Mathushaa Sagthidas

Mathushaa Sagthidas is a London-based photographer, director and set designer whose work explores culture, community and representation. Rooted in her Tamil Eelam heritage and British upbringing, her projects often respond to lived experience, history and identity.

Authenticity is central to her practice. Her acclaimed series, Not Just Brown, Not Just Indian, examines South Asian identities and has been exhibited on billboards, in publications, and in solo shows. Drawing on personal and collective histories, she creates work that foregrounds underrepresented voices and builds progressive cultural narratives.

A graduate of Camberwell College of Arts (2021), Sagthidas was named on the Forbes 30 Under 30 Europe 2024: Art & Culture list. She has an instinctual connection to colour, often using it as the starting point for her images, with framing and composition emerging from it. Her work continues to evolve across photography, set design and direction, always grounded in storytelling and community.

What colours are nostalgic for you?

Red, orange and warm tones feel nostalgic to me, especially when I think about the start of my work and the projects I was doing. They would often have red tones or orange tones going through them, and that’s the work that has got me to the position I am in now and the work I still have a lot of love for.

What role does colour play in your work?

It plays a huge role! It feels very instinctive to me and is an integral part of my work. When it comes to my still lives, I can be really particular and will sometimes frame the entire image around a specific colour. But when I am shooting subjects, it also comes from the person, and working out what colour works with them.

How do you use colour to guide emotion in your work?

It’s quite key - for example, in my recent work ‘Not Just Brown, Not Just Indian’, the colours we chose were based on what felt right for what we were trying to show. The whole concept of this piece was around our grandparents' generation - them sitting outside their homes - so the sandy colour felt really natural. And for Nepal, we used a lot of green as that is a significant colour for them. For some projects, it’s about whether the colour works on an aesthetic level, but for a lot of them, it is about whether the colour works on an emotional level.

What colour feels most like you now?

Right now I am really leaning towards blues - I’m even wearing blue right now!