Swaja Saransh is a visual and performance artist, researcher and facilitator based inNew Delhi. They have been working on the themes of climate change and sustainable development for the past 13 years. Their journalistic training makes them curious to learn about and layer their work with various disciplines including gender and mental health. Their films have been nominated and screened at festivals such as Mumbai International Film Festival, CMS Vatavaran, Dominican Republic Film Festival, and the IDSFFK(Kerala). As Avatari Devi (their drag name), they have been performing across platforms- online and offline in their mother tongue Bhojpuri, questioning and commenting on the politics of gender, coloniality and the new necessity to hate. Having started their big stage journey at the Rainbow Literature Festival 2019, they have so far performed at the Gender-Bender 2022 -Bangalore International Centre, Do Din at Hyderabad Urban Lab, and earlier this year at Mosaic, JNU. They are part of the ESD Expertnet, have been a BIARI (Brown Institute for Advanced Research Institutes) Scholar (2016), recipient of the Gender Bender grant (Sandbox Collective and Goethe Institut Bangalore) and an alumni of the Managing Global Governance (2021) Academy at the German Institute of Development and Sustainability.
