Meghna Singh is an artist and researcher with a Ph.D. in visual anthropology from the University of Cape Town, South Africa. Her work focuses on themes of human migration (historical and contemporary), globalization & critical mobilities, immersive experiences within public art and the decolonization of the digital. Working with video installation, sculpture and XR, blurring boundaries between documentary and fiction she creates immersive environments highlighting issues of ‘humanism’ through the tool of the imaginary. Her interest lies in creating public art installations that activate spaces while highlighting colonial and capitalist legacies within urban cityscapes.
Meghna is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the School of Communication & Culture at Aarhus University Denmark from 2023 to 2025. She is a National Geographic Explorer (2019-2021), an honorary fellow at Wilberforce Institute for the Study of Slavery & Emancipation, University of Hull and a fellow at the Creative Knowledge Resources, a platform for creative pedagogy and social engagement art in Africa and its diaspora. She was nominated by the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History & Culture to be an artist in residence at Indigo Art Alliance. She was a presenter at the symposium, Art in the Wake: Reckoning & Remembering, May 2023.
Singh recently co-directed Container: Witness the Invisibilised with filmmaker Simon Wood. Positioned at the intersection of virtual reality and installation art, Container makes the historical contemporary by linking historical and modern slavery to capitalism. Container has been shown at the International Venice Film Festival, Tribeca Film Festival, BFI London Film Festival, Kaohsiung Film Festival, Beijing, and the Luxembourg film festival. It became the first VR film to be invited by the Nobel Prize Society to screen at the Nobel Week Dialogue in Gothenburg 2021.
Her work has been presented internationally including Kerkennah#1 Tunisia, Speilart Festival Munich, LIVE ART Festival Cape Town, Infecting the City Cape Town, Cittadellarte Fondazione Pistoletto Italy, Hangar Lisbon and Kashi Art Kochi. She has been awarded numerous grants and residencies by organizations such as the Wellcome Trust U.K, Oriental Foundation Lisbon, Pro-Helvetica, Smithsonian Museum, Henrich Boll Foundation and the British Council.
While at the OpenDocLab, she’ll work with Simon Wood on Enacting Futures: Occupying the Digital, an immersive interactive exhibition presenting forms of futuristic expression via occupations in existing and imagined worlds.
Simon Wood is a multi-award-winning filmmaker and cinematographer based in Cape Town, South Africa. His recent project ‘Container’, a collaboration with Meghna Singh, premiered at Venice International Film Festival and was subsequently screened at the Tribeca Film Festival 2022. A fusion of virtual reality and installation art, ‘Container’ skilfully weaves together the narratives of historical and modern slavery with the fabric of capitalism.
In 2020, he received the World Press Photo ‘Online Video of the Year’ award for ‘Scenes from a Dry City.’ Through the lens of water, the film offers a poignant examination of Cape Town’s complex post-apartheid social landscape, revealing the city’s vulnerabilities and divisions amidst the looming threat of drought. The film garnered an Emmy nomination in the Outstanding Short Documentary category.
Wood’s passion for filmmaking has been consistently rewarded throughout his career. His earlier works ‘The Silent Form’, ‘Orbis’ and ‘Forerunners’ all won domestic and international awards, screening at the world’s largest film festivals.
While at OpenDocLab, he will collaborate with Meghna Singh on Enacting Futures: Occupying the Digital, an immersive interactive exhibition, presenting forms of futuristic expression via occupations in existing and imagined worlds.