
Nalini Malani, Remembering Toba Tek Singh, 1998-99, video installation, 20 minutes looped, sound.
She sees the role of an artist as a social activist.
She does not adhere to one particular political ideology. For her humanity and equalityare the bases of political ideology. Her practice of art extends beyond the representation of contemporary India to locating it within a global and historical context. This for her becomes possible in this hyper-digital age where it has become easier to counteract crimes against humanity as a collective as more and more artists use these media to reach out. She is reacts against consumerism, development myths, nuclear trials, and the dehumanising of her city Mumbai as it loses its natural spaces. The function of art then for her is to provoke people into thinking, to protect the rights of the disenfranchised. Her City of Desires, 1992, is done as a continuous drawing as people came and viewed. The fresco is destroyed at the end of the performance to protest against the vandalism and destruction of 19th century fresco painting in Nathdwara. The video remains the only surviving record of that work.

Nalini Malani, City of Desires, 1992, installation, ephemeral wall drawings and paintings, 427 x 1830 cm.
Much of her work is inspired by stories and myths, both Western and Indian.

Nalini Malani, Listening to the Shades, (panel 42 of 57), 2008, acrylic, ink and enamel on acrylic sheet.
She explored varied media to reach out to a larger audience.
She was among the first Indian artists in Bombay to engage with installation and video art in an attempt to bring the audience into contact with the materiality of the issues that were being addressed. She believes, "The exigencies of certain societal conditions make you search for alternatives." She consciously took to video art after the Babri Masjid demolition. She uses beauty in her art to seduce the viewer and not alienate him/her. It comes from her attempt to develop a visual culture in India she targets those masses that do not go to art galleries.Various artistic forms have influenced her including writing and theatre. She creates multi-layered narratives as her works includes elements of traditional folk arts, shadow play, kaleidoscope lantern and Kalighat paintings with divine images.

Nalini Malani, In Search of Vanished Blood, 2012, video play.

Nalini Malani, Mother India: Transactions in the Construction of Pain, 2005, video installation, 5 projections, duration 5 1/2 minutes.