NINA SANADZE

Nina Sanadze is a Soviet-born, Melbourne-based artist who works with monuments, archives and political action. Sanadze presents narratives built upon personal stories from within the experience of conflict; a wall of remembering that acts as a fortification against repeating histories. She believes in the power of art and beauty to bring people together and that peace-building is achieved through proactive work, determination, negotiation, and the forging of narratives designed to unite competing ideologies.

Presenting appropriated original artefacts, blunt replicas, or documentary films as witnesses and evidence, Sanadze seeks to re-examine grand political narratives from a diametric personal position. Deploying any appropriate medium, her work responds to the most immediate socio-economic and political global developments with urgency. Humour and beauty allow her to address often disturbing concerns, reflecting the complex paradigm of our existence, which is simultaneously sublime and horrific.

“Drawing on her own familial history in Georgia (former USSR), Nina Sanadze is compelled to respond to some of the great forces of our time – ideology, authority, monuments, conflict and survival – amidst the transient yet insistent fabric of memory, beauty and tenderness. Evocative and dramatic, Nina eschews the once victorious into a tumbling morphic vortex of fragility. Nina possesses a powerful ability to draw on the political, the familial and the poetic with great clarity and aesthetic poignancy.”

— Rhana Devenport (ONZM), Director of the Art Gallery of South Australia

“It is said that actions speak louder than words, a false binary that disregards the resonance and power of combining the two. For Nina Sanadze, a Soviet-born, Melbourne-based artist-activist, the two are inextricably linked. Her latest work, as much of her oeuvre, stands boldly at the intersections of actions and words, art and activism.”

