Kalanjay Dhir

Kalanjay Dhir is an artist and musician based in Sydney on unceded Dharug land. His work uses sculpture and video and draws on popular culture, sci-fi and history. Kalanjay likes to invent near-future worlds that imagine hopeful ways humans could relate to their environment. He enjoys thinking about the imprint that human consciousness will leave on the Earth and surrounding cosmos. Recently, he has been developing a body of work exploring the potential of using physical hand-rod puppets as didactic and speculative tools for beyond human thinking. He thinks of puppetry as a precursor to cartooning, augmented reality, and avatarisation in video games and online spaces.

From 2017–2020, he worked from Parramatta Artists’ Studios and in 2019 this led to co-founding Pari, an independent artist-run space supported by CreateNSW, and co-directed with local peers. Alongside Kilimi and DJ Atro, he hosted Wednesday Sunset on FBi Radio for 3 years, spotlighting emerging musical acts from west and southwest Sydney. 

In 2022 Kalanjay completed a major moving image commission for the launch of the new PHIVE building. In 2021, Kalanjay was commissioned to produce original video works for Sydney Opera House as part of shortwave and for ACMI which premiered at the Shed in NY and Art Basel in Switzerland as part of Unfinished Camp. In 2020, he presented at Next Wave Festival and was the recipient of the Fauvette Loureiro Emerging Travelling Scholarship.