Biography

Varsha is an artist and researcher based in Liverpool. Born in India and living in England for over two decades, her practice emerges from an ongoing dialogue between place, memory, material, and ecology. Working at the intersection of art and activism, she explores how creative practice can respond to the climate crisis by drawing on more-than-human perspectives. 

Her research engages with sustainability and posthuman thought, investigating postcolonial critiques of new materialism through forms of ecological thinking rooted in interconnectedness and material agency. Her work centres on developing alternative sensibilities toward the contemporary climate crisis and rethinking relationships between human and more-than-human worlds. Increasingly, her practice is shifting toward creative activism and follows an ecological imperative, seeking forms of artistic engagement that foster care, interconnectedness, and environmental responsibility. 

Through stories drawn from mythology, material histories, and embodied practices, she reimagines narratives from the perspective of matter itself, allowing materials not simply to serve as mediums but to become storytellers and active collaborators. Her practice explores how materials carry memory, agency, and ecological knowledge, opening space for material dialogues that reconnect human and more-than-human worlds. 

Working with natural pigments and sustainable processes, she investigates the active role of materials in shaping artistic outcomes. Drawing on painting and printmaking techniques alongside experimental studio practices, she develops environmentally conscious approaches to contemporary artmaking rooted in both making and research. 

Her work reflects a cross-cultural dialogue grounded in ecological awareness, material sensitivity, and a commitment to rethinking our relationships with the living world. 

Her academic and artistic contributions have been recognized through several distinguished awards, including the Josephine Butler Award, the HMP2Hope Summer Scholarship, and the Professor E. Rex Makin Award for Community Work (2022). In 2023, she received the Liverpool Hope Carter Preston Foundation Award, the Zari Gallery Award (London), the Cass Art Award, and a TATE Liverpool Commission. Additionally, she has been awarded the HOPE Graduate Bursary and Postgraduate Scholarship (2023).