Rubini Naidu (b. 1994, Detroit) is a visual artist and impact strategist based in Detroit, United States and Chennai, India. Her work explores identity, empathy, and decolonial reimagining – framing photography as a social practice and using collaborative storytelling and participatory design to create restorative experiences for people and communities.

Naidu’s work fosters connection with oneself and amongst each other. Working with digital and analogue documentary photography and portraiture, alongside social practices of community engagement and facilitation, Naidu creates projects that merge imagemaking, facilitation, and research for collective reflection. Her work reflects hopefulness in the human spirit, leaning into womanhood and Tamil roots as sources of ancestral wisdom.

Naidu has had a solo exhibition at the Ann Arbor Downtown Library (2025) and group exhibitions with Cluster Museum (2025) and Photoville (2025, 2024). She has received a Creative Residency in Michigan Central (2025) and a Fulbright in India (2018-19). Naidu’s background in grassroots and philanthropy in India, East Africa, and the United States, including roles at the Bill & Melinda Gates Institute of Population and Reproductive Health and with the Foundation for Sustainable Development, informs her work.

Naidu holds an M.A. in Sociocultural Anthropology from Columbia University and a B.S. in Psychology from Carnegie Mellon University. Naidu founded and is currently building Empact, a community and studio practice where she continues to explore empathy.

For commissions and collaborations, please contact via rubini[at]rubininaidu.com or +1 248 231 8247.

For CV, view here.