Nimi Ravindran

Nimi Ravindran likes to think of herself as a theatremaker and artist, though she admits that  she doesn’t make as much art as she would like to. She also writes, but again, not as much as she should. She is also the co-founder and joint artistic director of the Bangalore-based arts collective – Sandbox Collective. (www.sandboxcollective.org).

Over the last 12 years her work as one of the members at Sandbox Collective has been to steer the organisation as well as to create small, intimate spaces for the arts for both performers and audiences alike. This includes a permanent feminist library as part of Studio 345, an open space that houses a studio, an open kitchen and a residency space. All events and encounters at Studio 345 are free and open to all. 

Besides all this, she enjoys creating programs and encounters that are centered around books, literature, theatre, performance and creativity. 

She has also been an educator at various institutions over the last 20 years teaching theatre and creative writing.

She is also a facilitator of workshops and training modules on feminist leadership as well as workshops on reframing and rethinking creativity. 

Nimi has worked in the theatre and the arts in multiple capacities for nearly 30 years. As a performer in her initial years, and later as a director and dramaturg (without knowing that was what it was called!). She has also been part of several initiatives and projects across the country, she was on the core team of Ranga Shankara from 1999-2006. She is also a founding member of The Company Theatre Workspace, and conceived, conceptualised and led the fund-raiser that resulted in the buying of land where the Workspace is located in Kamshet, rural Maharashtra in Pune District. She continues to serve on the board of The Company Theatre as part of the Workspace. 

She has also produced several theatre productions as an independent producer over the years. She founded and ran a theatre company ‘Just Theatre’ for over 12 years. She directed and produced several plays and ran workshops for Just Theatre’ including Butter and Mashed Banana, Park, Hedda Gabler and Somewhat Like a Balloon. She directed Five Grains of Sugar, Seduction of Lady Anne and Trivial Disasters for the same theatre group.  At Sandbox Collective she directed Trivial Disasters and Park. Her Independent recent work includes On a Different Note (co-directed with Vinod Ravindran) – a site specific theatre production with a women’s choir from Goa, created in collaboration with music directors Parvesh Java and Maria. She has also created and directed three workshop productions of Harold Pinter’s Mountain Language in both English and Kannada. Her most recent work is an exhibition performance titled To Forget is to Remember is to Forget comprising video art, interactive installations, text and solo performance. 

As part of Sandbox Collective she is also currently part of an Indo-German collaborative theatre production titled ‘Wait to be Seated’  in association with the German feminist theatre collective She She Pop which will premier in India in November 2025 and in Berlin in March 2026. 

Her current obsession is with the idea of Memory. What do we Remember and why? What do we forget and how? And, what constitutes the inheritance of loss?  She is currently exploring a book, an interactive  platform to explore memory, a series of podcasts or audio recordings as well as a national wide tour of the exhibition performance.