Vedika Kushalappa

Information Experience Design (MA)

Future Histories, Film; The South Asian body is a site of ecological and ancestral memory. 11 dancers root within their authentic movement as a collective act of coming back to self, co-creating in spaces and land bodies that have been altered for colonial legacies and ecological extraction in the UK. South Asian movement within these land bodies is an act of collective remembrance. The land is a living witness. Movement becomes a vessel—rooted in authenticity and ancestral memory—that challenges the systems of governance that commodified land, labour, and culture. Reclaiming the body is an act of reclaiming the land. Through movement, a new narrative emerges: a future history written for our future ancestors.

Sacred Grooves, Film and Photography; Rooted in the spiritual and cultural dimensions of Indian Classical Dance, the work reclaimed Kathak as an act of resistance and remembrance. Drawing parallels between the erasure of sacred ecological sites and the commodification of the South Asian female body under colonial rule, this project framed the body as a sacred grove- an embodied site of resilience against structures of control and extraction. The concept of Sacred Groves stems from global south epistemologies on the symbiotic relationship between the bio-physical ecosystem, where ancient patches of forest were protected for spiritual and communal reasons. These groves, found across continents, represent non-capitalist relationships to land—where nature is not extracted but honoured. They are portals into a relational ecology shaped by reciprocity, ritual, and care.

About

Vedika Kushalalppa (Ancestry from Coorg, India) is a creative practitioner crafting visual narratives that aim to share stories that are carried over generations that exist encoded in the systems of ecologies that we are embedded within. Combining her knowledge in lens based art, graphic design, visual ethnographic research, and curation, she cultivates cross-cultural dialogue by facilitating spaces that hold stories in today’s current anthropocentric era. Her work has been exhibited internationally at Manarat Al Saadiyat, Jameel Arts Centre, Dubai Design Week, Sikka Art and Design Festival, Horniman Museum and Gardens, Brompton Cemetery, and The British Film Institute.

During her time at RCA, she developed work that explored the South Asian body as a site of ecological and ancestral memory, in collaboration with 12 movement practitioners, the films she produced explores collective act of coming back to self, co-creating in spaces and land bodies that have been altered for colonial legacies and ecological extraction.

Vedika Kushalappa alongside Claudia Lehmann and Sejal Dalvi was awarded the Emerging Practice Award 2025 by CLIMAVORE x Jameel at RCA, to develop a visual and research project that reimagines foodways for wetlands in the climate crisis to advance ecological networks to produce new knowledge and action towards spatial justice.

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