Nitish Jain

Performance maker, architect, educator – Lucknow, India / Prague, Czech Republic
Participant International Forum 2024

Nitish Jain’s artistic practice crosses the mediums of performance art, architecture, storytelling and making objects. Interested in exploring non-visual aesthetics, he invites audiences to sense rather than see art by incorporating touch, taste, smell, listening and vision in different ways. His approach to the senses draws from phenomenology and the Indian rasa aesthetics (denoting essence, flavour or evocative phenomena). He believes that sensory art is an antidote to the politics of hate, race and gender.

Based in Prague, Czechia, Nitish Jain was born in Lucknow, India. He completed his architectural training and license (2012) from India, and a Masters in Arts (scenography, 2018) from DAMU, Prague. He is the recipient of the National Architectural Thesis Award (2012) awarded by the Council of Architecture, India. 

Nitish Jain makes multi-sensory experiences with his artistic company Studio MoreThanThat. His recent works include intimate performances such as “In All Its Glory” (2023) and “First-Hand” (2024); one-to-one theatre – “Spoonfed” (2019); participatory installation – “Cartography of the Disappeared Cosmos” (2023); and interactive objects such as “Ticklish Fruits” (2022) and “The Forest Indoors: Moss Carpets for Feet” (2023). His works have been showcased at several international festivals such as the Wiesbaden Biennale of Art, Mala Inventura and Sharjah Days of Heritage Festival, and in regions and communities across Czechia, Norway, the UK and India.