Artist Nandita Mukand shares how communicating with the natural world has had a profound impact not only on her artistic practice, but also in enabling her to find the strength and clarity to set aside a traditionally coveted corporate career and pursue her dream of being a full-time artist. In the process she builds an understanding of why contemporary society is losing touch with Nature and why maintaining this connection is more critical now than ever before. Nandita Mukand is a Singapore-based Indian born artist. She is an alumnus of Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta and has a degree in Electronics Engineering from Lucknow University, India. But soon she realized that her real passion was not in engineering but art. According to her, Art and Nature are important disciplines that bind together in her art. Her spectacular work was most recently exhibited at OpenArt 2017,Orebro Biennale in Sweden and Imaginarium: To the ends of the Earth at 8Q Singapore Art Museum. Nandita Mukand is a Singapore-based Indian born artist whose practice encompasses sculpture, installation and painting. Her works deal with Nature and Materiality, exploring themes of connection and spirituality from in an urban context. It is the concatenation of city-dwellers and the natural world. Nandita’s spectacular work was most recently exhibited at OpenArt 2017, Orebro Biennale in Sweden and Imaginarium: To the ends of the Earth at 8Q Singapore Art Museum. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. ​

“Forest Weft, City Warp” is an exhibition showcasing Nandita’s latest body of work of three-dimensional paintings. These new works stem from her tradition of painting, the weft of which she has warped into a medium of her own invention. Using everyday materials – fabric, wax, thread, paint, wool, rope, and plastic – Nandita explores the poetics of space in the three-dimensional paintings, inspired by nature and its essential role in the built city landscape. 
This new body of work deals with nature and materiality, exploring themes of connection and spirituality within an urban context. In these sculptural paintings, on which she has been working for the past two years, Nandita utilises a variety of materials including cloth, the interwoven threads of which signifies how urban life today is intertwined and connected through myriad means. The actions of a city dweller directly affects not only the rest of the city and its population but also nature. 
Not only does material matter, the process of art-making plays an important role in this discussion of nature – the different layers are laboriously handmade. The forms and textures of her work are often created by moulding the material to the bones of her hand – the traces of the human body become forms resembling flowers, corals, and fungal growth. It is the combination of material and process that weaves the cosmic fabric together.

They are getting more and more fragile and of course drier by the day, but they are amazingly beautiful, especially the roses, says Lena.
In September, it will be two years since her husband passed away and Lena started thinking about what she would do with the apartment, and with the flowers when she heard about OpenArt needing flowers.
The flowers have such a sentimental value to me that it felt great to be able to give them to the art instead of throwing them in the bin, Lena says. There's hardly anything left of my bridal bouquet from my first marriage; it's mostly just wires and a few roses and corn flowers- they get very fragile when you dry them- so I am very excited to see what the artist can do with them.
Lena, who paints with watercolors herself, believes the connection to art through the donations is very important to the people of Orebro. Art should be close to people who otherwise might not get the chance, can actually meet the art. Lena says that she is very inspired by the fantastic ideas the artists have and that they inspire people to be creative and even a little crazy..."