Dawinder Bansal is an award-winning British artist, producer and presenter who creates and shares stories using theatre, moving image and immersive art installations. Fascinated by people’s lived experience and their stories, her work is informed by her cultural heritage as well as contemporary stories. Dawinder unearths hidden stories to entertain, inspire and subtly provoke audiences to rethink people’s experiences: both the commonalities and the differences.
In 2017 Dawinder re-created her family’s Indian Kenyan living room and shop in an evocative art installation at Wolverhampton Art Gallery, Jambo Cinema was subsequently commissioned at New Art Exchange, Nottingham and Barbican Centre for Leytonstone Loves Film Festival.
Future projects include Curious Objects of Women's Independence for Warwick Arts Centre in 2022. Previous commissions include Asian Women and Cars: Road To Independence – exploring the untold stories of first generation Asian women who learned to drive in the UK. It was presented at the V&A and won the Best Creative Media Award 2019. Other projects include a short film and podcast, We Found Love in the 80s, for which she has partnered with musician Martyn Ware, founder of The Human League and Heaven 17, to celebrate couples who found love in the 80s. The film will premiered as part of Leytonstone Loves Film produced by the Barbican on October 2nd 2020. The Making of a South Asian Wedding for the National Festival of Making and Mother Tongues from Farther Lands for the Southbank Centre.
Dawinder is a finalist for the National Diversity Awards 2021 in category of Positive Role Model. She is a fellow at the Royal Society of Arts; serves on the Diversity Board at ITV Central, and is an Arts Advisor to the prestigious Jerwood Arts Foundation and a trustee at Wolverhampton Grand Theatre. In 2017 Dawinder was recognised at the Asian Women of Achievement Awards.