The nonprofit Han Nefkens Foundation has announced Indian artist Vishal Kumaraswamy as the recipient of its 2025 South Asian Video Art Production Grant, presented in collaboration with the Prameya Art Foundation (Delhi), the Ishara Art Foundation (Dubai), the Museum of Contemporary Art (Antwerp), deCentral (Bangkok), Para Site (Hong Kong), and Artspace (Sydney). 

The grant is dedicated to supporting emerging visual artists living and working in South Asia, with a mission to actively promote contemporary video art from the region. As part of the initiative, Kumaraswamy will receive USD 15,000 to produce a new work, which will be exhibited at each partner institution from the end of 2026.

Hailing from Bengaluru, Kumaraswamy is a multidisciplinary artist-curator who works across film, sound, performance, text, and computational arts to interrogate India’s caste system. His oeuvre is deeply connected to his Dalit heritage, engaging with questions of race, society, and technology.

In a press release, the jury remarked: “We selected [Kumaraswamy] for his depth and originality of practice that critically appropriates technologies such as AI, motion capture, and surveillance systems, exposing and destabilizing the hierarchies embedded within them.”

Kumaraswamy expressed his gratitude to the foundation, stating: “I am honored . . . to receive this grant at a pivotal moment as I deepen my efforts to recenter our traditional knowledge systems and investigate how the transformative potential of video and imaging technologies can foster future Dalit imaginaries.”

Iain Cocks is an editorial intern at ArtAsiaPacific.