Arnika Ahldag is a PhD candidate at the School of Arts and Aesthetics, JNU. In her research she is looking at the representation of labour in Indian art, through the depiction of labouring bodies, through activist engagement with and advocacy for workers unions or groups, or through collaborations with them in the making of art works or projects.

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Based in New Delhi, she has been making context-driven performance and art-based projects in collaboration with Amitesh Grover. Recent projects include BACK TO WORK (2016/2017, as part of the exhibition “Hangar for the Passerby”, curated by Akansha Rastogi, KNMA), NOTES ON MOURNING (Mourning as Practice, 2015), DOWNTIME (Sleep as Performance, 2014). These projects reflect work-as performance and inquire into the changing notions of profession and labour, the transactional value of work, situational implementations of work, and the new emerging figure of the worker.

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She also works with the Mobile Academy Berlin, a group of artists, researchers and academics, from various fields (media, literature, philosophy) working between the intersection of art and science, and on different modes of knowledge distribution.