Raqs Media Collective
*1992
(Monica Narula, Jeebesh Bagchi, Shuddhabrata Sengupta)
Raqs Media Collective is based in Delhi, India.
Raqs is a word in Persian, Arabic and Urdu and means the state that "whirling dervishes" enter into when they whirl. Raqs signifies and embodies the practice of a kinetic contemplation of the world. It
is also a word used for dance.
Raqs Media Collective (Jeebesh Bagchi, Monica Narula & Shuddhabrata Sengupta) has been variously described as artists, media practitioners, curators, researchers, editors and catalysts of cultural processes. Their work, which has been exhibited widely in major international spaces and events, locates them squarely along the intersections of contemporary art, historical enquiry, philosophical speculation, research and theory - often taking the form of installations, online and offline media objects, performances and encounters.
They live and work in Delhi, based at Sarai, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, an initiative they co-founded in 2000. They are members of the editorial collective of the Sarai Reader series, and have curated "The Rest of Now" and co-curated "Scenarios" for Manifesta 7 (2008).
The collective began working together in 1991.
From the Wikipedia Entry on Raqs Media Collective: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raqs_Media_Collective)
"Raqs Media Collective was formed in 1992 by independent media practitioners
Jeebesh Bagchi, Monica Narula and Shuddhabrata Sengupta. Based in Delhi, their
work engages with urban spaces and global circuits, persistently welding a sharp,
edgily contemporary sense of what it means to lay claim to the world from the
streets of Delhi. At the same time, Raqs articulates an intimately lived
relationship with myths and histories of diverse provenances. Raqs sees its work
as opening out a series of investigations with image, sound, software, objects,
performance, print, text and lately, curation, that straddle different (and
changing) affective and aesthetic registers, expressing an imaginative unpacking
of questions of identity and location, a deep ambivalence towards modernity and
a quiet but consistent critique of the operations of power and property.
In 2001 Raqs co-founded Sarai (www.sarai.net) at the Centre for the Study of
Developing Societies (CSDS) in Delhi where they coordinate media productions,
pursue and administer independent research and practice projects and also work
as members of the editorial collective of the Sarai Reader series. For Raqs, Sarai is
a space where they have the freedom to pursue interdisciplinary and hybrid
contexts for creative work and to develop a sustained engagement with urban
space and with different forms of media."
Curatorial Exhibitions
2008 Steps Away from Oblivion, "Indian Highway", Serpentine Gallery, London
2008 The Rest of Now, Manifesta 7, Sud Tyrol/Trentino Alto Adige, Italy
2008 Scenarios, Manifesta 7, Sud Tyrol/Trentino Alto Adige, Italy (co-curated
with Adam Budak, Anselm Franke, Hila Peleg)
2007 Building Sight, Watermans Gallery, London
2006 Building Sight, On Difference #2, Kunstverein Stuttgart
Solo Exhibitions
2009 The Surface of each day is a different planet, Lightbox, Tate Britain, London
(forthcoming, September 2009)
2009 When the scales fall from your eyes, Ikon, Birmingham (23 July - 6 September)
2009 Escapement, Frith Street Gallery, London (7 july – 30 September)
2009 Decomposition, Asia Art Archive, Hong Kong
2006 The KD Vyas Correspondence, Vol.1, Museum of Communications, Frankfurt
2006 There Has Been a Change of Plan, Nature Morte Gallery, New Delhi
2005 They Called it the XXth Century, Kunstlerhaus Stuttgart
2004 The Impostor in the Waiting Room, Bose Pacia Gallery, New York
2004 The Wherehouse, Palais des Beaux Arts, Brussels