— Nadine von Cohen, The Saturday Paper

Nina Sanadze was born in Georgia (former USSR) in 1976, immigrated to Russia as a refugee in 1992, and immigrated to Australia in 1996. She has an Honours Degree, Graphic Design & Book Illustration from Moscow State University of Publishing and a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Honours) from the Victorian College of Arts.
Sanadze is currently a Gertrude Contemporary resident artist. She is the winner of the 2023 Deakin Small Sculpture Prize, 2021 Churchie Emerging Art Prize, 2018 Incinerator Art Award: Art for Social Change, 2019 Victorian College of the Arts Bus Projects Award, and 2019 and 2020 Fiona Myer Victorian College of the Arts Award.
Social practice is an important facet of Sanadze’s work, she is a member of Melbourne art collective ShrewD and the founding Artistic Director of Collective Polyphony Festival which was held across multiple gallery spaces in Melbourne in 2023.
Sanadze has held solo exhibitions at Kunstall 3,14, Norway (2023), the 3rd Tbilisi Triennial, Georgia (2018), Daine Singer (2021), Point Nepean Quarantine Station (2022), Victorian College of the Arts (2020), Second Space Projects (2020), Cathedral Cabinet (2020), and Melbourne’s Living Museum of the West (2018). She has undertaken public art projects including the public art event, Returning the Names, together with Memorial Italia, held at the Venice Biennale, Italy (2022), Call to Peace (2022), temporary public art funded by the City of Port Phillip, South Melbourne, Blockage (2019), three public art installations in St Kilda, Melbourne. Sanadze has also participated in group exhibitions at the La Trobe Art Institute, MADA gallery, Margaret Lawrence Gallery, Living Museum of the West, ACE Open, Institute of Modern Art, Meat Market and Gertrude Glasshouse, George Paton Gallery and Buxton Contemporary Public Screen.  
Nina Sanadze (b.1976, Georgia, lives Melbourne/ Naarm)
Education
2009-20 Bachelor of Fine Arts (Honours), Victorian College of the Arts
1992-98 Honours Degree, Graphic Design & Book Illustration, Moscow State University of Publishing
Solo Exhibitions
2023 Hana and Child, Daine Singer, Melbourne >>
2023 Re-Monument, Kunsthall 3,14, Bergen, Norway >>
2022 Public Art /Performance, Returning the Names, together with Memorial Italia, Venice, Italy
2022 Inscription, temporary public art, Point Nepean Quarantine Station, Drift Festival
2022 Call to Peace, temporary public art funded by the City of Port Phillip, South Melbourne
2020-2022 Living Room, short film series, Bus TV, Trocadero ARI, Victoria Together Online Platform
2021 Polyphony, Daine Singer, Melbourne >>
2020 Terminus, Victorian College of the Arts Grad Show and Blindside Gallery, Melbourne
2020 Re election Day [Fire], Second Space Projects and Incinerator Art for Social Change Award (finalist), Melbourne
2020 Anthropology, Okenyo music video set design
2020 Re collection, Cathedral Cabinet, Nicholas Building, Melbourne
2019 Blockage, three public art installations in St Kilda, Melbourne. Nillumbik Prize for Contemporary Art (finalist) and Yering Station Sculpture Awards (finalist)
2018 100 years After, 30 Years On, 3rd Tbilisi Triennial, Georgia
2018 Bollard City, Melbourne’s Living Museum of the West and Incinerator Art for Social Change Award (1st Prize)
2018 Safe Passage, Live Performance in Melbourne CBD
2008-09 Timepiece, St Kilda Townhall, Federation Square and Veg Out Garden, Melbourne
Selected Group Exhibitions
2023 Habitat, Gertrude Glasshouse, Melbourne
2023 In-Kind Collective, Stockroom, Kyneton
2023 Deakin University Contemporary Small Sculpture Award
2023 Theatre of Folly, 101 Collins St, Melbourne
2023 Maternal inheritances, La Trobe Art Institute, Bendigo
2023 TRACES, MADA Gallery, Caulfield, Melbourne
2022 Gertrude Studios 2022, Gertrude Contemporary, Melbourne
2022 Workshop, with seV=n [artist collective], vacant shopfront in Balaclava, Melbourne
2022 Vas Holos: Re election Day [Water], Meat Market, City of Melbourne
2022 Exposure Site: Exit Poll, Gertrude Glasshouse
2021 Churchie Emerging Art Prize, Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane (Major Prize Winner)
2021 ARTS are NEWSworthy petition creation and advocacy project
2021 The Image is not Nothing (Concrete Archives), ACE Open (Adelaide) and Margaret Lawrence/Living Museum of the West (Melbourne)
2020 The Artist’s Eye, Buxton Contemporary Large Public Screen
2020 Legacy, Wyndham Art Gallery
2020 Silences Between Ticks of a Clock: Absence and Erasure in an Age of Cultural Palimpsest, George Paton Gallery, Melbourne
