The word ‘para’ suggests a relationship to something that stands beside or runs tangential to another. Our ‘para-practices’ include writings and conversations that unfold in proximity—alongside other works, ideas, and processes. These may take the form of a ‘Sourcebook’ that helps stage public, discursive moments for a world with plural knowledge; a ‘Curation,’ the process of which unfolds with many, over time, to reapprehend the world; or a ‘Studio’ with students to reimagine the generative potential of margins and thresholds.

Foreground Manoeuvres

This essay investigates how the “foreground” of late capitalism—defined by ubiquitous automation, productivity triumphalism, and competitive edges—both shapes and erases social landscapes. Through a two‑act framework, Raqs first analyses the seismic shifts in the dispersal and connections in theproduction process and technology deployment. The second act examines the “production of residue”: which expressed itself with […]

We are Here But is It Now?

In a dialogue between a deep‑sea diver and a shipwrecked rhinoceros, this text reframes the present as a drifting, submarine horizon—one that arrives unevenly across contexts and often eludes capture, unlike the more predictable arc of the future. Drawing on maritime and temporal metaphors, the essay assembles a cast of figures—from the wise to the […]

Memorophilia

Raqs opens by asking “Who is Memory For?” and invokes Plotinus to suggest memory lives for those who have forgotten . A chance encounter at Paris’s Musée Guimet before a Banteay Srei frieze evokes a paradoxical mix of estrangement and familiarity, tracing a narrative that began in 200 B.C. and traveled thousands of miles and […]