Amri­ta Hepi

Born 1989, Townsville of Bundjulung/​Ngapuhi territories

Lives and works in Melbourne

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, Hepi cre­ates work that con­sid­ers the body’s rela­tion­ship to per­son­al his­to­ries and the archive.

In 2020 Hepi is a Gertrude Con­tem­po­rary artist in res­i­dence (2020 – 2022) and is cur­rent­ly work­ing with Kaldor projects/​Serpentine UK as a par­tic­i­pat­ing DOit artist. Recent­ly she was com­mis­sioned by ACCA to make Neigh­bour, and the Art Gallery of New South Wales to make ~ CASS ~. In 2019 she 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 one of Forbes Asia 30 under 30. Hepi trained at NAIS­DA and Alvin Ailey NYC.

An artist with a broad fol­low­ing and reach, Amri­ta Hep­i’s work has tak­en var­i­ous forms (film, per­for­mance, sculp­ture, text, lec­ture, par­tic­i­pa­to­ry instal­la­tion), but always begins with the body as a point of archive, mem­o­ry, dance and resistance.

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