Reshma Chhiba is a visual artist and dancer based in Johannesburg, who is interested in the intersection between contemporary visual art and classical Indian dance practices in South Africa. Chhiba is the co-founder and Creative Director of Sarvavidya Natyaalaya and also serves as Exhibitions Curator at the Wits School of Arts.
Chhiba holds a BAFA (2005) and an MAFA (2013), from the University of the Witwatersrand, and a diploma in Bharatanatyam (2002) from the Institute of Indian Art and Culture (South Africa). Previously, Chhiba worked at the Visual Identities in Art and Design Research Centre (VIAD), University of Johannesburg (2013 – 2015), and Exhibitions Curator and then Registrar at the Johannesburg Art Gallery (2007 – 2013).
Joint winner of the Wits School of Arts Martienssen Prize 2003, she was selected by the Goethe Institut (2007) to work as an art mediator at Documenta 12, in Kassel, Germany. She has participated in numerous group shows, including Impossible Monsters – Art Extra (2007); Self/Not Self – Brodie Stevenson (2009); Domestic – GoetheonMain (2009), Alterating Conditions: Performing Performance Art in South Africa – GoetheonMain (2011), [Working Title] – Goodman Cape (2012), 21BF – Turbine Hall and Bag Factory (2012), Princess in the veld – KKNK Festival (2015) and others. Her solo exhibitions include Kali – Art Extra (2008) and The Two Talking Yonis – Constitution Hill Women’s Jail, Kalashnikovv Gallery and Room Gallery (2013), in which she collaborated with curator Nontobeko Ntombela. She is also co- founder of Sarvavidya Natyaalaya (SVN), a non-profit classical Indian dance school specialising in Bharatanatyam in South Africa.
CREATIVE DIALOGUE
between Nontobeko Ntombela and Reshma Chhiba at Rhodes Fine Art Department on 27 October 2017.
VIDEO: Art on our Mind Creative Dialogue with Reshma Chhiba
AUDIO: Art on our Mind Creative Dialogue with Reshma Chhiba
TRANSCRIPT: Art on our Mind Creative Dialogue with Reshma Chhiba
Find Reshma Chhiba on Instagram @thetalkingyoni
ARCHIVAL RESOURCES: Reshma Chhiba
WORKS by Reshma Chhiba
VISUAL ART
EXHIBITIONS
PERFORMANCE
WRITING
COLLABORATIONS
PRESS AND REVIEWS on Reshma Chhiba