Drawn from a one-hour conversation with artist Nina Mangalanayagam, this podcast collects excerpts on narration, self-positioning, passing, the everyday performance of identity, and more.

Nina Mangalanayagam is an artist, researcher, and teacher at HDK-Valand, who works with photography and film. To quote from her website, “[she] explores themes of belonging and hybridity, often using a semi-autobiographical approach. Her research analyses the shifting points of identification she experiences as a mixed heritage subject, to explore the dichotomy of black and white notions of identity.”

I’m Shunda Wan. I moved from China to Sweden almost three years ago. I work as a line cook and study in the MFA program at HDK-Valand. My research looks at re-enactment—redoing fellow immigrants’ lived experiences together with them—as a way to explore immigrant life in Sweden and to situate myself through and within what anthropologist Biao Xiang calls the “nearby,” the spacial, social, and cultural sphere around us.

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For Nina’s works, please visit her website

https://www.ninamanga.com/

The Dialogues Podcast Project is a podcast series produced by students from the Master of Fine Arts (MFA) programme at the HDK-Valand Academy – Art and Design, University of Gothenburg, and published by K103 Gothenburg Student Radio.