Asankh/ Countless | 2014

Digital Print on ACP, acrylic (6 x 4 ft.) | Untimely Calendar, solo show at NGMA (2014)

The entire Japji Saheb, composed by Guru Nanak, is contained in the opening segment of the Guru Granth Sahib. Four ‘Pauris’ (verses) in the Japji talk about numberless worlds beyond our own, and about the many kinds of countlessnesses (asankh): countless meditations, countless virtues, countless vices, countless sins, countless acts of kindness and generosity, and countless possibilities.

The material infinitude that makes up the real world, Raqs argues, is a swirling, entangled mass of vital, corporeal wills to live and exist actualized as forms of matter and sentience. Infinity has room for everyone. It contains the uncountable. With this claim on abundance, ideas of countable limitations are challenged. Instead, Raqs gesture towards a joyous, radical countless-ness. What is, multiplies.  

The fluid, surging arcs of the lemniscate – the mathematical symbol of infinity – have surfaced as a flag in New York in ‘Flag New York City’, Performa 13 (2013); a banner on a wall, encountered after moving through a tunnel marked with innumerable straight lines, in ‘It’s Possible Because It’s Possible’, CA2M, Madrid (2014).


‘Flag New York City’ The Last International, Performa 13 , New York (2013)