Sujay Saple

Sujay Saple is an interdisciplinary artist from Mumbai, India. His practice lies at the intersections of performance, installation and interactive interventions. His approach to art-making is rooted in spatial and thematic propositions of intimacy – be it through physical action, content, space, dialogue or transaction. His work has morphed across performative installations, visual theatre, contemporary dance, interactive choreography, protest parades, light sculptures, immersive concerts and zoom films – each an amalgam of the visual and the physical. He has been an independent designer, director, performer, teacher and facilitator, working professionally in the arts field since 2002, and has been involved in more than 50 collaborative projects.

Additionally, under his public online research project ‘ALT+space’ from 2014-16, he researched and shared information on over 40 alternative spaces for performance across India. From 2016-17, he was a partner and co-curator at an alternative cultural venue in Mumbai called The Mumbai Assembly. He was awarded the 2012-13 Ministry of Culture-Government of India research fellowship. He also received the Art Think South Asia (ATSA) fellowship in 2016. He won the Best Lighting Designer Award in 2007 at the Mahindra Excellence in Theatre Awards. From 2013-16, he was visiting faculty (elective) at the KRVIA Architecture College in Mumbai. In 2019, he was the official speech coach for TED Talks in India.

Sujay is the director of Shapeshift – a project-based experimental group he set up in Mumbai in 2012 to produce and promote his artistic work. With Shapeshift, he has created several original works that have performed at various festivals and prestigious venues around India and received rave reviews.