The Primary Education of the Autodidact, commissioned by the Audain Gallery, is out of a series of works by Raqs Media Collective that explores knowledge, power, utterance, and silence. It directly addresses the notion and problematic of the autodidact, and also attests to the autodidacticism of the collective’s own diverse body of work and working method.

“The autodidact may be at a loss for words, but she has other ideas. Her books are unwritten, but not unread. There are some things that need saying that words can never say. There begins the primary education of the autodidact. No prayers, no petitions, no apologies – just acts that surf potential waves, creating new terms for thinking, knowing, and being the world.”