Janani Balasubramanian is a conceptually driven, multidisciplinary artist and director. Working in close community with scientists, they aim to invite deeper connection with more-than-human worlds and nurture social imagination for care, complexity, and play. They are a key innovator in the field of art-science collaboration and co-creative practice.
Janani has received support from several prestigious funders and commissioning organizations, including the Lenore Tawney Foundation, MacArthur Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, Sundance Institute, Pew Foundation, Bard Graduate Center, New York Foundation for the Arts, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, New York Community Trust, Jerome Foundation, Center for Art Science and Technology at MIT, and MAP Fund, among others. Their work has been presented at dozens of venues internationally, including the New York High Line, San Francisco Exploratorium, Red Bull Arts, Academy of Natural Sciences, Cantor Arts Center, Andy Warhol Museum, Ace Hotel, and Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Their many awarded residencies include Djerassi Art Center, HERE Arts Center, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Camargo Foundation, The Public Theater, Stanford Institute for Diversity in the Arts, Heller Center for the Arts and Humanities, Hemispheric Institute for Performance and Politics at NYU, Pioneer Works, Mount Tremper Arts, UCross Foundation, and Sundance Institute Theater Lab. They have also consulted on questions of art-science, co-creation, creative tech, collaboration, and futures for the Doris Duke Foundation, John Giorno Foundation, Cinereach, and Rockefeller Foundation.
They have been the artist-in-residence with the brown dwarf astrophysics group at the American Museum of Natural History since 2017 and have worked closely with astrophysicist Dr. Natalie Gosnell (Assoc. Prof. of Physics at Colorado College) since 2018. They are a member of the Guild of Future Architects, and in 2023-2024 they will be the Denning Visiting Artist at Stanford University, jointly hosted by the Physics and Electrical Engineering departments.