It was an honor to interview Smita Sen. We got to learn about Smita’s artistry, community leadership and work as an educator. Check out our conversation below!

Hello Smita! When did you begin creating art and what was your motivation to start?

I began my professional career as an artist at about 20 years old. That was a little different from my origin as an artist, where my original work as an artist began when I was very young. I originally started as a dancer. I was training as a dancer here in Miami at a school called Armour Dance, which was previously the Miami Conservatory of Ballet. It’s a special community-based organization that offers technical excellence and treats every child as an individual. Armour Dance serves the Miami-Dade County community in a variety of different ways, making people feel safe in their bodies and supported as movers. It was really through being a student there that I felt empowered as a dancer. As I got older at the professional level, I started to integrate the creative voice that I was able to develop at a young age into something more complex that I could offer as a grown lady in this world.

I felt I could make something that could have meaning for others, meaning for myself and that would connect people in a way that is empowering. This kept me motivated to keep making art.

What forms of art do you use to express your vision?

I started with movement and dance which brought me closer to visual art where visual art was also a way to support my self-expression when I couldn’t dance properly when I had injuries that would prevent me from doing large-scale performances. Visual art supported me through those transition periods. Eventually, dance and visual art started to connect where one would support the other.

Anna from Manipura: Of Flower and Bones (2019)

The Body Drawings

The Body Drawings

Writing was always a big, intimate part of my practice and being able to organize my thoughts into words incorporating those into performance and visual pieces became significant. In recent years, I have been able to transform my recent practice into dance filmmaking, which brings together a clear and coherent vision of my total works of art. I love all of the various art forms for different reasons at different times in a way that brings everything together in a meaningful way.

In your artist statement the following is mentioned, “working with sculpture, advanced technology and performance, I investigate in my practice the dynamic relationship between the body and memory”. Can you explain more about what you meant by that and how you came about creating your artwork based on body and memory?

Absolutely! I think that this idea of starting my practice as a dancer drove me in the direction of trying to understand my body and how memory sits in my body and our bodies over time. It was this kind of very profound exploration where I would look at where memories would be localized in different parts of the body. Take for example, one of the things that is being studied right now in medicine is the fact that a lot of recipients of organ transplants will take on the memories and the preferences of the person who donated the organ, which is fascinating. Memory is not just something that sits in the mind, it’s something that is nestled in different corners of the body in unusual and unexpected ways.

There is always this kind of popular vernacular, this popular understanding of “muscle memory” that things just sit inside of us. Whether we remember it in our minds or not like riding a bike. There is something very real and tangible to that. I take those ideas and I try to identify specific experiences in my memories – embodied lived experiences.

I was a palliative caregiver to my dad. I thought about the interdependence of ourselves, our senses and our physical bodies. I was attentive to how his breathing would change or how it would sound when he was struggling to get up. I would start to become sensitive. Most caregivers build up that sensitivity when they are taking care of someone who is very sick with palliative needs.

A lot of my artwork started to examine that on an interpersonal level. I am sort of building upon those ideas where I am thinking about hereditary illness and what we inherit from the people that are a part of us. What becomes a part of us and what doesn’t and in what ways? It is very deep because memory is a part of all of us and bodies are a part of all of us. It’s like this kind of universal set of questions that I’ve been interested in exploring for a long time and it’s been really rewarding to explore.

What places and spaces have you presented your artwork?

I’ve been presenting my artwork in different spaces across the United States and internationally. Some of the venues I’ve shared my work in include the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City. I was able to perform there last year (2024) in June and that was a huge honor. It was really amazing and really special to be performing in that space. I performed in one of the basement theaters. I crawled up the audience passageway then, I came onto the stage then, came down. I did my 35-minute performance called, Rituals of Sacred Surrender, which is a collaboration with Trina Basu. That was really special! I’ve also performed at other venues including Recess, which is a wonderful abolitionist art space in Brooklyn, as well as, the Brooklyn Public Library. I’ve performed around Miami as well at the Aspen Ideas Festival. I’ve also shown at the Museum of Contemporary Art and other venues too.

I think my earliest international showing was in Dubai in the UAE. That was really exciting as well! I’m hoping to spend more time sharing work in India and South Asia, where my family is from.

Do you have any work that is being exhibited anywhere that the public can go and see? 

The work that is currently available for folks to view is at the Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami. The Embodied exhibition is my first museum solo exhibition in Florida, where I’ve exhibited previously in other parts of the country, but, this is my first in Florida, so, this has been special. It’s a large selection of my works over the last ten years from dance films to drawings to sculptures, as well as, performance documentation. I hope folks can go see it.

Can you tell us about your background as an educator and how it links to the arts?

Yes! I build design technology programs for different schools and I teach all ages. I love working with students to help them build a technical skill set that they can use for different parts of their life if they are thinking about going down a technical career path or if they want to get jobs in design and technology.

I try to offer simultaneity, where they can be a wild and courageous creative young person and build skills that can support them for the rest of their lives. Those two things are not antithetical to one another. It’s something that I wanted as a child so, I’m happy to offer it to others.

Being an educator has made me a better and smarter artist. It has made me better at leading community dialogues. Students are pretty fantastic about expressing when they connect with something and when they do not. I think educating has pushed me to really notice what people respond to when viewing artwork. It’s good to see what stays with my students no matter how abstract, unpredictable or strange. It’s interesting to see what has an impact on them and why. It’s been really rewarding and I love working in education.

You are also a community leader. As a leader of a Miami-based arts education nonprofit. Can you tell us a bit about that nonprofit, its mission and your role in it?

Sure! The Manipura Care Network was supported by one of the arts organizations that supported my artwork. This arts organization is known as Recess. Recess gave me the seed funding to start the organization. We provide arts education experiences to youth caregivers and young people who care for sick elderly or disabled family members.

An enormous part of founding this organization is that it reflects a part of my story. Art became one of the key sources of catharsis, self-understanding and self-reflection when I was caring for my dad so, I wanted to offer the same source of support in a really robust and educational framework for youth caregivers. We are in our third year of operation. We’ve run some really successful Summer programs and workshop series. The students we worked with have been shining and it’s lovely to see how much they have grown over time, how they express themselves over time, how they connect with each other and with their work. It’s been special to lead this organization.

Leading an organization takes a lot of time and a lot of sensitivity. You have to really spend a lot of time building a meaningful network of community partners. You have to make sure families are on board and that they feel supported. All of that has to happen so, I’m grateful that we can do it and that we made it this far.

What about Miami do you love in comparison to New York City?

I love Miami! I think Miami is my home, it’s where I grew up. I think that there is a strong sense of artists supporting each other and coming together. It’s small so everybody has to stay connected to their roots and to where they come from. I love New York but, for different reasons. The libraries are amazing, I think the museums are amazing, and I think the people are motivated to create community-driven initiatives. It’s just so different. One is not necessarily better than the other but, I do think that I really appreciated New York for what it taught me in terms of the strength of one’s concepts like you have to stay true to what you are doing and why you are doing it. You have to believe in the sincerity of the work for it to cut through the noise. New York taught me a lot of critical skills in terms of learning how to be a caring and thoughtful artist and then, being able to bring that back to Miami, which is so supportive and so, open, warm and nurturing has been awesome.

It was wonderful learning all about your journey through the world of art. Thank you so much, Smita for your time.

Thank you! Have a wonderful rest of your day.

Contact Smita Sen

Website: www.smitaksen.com

Instagram: www.instagram.com/smitatims

Photos Courtesy Of Smita Sen