tyneside Cinema, Newcastle (2020) FILM
‘Don’t look so sad’ Preamble, David Dale Gallery, Glasgow (2020) PERFORMANCE
‘Don’t look so sad’ PRINT PRESENT PERFORM, The Tetley, Leeds (2020) PERFORMANCE
‘Well now, hold on’, Made In Roath, Cardiff (2020) SOUND WORK
‘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 INVITED PERFORMER
Beatriz Olaberrieta ‘Platform Residency’ Site Gallery, Sheffield (2016)
Georgina Starr ‘CAVE – I’ Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art, Middlesbrough (2015)
Cally Spooner ‘AND YOU WERE WONDERFUL ON STAGE’ TATE Britain, London (2014)

SELECTED AWARDS & RESIDENCIES
Manasamitra Mentoring Programme, (October 2022)
Xarkis Festival, part of D6 Contested Desires, Cyprus (July 2022)
La Bonne Women and Girls Centre, 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
Visiting Artist Talk, Swansea University, Swansea (2024)
Visiting Artist Talk, Birmingham School of Art, Birmingham (2022)
Visiting Artist Talk, Falmouth 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, Northumbria University, Newcastle (2018)
Visiting Lecturer, Stockholm Royal Academy of Art, Stockholm (2016)
Artist Educator, BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead (2014 - 2021)

SELECTED WORKSHOP COMMISSIONS
NAE Conference, with Migrants in Culture, Norwich (April 2023) WORKSHOP
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)
Chanting Workshop (online), State of Play (July 2021)
Syllabus V Artist Development Programme, NewBridge Projects, Newcastle (December 2019)
‘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)

INVITED PANEL/SELECTOR
Hew Locke and Nicola Singh in Conversation, Lowry Museum, Manchester (2023)
Artist Assessor, The Lowry ‘Scratch Night’ Commissions, Manchester (2022)
Staging Eastman Symposium, CAVE and University of Leeds (2021)
Advisory Group for Fine Art, Northumbria University, Newcastle (2021)
Artist Advisor, PANIC! The Tetley, Leeds (2019 - present)
Artist Assessor, Jerwood Visual Art, London (2019 – present)
WOON Prize, Northumbria University & BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Newcastle (2019)

PUBLICATIONS
Text for ‘Poetry and Performance, Henry Moore Foundation & Corridor 8, 2022
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 REVIEWS
Projections ‘POWER GRAB’ - Independent Writer Review
Jerwood Arts ‘Sweet Spot’ - Writer In Residence Review
BALTIC ‘the sounds are bouncing around us’ - Corridor 8 Review

COLLECTIONS
Government Art Collection (acquisition March 2021)

BOARD MEMBER & ASSOCIATES
Ubuntu Women's Shelter Board Member, Glasgow (March 2022 - present)