Practice is the daily ‘work’ (as verb) of art. It represents the sum of all the moves – practical, conceptual, affective, cognitive, philosophical, analytical and aesthetic – that occupies/de-occupies the state of our triangulation at any given point of time. Being contingent, this practice is a shape-shifting thing, prone to surprise itself as much it surprises others. Like a mycelial inhabitation, indeterminate and unbounded, it expands.
.MOV.ESSAYS | .MP4.PLUS | DEVICES | GATHERINGS | INTERFERENCES | INTERRUPTIONS | LEXICA | LOOPS | UNLEDGERED
1980 in Parallax Exhibition at Jencks Foundation at The Cosmic House, United Kingdom (2023) Raqs finds correspondence with Charles Jencks’ work as designer, critic, historian, concrete poet and artist, and with his Post-Modernist manifesto and former home turned Grade I listed museum, The Cosmic House. The concept of parallax describes the changing perception of objects […]
soDA magazine 19, Zurich (2002); Casebook (2014, AGYU Canada), Raqs presented the concept of “Event-shaped Hole” which translated into the essay The Event-shaped Hole and the Photographic Image in The Nordic Journal of Aesthetics, 2021 Casebook (2014, AGYU Canada) A photograph is an image of an event-shaped-hole, and as witnesses to such perforations we could […]
Every wilful misstep, every greedy grab, is an intimate intimidation to our own longer future.
The only actually shared sensation is the present continuous tense. It reconstitutes, everyday, the coarse fabric of being human, rearranging the atoms of collective experience.
A Gathering of Birds Audio loop with 3 Speakers Duration: 32:41 In the sonic range of the flight-path of a gathering of birds, we momentarily transmit to each other. We surpass contours of containment, and need no translation to be contagious.
Unledgered Installation Portals, Stories, and Other Journeys curated by Michelle Wong Tai Kwun Contemporary, JC Contemporary, Hong Kong (2021) The exhibition was based on Asia Art Archive’s research since 2014 into the personal archive of the late Hong Kong–based artist Ha Bik Chuen (1925–2009) In 2016, when Raqs Media Collective first visited Ha’s studio in […]
The Course of Love Sculpture using faceted Lenticular panels, with Found Boat Setouchi Triennale | Honjima (2019) Setouchi Triennale | Honjima wataru funa-bito / the boatman lost the rudder. kaji-wo tae / the boat is now adrift yukue mo shiranu / not knowing where it goes. koi no michi kana / is this the course […]
A singular array of surfaces in materials that range from leather to metal celebrate the essential instability of all substances
n revisiting and re-staging Cartier Bresson’s photograph in Shanghai, Raqs meet the conditions of the self-fulfilling prophecy invoked by the event captured in the original image.
This architectural installation speaks to the evolution of materials and living forms across alternative time epochs.
Utsushimi Site-specific installation at Suzu City, Oku-Noto Triennale, Japan (2017 – ongoing) Double Image / Token / Emanation Materialized Architectural Drawing in Illuminated Wireframe A double image might occur when reality exhales. In the breathing out of a form, we might see an emanation, a token of its impression in the air, on the senses. […]
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
A History of Photography Shown at: ‘Untimely Calendar’, National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi (2014) Six photographic prints2 x 2 ft. each Reading the censored letters of soldiers from the Indian sub-continent writing home in the First World War becomes a way to make a picture of the world. In this work, a selection […]
In The House of Everything and Nothing, Raqs translates their conversation traffic into a texture that clads the surface for the Gujral house in Jor Bagh, New Delhi.
Time Capsule, from 2011, is a time travel device which makes it possible for Raqs to claim its contemporaneity with the future
Seven photographic prints trace the journey of an illuminated vehicle across a liminal landscape
More Salt In Your Tears first presented as a text sculpture composed of three dimensional stainless steel letter-forms anchored on to a shallow section of seabed of the Baltic Sea near Turku, Finland.
A Dying Man Sings Of That Which Felled Him presents its viewer with a silent song of a thousand words, a bier of iron rods for the repose of a fallen man, a setting sun, and an empty chair awaiting a visitor
3 Caveats On A Barewall & 3 Caveats To Be Worn Casually are a set of inscriptions designed to be read on a bare wall, or worn as wristbands, that ask questions about viewership, curation, exhibition and distance.
Preface to a Ghost Story, 2005, is a series of black-and-white vignettes that tell the tale of an ‘unknown citizen’ who has leaped to his death, leaving behind a make-do archive for a gathering of shadows.
A Measure of Anacoustic Reason | 2005Installation with 1 projection, 4 screens, 4 dialogues, 4 lecterns, 4 benches with embedded speakers, lightbox | Exhibited at India Contemporary, Venice Biennale (2005), Thermocline of Art, Zentrum fur Kunst und Medientechnologie, Karlsruhe (2007), There has been a change of plan, Nature Morte, New Delhi (2006) A Measure of […]
A sound work about moving into, and circulating within the city of Delhi – a magnet as well as a springboard for daily migrations. Delhi is a city that wakes up to new arrivals everyday
In listing a set of latitude and longitude measurements, bracketed by two calendar years, this installation names a citycalled Delhi and a time that feels like the first two years of the twenty-first century
