Nausheen Javed is a multidisciplinary artist, filmmaker, and visual storyteller whose practice navigates the intersections of gender, religion, identity, and silence within South Asian domestic and communal contexts. Drawing from her lived experiences in India, Germany, and the U.S., she creates emotionally resonant narratives through animation, film, graphic novels, and installation.
Nausheen studied Animation Film at the National Institute of Design in Ahmedabad, Experimental Animation at the Academy of Media Arts Cologne (KHM), and Integrated Digital Media at the New York University. Her early work Her Long Nails (2014) challenged societal taboos around female sexuality, while her diploma film Them People (2020) examined religious identity as a mechanism of separation.
Her fellowship project, Dhobi Ki Ladki (The Washerman’s Daughter), reimagines a childhood short story into a graphic novel and future animated film. The project delves into the culture of passivity and unspoken surveillance within tightly knit South Asian neighborhoods, while exploring social hierarchy, silence, and complicity within the caste system. By reinterpreting the story in graphic novel form, Nausheen creates a work that emphasizes intimate pacing, visual metaphor, and cross-cultural accessibility, while reflecting on how silence enforces conformity—particularly for girls under the intersecting pressures of class, caste, and gender.
After working as a Creative Director in India and New York, Nausheen returns to KHM for the FG exMedia Fellowship (April–September 2025) to reconnect with the deeply personal, research-driven storytelling that defines her artistic voice. This fellowship offers her the opportunity to continue creating work that challenges and inspires the animation and expanded media community.
