Nexus Arts Turns 40. Kultar Ahluwalia Turns Inward

Nexus Arts, Adelaide’s beloved cultural institution, is celebrating four decades of fostering diverse and intercultural artistic practices. 

Located at the Lion Arts Centre on North Terrace, the organisation has dedicated its longstanding existence to upholding and supporting the arts in Adelaide, particularly when it comes to redressing the lack of representation of culturally diverse figures throughout the Australian arts. From its humble origins in 1984 in a custard and flour warehouse, Nexus Arts has historically given diverse or underrepresented artists a platform to showcase their worthy talents to broader audiences.

The dynamic, visionary institution proudly supports over one hundred Australian artists annually through various programs such as the Nexus Live concert series, Interplay development program, Gallery exhibition program, and studio residencies, as well as through commissioning collaborative intercultural work that allows artists to take important and necessary risks.

To celebrate its fortieth birthday, Nexus has launched a new quick response grant program, 40 for 40, funded by Creative Australia, the Adès Foundation, and other dedicated donors.

The grant is open to First Nations artists, as well as those who identify as culturally, racially, or linguistically diverse. 40 for 40 offers funding for small projects or professional development opportunities that arise on short notice. 

Additionally, Nexus Arts is deservedly celebrating its contributions to the creative scene over the past forty years by presenting a curated performance series as part of 2024’s iteration of the esteemed OzAsia Festival.

This year’s festivities will see an experimental performance by drummer Chloe Kim, the exhibition Screen Weaves by Sher Ali, and the return of Nexus alumna Parvyn with the launch of her latest album, Maujuda. 

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Kultar Ahluwalia will also be showcasing his autobiographical masterpiece The Mixed-Race Tape at Nexus Arts, which delves into his Punjabi heritage and culturally diverse background. A rapper, singer, producer, poet, husband, father, occupational therapist, music educator, writer, and creative, Ahluwalia is the perfect artist to be a part of Nexus Arts’s ongoing rich legacy.

Kultar Ahluwalia is constantly grappling with and celebrating the multiplicity inherent within his artistic identity. He is a genre-collapsing artist, and The Mixed-Race Tape is a genre-collapsing piece. These days, he wants to be everything - but it didn’t start out that way.

“It’s been more of an evolution over time, with age and maturity. As a teenager, it was all about rap, it was all about hip-hop,” he says.

His father introduced him to traditional Sikh and Punjabi music, and his mother in particular introduced him to poetry books, musical plays, and dance.

“As I’ve grown and matured, [my art] has been more of a melting pot of all my experiences. But it’s still through a hip-hop lens. It's still very much about rap and the spoken word and lyricism, but really just looking at everything holistically, and not being genre bound.”

Ahluwalia possesses entangled identities, when it comes to his personal background and his cultural practices. His work as an Occupational Therapist, for example, helps to give him a holistic viewpoint in his own artistic practices.

He explains. “So you start to think: how is the stage going to look? What's it going to feel like for the audience? So I'm thinking about the whole environment. I'm not just thinking about the songs. And I think, as well, being an Occupational Therapist has really heightened the realisation that in order to be the best version of myself, to be an effective therapist, husband, father, or whatever it is, that I need to have a strong sense of of my own identity and my own self awareness and and what makes me tick. And again, I think it's unavoidable that that's going to influence your artistic practices as well.”

In The Mixed-Race Tape, he reflects his broader understanding of his own identity, particularly when it comes to masculinity.

“I don't feel like I've ever fit into a specific box. In those pivotal teenage years when I was coming up in the hip hop scene, it was really beautiful, because I found a way to express myself. But I also feel like in a lot of ways, I tried to be hyper masculine. My music at the time was more aggressive. I was trying to match what other people were doing. I wasn't being authentic. And for me, the beautiful thing about hip hop as a culture is that it is about telling your story and being authentic. 

It comes back, again, to maturing, understanding different perspectives, and wanting truly to be the best possible version of oneself. “Allowing myself to be vulnerable again and explore elements of my creativity that I'd closed off in younger years” was life changing.

He clarifies, “I think I've always been vulnerable in my artistic practice, but there was still an element of masking, of not fully opening up for the audience. And I think it's really since I started releasing music under my birth name that I've been able to fully be myself and not feel like I need to pigeonhole myself in a certain brand or a certain scene.”

What was the breaking point that allowed him to realise that he was ready to release under his birth name?

“It coincided with two critical events, one being very personal, one being global. So my daughter was born at the end of 2019, and I consciously was like, I'm just going to take a bit of a step back from music and stop performing for a while and allow myself some time to reflect.” And then COVID-19 swept the world. “That time and space allowed for a lot of growth.”

He has reached a critical moment within his career and within himself with The Mixed-Race Tape.

“Hands down, I've never been prouder of an artistic work than at this moment,” he confirms. “It is definitely my most personal work.” Despite his pride, there is always an element of anxiety when dealing with themes that go beyond oneself, and encompass family and heritage. “I just want to make sure I'm doing justice to my family lineage, because it's not just my story, it's my whole family’s story.”

Ultimately, though, he has accepted that, “All you can do is go into these things with an open heart and an open mind and hope that you're doing honour and justice to the people that you're representing.”

It’s all culminating in a moment of joy and pride, which he is grateful to Nexus Arts for helping to facilitate. “I’ve had a lot of guidance through Nexus Arts,” he says.

Ahluwalia happens to be on the marketing team at Nexus Arts, and he is happy to confirm that, “There's just a lot of exciting things happening in the space. This is the fortieth year of Nexus being in existence. It's definitely a time of celebration and looking forward to the future.”

Celebrate Nexus Arts turning 40 years old by seeing Kultar Ahluwalia perform The Mixed-Race Tape on October 26th of November 2nd.