Devika Bilimoria

About

Performance, video, photography and installation are modes Devika Bilimoria uses to approach notions of queering, materiality and apertures of the porous body. Based in Naarm, they engage methods of chance, participation and listening to reveal socio-cultural formations of separateness, hierarchies and gestures that arise across territorial conditions and experiences of diasporic South-Asian dance and ritual. Devika creates works that are shared in galleries, on stages and in digital and site-specific contexts, with an aim to reorient what is given to stimulate unexpected encounters and temporalities.

Devika’s training commenced in Naarm with the Indian dance form Bharatanatyam at an early age and continued through to a Bachelor of Fine Arts (photography) and a Bachelor of Arts in Media Studies at RMIT. In 2022, they graduated with First Class Honours in Fine Arts from the VCA, receiving the Rodger Davies Award for their durational performance installation ‘Offerings’.

Devika has presented work at the National Portrait Gallery, the Monash Gallery of Art, Montsalvat Gallery, SEVENTH, Blindside and Dancehouse, amongst other national and international exhibitions, including PHOTO 2022. In 2021, they were a Next Wave Kickstart recipient with Amias Hanley presenting Burial, a live audio-visual experiential installation at the Brunswick Mechanics Institute.