Nadia Nazar (b. 2002, Baltimore, MD) is a sculptor, animator, musician, organizer, and teacher. She was born and raised in Baltimore County, but calls Kerala, India her homeland. Her work delves into her relationship with the residual impact of colonization, including the physical and systemic structures that have exploited both the land and (her) people. She employs animation, sculpture, and sound to explore her matrilineal relationships, history, and the fight for liberation. Metal structures stand in relation to the land on which Nadia resides, and the land her body comes from under the equator sun. The steel scrolls, gates, braids, cyanotype blues, and rust are not only reminiscent of her grandmothers’ homes, but fill space as a child of diaspora reaching for a liberation that feels uncanny and solitary all at once.
Nadia received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Maryland Institute College of Art in Interdisciplinary Sculpture and Animation. She is currently a year-long resident in large metals at The Steel Yard in Providence, Rhode Island. Nadia’s work has been exhibited throughout Baltimore, including a solo exhibition at Spare Room Gallery. She recently exhibited in Matriculture, a duo show at the Tephra Institute of Contemporary Art, as a part of their biennial Mary B. Howard Invitational. Her work was also featured at the Smithsonian Anacostia Community Museum’s 2024 exhibition, To Live and Breathe: Women and Environmental Justice in Washington DC. Nadia co-founded Zero Hour, an international youth climate organization and served as its Co-Executive Director and Art Director for four years. She has been featured in The New York Times, CNN, MSNBC, i-D, Vox, Huffington Post, USA Today, and more for work in the Climate Movement. She sings, plays banjo, guitar, and piano in the band Lake Walker.