Amri­ta Hepi

Born 1989, Townsville of Bundjulung/​Ngapuhi ter­ri­to­ries

Amri­ta Hepi is an award win­ning artist work­ing with dance and chore­og­ra­phy through video, the social func­tion of per­for­mance spaces, instal­la­tion and objects. Using hybrid­i­ty and the exten­sion of choreograph­ic or per­for­ma­tive prac­tices, Amri­ta cre­ates work that consid­ers the body’s rela­tion­ship to person­al his­to­ries and the archive. Amrita’s work has tak­en var­i­ous forms (film, perfor­mance, sculp­ture, text, lec­ture, par­tic­i­pa­to­ry instal­la­tion), but always begins with the body as a point of mem­o­ry and resistance.

Amri­ta con­sid­ers the black and brown female body as archive – dis­tinct from, and in oppo­si­tion to pri­or views of the archive as a doc­u­men­tary, deposit or bureau­crat­ic agency. In Amri­ta’s doc­u­ment­ed moments, the archive is nev­er sta­t­ic, but rather dynam­ic and innovative.

Amri­ta is a Gertrude Con­tem­po­rary artist in res­i­dence (2020 – present) and is current­ly work­ing with Kaldor projects/​Ser­pen­tine UK as a par­tic­i­pat­ing DOit artist. Recent com­mis­sions include: Syd­ney Opera House, The Anguil­la Pur­suit (2022), Aus­tralian Cen­tre for Con­tem­po­rary Art, Neigh­bour (2020), and the Art Gallery of New South Wales, ~ CASS ~ (2020). In 2019 Amri­ta was a com­mis­sioned artist for The Nation­al: New Aus­tralian art 2019 and the recip­i­ent of the dance web schol­ar­ship to be men­tored by Anne Juren, Mette Ing­varsten and Annie Dors­en. In 2018 and again in 2020 she was the recip­i­ent of the Peo­ple’s Choice award for the Keir Chore­o­graph­ic Award and was named in Forbes Asia 30 under 30. Amri­ta trained at NAIS­DA and Alvin Ailey NYC.

Amri­ta Hep­i’s work has been pre­sent­ed and per­formed in muse­ums, gal­leries and fes­ti­vals, includ­ing, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Syd­ney; Car­riage­works, Syd­ney; Syd­ney Opera House; Immi­gra­tion Muse­um, Mel­bourne; 4A, Syd­ney; The Menil Col­lec­tion, Hous­ton; Art Cen­tral, Hong Kong; Dark MOFO, Tas­ma­nia; The­atre Chal­loit, Paris; Tanz Im August, Berlin; Wom­ade­laide, Ade­laide; Aus­tralian Cen­tre for Con­tem­po­rary with Next Wave Fes­ti­val for Asia TOPA: Asia-Pacif­ic Tri­en­ni­al of Per­form­ing Arts.

CV