2019 Monumental Shift, Victorian College of the Arts Grad Show, Bus Projects Award (winner) and Wyndham Art Prize (finalist)
2019 Monuments and Movements, Majlis Travelling Scholarship exhibition, Margaret Lawrence Gallery (finalist)
2018 Friends, The Band Presents
2018 Seven Windows, vacant shopfronts in Toora, Victoria
2017 Reprise, Alliance Française, Melbourne
2008 Neighbourhood Watching, Brightspace
2007 Bowled Over, gallery M
Awards, Grants, Residencies
2023 Deakin University Contemporary Small Sculpture Award Winner
2023 Incinerator Art Award 2023, Art for Social Change: finalist
2023 Nillumbik Prize for Contemporary Art: finalist
2022 Gertrude Residency Program 2022 Recipient
2022 Artistic Director at Blindside ARI
2022 City of Port Phillip Reimagine Public Art Activation Competition Winner
2007, 2017 and 2022 City of Port Phillip Cultural Development Fund Recipient
2020, 2022 Police Point Artist Residency, Mornington Peninsula Shire, Recipient
2021 The Churchie Emerging Art Prize: Winner
2021 PICA Hatched, National Graduate Award exhibition: Nominated
2019, 2020 Fiona Myer Award Victorian College of the Arts Grad Show: Winner
2019 Bus Projects Award, Victorian College of the Arts Grad Show: Winner
2018 Incinerator Art for Social Change: Winner
2005 Whitley Award for the Best Publication: Winner
2002 Green Room Award for the Most Outstanding Production, The Grand Feeling: Winner
2001 The Australian Awards for Excellence in Educational Publishing by Australian Publishers Association: Finalist
Bibliography
2023
Amelia Wallin, ‘Maternal inheritances’ catalogue essay, La Trobe Art Institute, Bendigo >>
Johnny Herbert, Ambivalence and Negative Capability, ‘Re-monument’ catalogue essay, commissioned by Kunsthall 3.14. >>
Chantelle Mitchell and Jaxon Waterhouse, ‘Traces’ catalogue essay, MADA Gallery, Caulfield >>
2022
Nadine von Cohen, ‘Returning the Names at the Venice Biennale’, The Saturday Paper >>
The (Sunday) Age review by Kerrie O’Brien: Nina Sanadze artwork: Melbourne monument of woman raging against war is ‘like a prayer’, 27 March 2022 >>
SBS Australia review by Irina Burmistrova: Australian artist’s monument a ‘call to peace’ amid Ukraine-Russia tensions >>
Arts Hub review by Celina Lei: Women artists reckon with war, 29 March 2022 >>
ABC Saturday Breakfast interview with Alice Zaslavsky, 2 April 2022
2021
Journal of the Universities Art Association of Canada (UAAC), RACAR, Issue 46, no. 2 (Fall 2021), “Revised Commemoration” in Public Art: What Future for the Monument?, Portfolio, Nina Sanadze >>
Margaret Lawrence Gallery, VCA Art Forum talk, 13.04.2021. >>
Irina Burmistrova, Where do Artists Live? Nina Sanadze’s project Living Room, SBS Russian Radio, 24.10.2021. >>
From the Rubble: Art prize winner a monument to former Soviet Union, InQueensland, 25.10.2021 >>
Azza Zein, Dmploying studio Practices in Nina Sanadze’s ‘Living Room’ series, WAR Bulletin, Issue 68, July 2021
Lisa Jacomos, Art Musing: Monumental Questions, Farrago, 5.03.2021. >>
2020
Art + Australia, Event Horizon, Issue 7, p37, 2020. >>
Caroline Esbenshade, Go Deeper Interview, Wyndham Art Gallery podcast channel, 25.06.2020. >>
Dr Ashley Crawford, Legacy catalogue essay, Wyndham Gallery, September 2020 >>
Lynda Roberts, Public Art Field Guide 3.4: Concrete Bollards, MPavilion series, 2020. >>
2019
Sumeyya Ilanbey, A Bollard Up a Tree? St Kilda Artist Reframes Symbols, The Sydney Morning Herald, 28.03.2019. >>
Olga Klepova, Anti-terror Concrete Bollards Given New Meaning by Nina Sanadze, SBS Russian Radio, 28.03.2019. >>
Lou Chamberlin, Urban Sprawl, Book, Published by Hardie Grant, pp 87, 2019.
2018
Dr Khatuna Khabuliani, The Drama of Ideological Art, AT.GE online publication, 2018. >>
.JPG, The AHSS Art Journal, Featured Artist, Stateless, Issue 3, pp 26-27, 2018.
Eddie Ayres, Nina Sanadze’s Bollard City, Hub On Arts, Radio National 621AM, 21.03.2018 >>
Richelle Hunt, ABC Radio Melbourne 774AM, 14.03.2018.

Collections
Deakin University
Circle Collective
Amelia Wallin, ‘Maternal inheritances’ catalogue essay, La Trobe Art Institute, Bendigo, 2023
Johnny Herbert, Ambivalence and Negative Capability, ‘Re-monument’ catalogue essay, commissioned by Kunsthall 3.14., 2023
Nadine von Cohen, ‘Returning the Names at the Venice Biennale’, The Saturday Paper, Nov 5-11, 2022

Kerrie O’Brien, ‘Melbourne monument of woman raging against war is ‘like a prayer’’, The Age, March 27, 2022

Alice Zaslavsky, ‘Call to Peace’ statue stands tall in South Melbourne, ABC Saturday Breakfast Radio, April 2, 2022

Sumeyya Ilanbey, ‘A bollard up a tree? St Kilda reframes symbols of terror’, The Age, March 27, 2019