Nikta Mohammadi
(She/Her)
Migration Stories: Art as Activism was a bursary initiative supporting producers passionate about using art to tell migration stories and drive activism.
Designed to help producers feel resourced in their professional development, the bursary championed work engaging with a subject that impacts millions globally.
Nikta Mohammadi is an Iranian producer, artist and filmmaker based in West Yorkshire. As a producer, she’s worked with the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA), Bradford Producing Hub (BPH), Tate, and BBC. With ICA, she led the Southeast hub of New Creatives, a national initiative developed by ACE and BBC Arts, commissioning emerging artists from underrepresented backgrounds to create work in audio, moving image, and interactive media. After going freelance, she continued her producing work with BPH as well as supporting independent artists to bring their creative visions to life. Currently, she’s creative producing Horizon 2025, a festival celebrating migrant and displaced artists and communities, developed by HOME and Community Arts Northwest and Side-by-Side, a community exhibition developed by Touchstone Gallery with events brought together by the people of Rochdale giving the community complete access to Touchstones.
As an independent artist, her multidisciplinary practice explores displacement, dreams and loss, creating site-responsive work. Her first solo exhibition, Memory Stone, commissioned by The Lowry and supported by ACE, is a film installation drawing influence from Iranian mythology and sci-fi genre within the context of the British countryside. The research process for this project included workshops and site visits to the filming location with refugee and migrant communities. Other examples of her recent work include Leave to Remain(2023), an audio-visual performance developed in collaboration with composer Babak Mirsalari commissioned by Opera North, Leeds and Indefinite Dreams: I am alive! (2022), a performance devised with composer Atefeh Einali and presented at SOUP, Manchester and Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival.
How will you utilise the bursary?
Producer Gathering bursary will allow me to spend time on developing Fading Frames, a new site-responsive multidisciplinary project exploring The Ruin as a physical and metaphysical phenomenon focusing on its relationship with the displaced person. The project features collaboration with various migrant artists, responding to a mixture of ancient and contemporary ruins in the UK and abroad telling stories of displacement. Alongside this, I will receive mentorship from experienced producers to develop my producing practice specifically as an independent producer creating multidisciplinary socially-engaged work.
My website: https://www.niktamohammadi.com/,
My Instagram handle: @nik_la_flaneuse
Image Description: portrait of a woman with dark eyes in her 30s with a blue scarf wrapped around her head looking at the camera. Her face is at an angle. She has small white flowers behind her ears.
Bursary Reflection
Migration Stories bursary contributed towards my time as I was developing early stages of Fading Frames, a new site-responsive multidisciplinary project exploring The Ruin as a physical and metaphysical phenomenon, focusing on its relationship with the displaced person.
The project features collaboration with various migrant artists, responding to a mixture of ancient and contemporary ruins in the UK and abroad, telling stories of displacement. This included working on an Arts Council England project grant application as well as connecting and meeting with new arts professionals and creatives to grow my network in the field of contemporary Arts and Performance with a focus on developing a more international network.
Through the bursary and the introductions made by Producer Gathering, I met with a number of producers, artists and creatives consultants. All the meetings resulted in conversations which offered valuable insights and learnings covering subjects such as creative journey, international collaboration and partnerships, production models, funding challenges, sustainability for a freelancer and more. A couple of these meetings led to building relationships beyond the programme, most notably with a producer, Naomi Russel, whom I will be working with on an upcoming project.
As well as the connections and relationships built, the financial support provided a much-needed respite as I was working through this development phase. It is particularly challenging to get paid for my time while in early stages of a project, during network building, or more broadly, developmental activities. The bursary allowed me to do this work with more freedom and ease of mind without the financial pressure a freelancer faces in these instances.
One of the crucial learnings from this period for me was the importance of flexibility and creativity as I am building my career as a freelance artist and producer. With a shifting and challenging funding landscape in the UK, looking at new financial models such as co-production, which can support a more organic approach to international collaboration and partnership building, feels vital.
Another critical learning was the importance of rest and self-care, which can often go overlooked for producers and freelancers, for whom burnout is seen as a natural and recurring condition.
Speaking to independent creatives and producers at different stages of their careers helped me understand the importance of rest for meaningful and sustainable growth, and I am hoping to take this learning to the next stage of my work. Pause: A Self-Care Support for Producers, a new resource which was launched by Producer Gathering during my time with the programme provided further valuable insights on this subject.
As a freelance producer and artist who often works project to project, it is challenging to find the time and more importantly the headspace to look ahead and plan strategically for my own career.
Migration Stories bursary offered me the space (in a small but meaningful way) to pause, think, connect and dream.
