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.

Sweeping

SweepingShown at: FirstSite, Colchester, United Kingdom (2018) | ‘Spinal’, Frith Street Gallery, London, United Kingdom (2019) Looped videoDuration, 7’12” A performing body enacts the labour of cleaning, much like the working bodies of the non-soldiers in the War. The landscape where the act of sweeping is being performed reaches hand-coloured abstraction.

Dreaming

DreamingShown at: FirstSite, Colchester, United Kingdom (2018) | ‘Spinal’, Frith Street Gallery, London, United Kingdom (2019) Looped video,Duration, 2’19” IIn Dreaming, a sergeant looks on at  a spinning shrouded figure, seen against what looks like a moonscape, as he overlooks a performer who is sleeping. 

Nerves

NervesShown at: ‘Not Yet at Ease’, FirstSite, Colchester, United Kingdom (2018) | ‘Spinal’, Frith Street Gallery, London, United Kingdom (2019) Mural, Text and Drawings transferred in Vinyl 140 meter long curving wall The bold blue colour that forms the ground of Nerves is inspired by the Hospital Blues uniform worn by convalescing soldiers in British military […]

Spinal

SpinalShown at: ‘Not Yet at Ease’, FirstSite, Colchester, United Kingdom (2018) | ‘Spinal’, Frith Street Gallery, London, United Kingdom (2019) Video Duration, 10′ 24″ Spinal is a study of the vertebral column that brings together an anatomical model and a dancer’s body in a conversation of gestures, stances, steps, positions, and caresses. The positions traced […]

Provisions for everybody (film)

Provisions for Everybody Shown at: AV Festival, Newcastle (2018)| Project 88, Mumbai (2018)| Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha (2019) Single screen, Video, FurnitureDuration, 50′ Provisions for Everybody inscribes an eccentric itinerary on and off the trail of George Orwell that accompanies a reading of ‘The Road to Wigan Pier’. Traveling between Northern England, Eastern India, […]

Provisions for everybody

With Provisions for Everybody, Raqs offers a weave of thoughts found on the the road; as well as images, calculations, texts, textures and textiles which accompany and aid the the task of re-imagining the relation between potential and plenitude.

Three Shadows

In Three Shadows, the dancing figures in white have been isolated and animated to render them into ghostly spinning specters.

Thicket

A thicket is a concentration of living matter. In forests, gardens, and fields, thickets rise where different plant species find it possible to thrive together in a wild celebration of life itself. Conversations too can have thickets; points of intersection of lines of force.  Raqs Media Collective’s presence at Tate Exchange (December 14 – 20, […]

Re Run

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.

Diver’s at Work

The diver, maybe she is a specter, maybe he is a submarine apparition. Diving, we are  closer to the surface of the earth than an astronaut, but the paradoxical nature of a submarine horizon makes for an experience that envelopes and recedes at the same time. We could recognize this paradox as key to an awareness of our experience of the contemporary.