Surabhi Nadig

Surabhi Nadig is an artist, writer, and researcher working across photography, analogue processes, and visual storytelling. She holds an MA in Creative Sustainability (Design) from Aalto University, Finland, and a BA in Journalism, Psychology, and English Literature from Jain University, Bangalore. Her practice sits at the intersection of ecology, society, and systems. By using photography and writing to connect to landscapes and communities, and to ask questions about the environment, economics, and politics of sustainability in the anthropocene. 

Her experience spans artistic residencies, field research, community-based design, and science communication across India, Finland, and East Africa. She has previously undertaken residencies at Platform and Filmverkstaden in Vaasa, Finland, developing a project around the Kvarken archipelago and its fishing community through analogue photography, darkroom printmaking, and cyanotype. Observation and critical inquiry are central to her process. She is currently based in Bangalore.

Residency at QLO : Residue

Surabhi’s work at QLO is titled “Residues’ (Working title), which grows out of work that began a few years ago around ships: how they are built, how they move through the world, and what happens when they reach the end of their life. An article tracing a vessel’s construction at the Helsinki Shipyard was the starting point. Residencies in Vaasa deepened that inquiry through place; walking coastlines, working with analogue and alternative photographic processes, and spending time with the local community.

At QLO, that inquiry is extended to materials at the space – the wood, the furniture, the glass, much of what makes up this space are remnants of a ship. During the residency, Surabhi will make field visits to observe, make images, images that feed directly into making at QLO. Public workshops will invite participants to slow down and look differently at the objects and surfaces around them, asking where they come from, where they go, and what that means for how we live. The work draws attention to questions of circularity, material lifespans, and what it looks like to account for the things we use every day.