2004 The Listening Room, Das TAT, Frankfurt
2003 The Co-ordinates of Everyday Life, Roomade, Brussels
Public Art Projects
2008 "Unusually adrift along the shoreline", Neighbourhood Secrets,
Stavanger/Sandnes
Selected Lecture Performances
2009 Photographs and Phantoms, Prefix 'Urban Field' Lecture Series, Toronto
2009 Talking to KD Vyas, Leonard and Bina Ellen Galleries, Montreal
2009 The Pupil Dilates in Darkness (3 parts), The New Museum, New York
2008 Transhumance, Frieze Art Fair Lecture Series
2006 The Anthropometry of the Soul, iniVA, London
2004 The Listening Room, (with andcompany&co), Das TAT, Frankfurt
Selected Group Exhibitions
2011 Conundrum, Nature Morte, Berlin
2011 "Indian Highway IV"- Lyon Museum of Contemporary Art, France
2010 Treacherous Path, Nature Morte Berlin
2009 Whose Exhibition is this?, Taipei Fine Arts Museum (forthcoming, September)
2009 Chalo India, Essl Museum, Vienna (forthcoming, September-November)
2010 Indian Highway, Herning Kunstmuseum, Denmark (forthcoming Jan-May)
2011-2008 Experimental Geography, Travelling Exhibition (Canada + USA)
2009 Indian Highway, Astrup Fearnley Museum, Oslo
2009 - 2008 A Question of Evidence, Thyssen Bornemisza Art Contemporary,
Vienna
2008 Indian Highway, Serpentine Gallery, London
2008 Chalo India, Mori Museum, Tokyo
2008 The Art of Participation: 1950 to Now, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
2008 Collection as Aleph, Kunst Museum Graz
2008 Territorial Phantom, Netherlands Media Art Institute
2008 The Santhal Family, MUHKA, Antwerp
2007 Horn Please, Kunstmuseum Berne
2007 Urban Manners, HANGAR BICOCCA, Milan
2007 Not only possible but also necessary, Istanbul Biennial, Istanbul
2007 India: New Installations, Mattress Factory, Pittsburgh
2007 Shooting Back, Thyssen Bornemisza Art Contemporary, Vienna
2007 The Thermocline of Art, ZKM, Karlsruhe
2007 Touring Show, Rhizome.Org at the New Museum of Contemporary Art
http://rhizome.org/events/timeshares/
2007 World Factory, San Francisco Art Institute, San Francisco
2007 Art of the Possible, Lund Konsthall, Lund
2006 Dictionary of War, Graz
2006 Academy: Learning from Art, MuHKA, Antwerp
2006 Public Moment, Seoul
2006 Utopia Station_Free Speech, Davis Centre, Princeton University
2006 Janken: The Power of Chance, Ogaki Biennale of New Media Art, Ogaki
2006 Sub-contingent, Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin
2006 Zones of Contact, Sydney Biennial, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney
2006-2007 The Backroom, San Francisco (New Langton Arts and San
Francisco Camerawork), Los Angeles (Culver City), Mexico City (University
Claustro de Sor Juana), Paris (Kadist Art Foundation)
2006 Dark Places, Santa Monica Museum of Art, California
2006 - 2005 Digital Discourse, Malta
2005 Linked, Govett-Brewster Gallery, New Plymouth, New Zealand
2005 Cultural Futures, AUT, Auckland
2005 Icon: India Contemporary, 51st Venice Biennale, Venice
2005 Beyond, 2nd Guangzhou Triennial, Guangzhou
2005 Citizen, London, Leicester, Belfast
2005 Ephemeral Cities: A Project Space, Deptford X, London
2004 Adaptations, Apex Gallery New York + Fredricianum, Kassel
2004 International 04, Tate Gallery Café, Liverpool Biennial, Liverpool
2004 Do you Believe in Reality?, Taipei Beinnial 2004, Taipei
2004 Globalia, Frauen Museum, Bonn
2004 ISEA 2004, Tallinn
2003 The Structure of Survival, 50th Venice Biennale, Venice
2003 Utopia Station, 50th Venice Biennale, Venice
2003 How Latitudes Become Forms, Walker Art Centre, Minneapolis
2003, Geography and the Politics of Mobility, Generali Foundation, Vienna
2002 Invisible Cities, Belfast
2002 Kingdom of Piracy, Ars Electronica, Linz
2002 Emocao Art.Ficial, Itau Cultural Centre, Sao Paulo
2002 Documenta 11, Kassel
Print Projects
Seepage
Book of Essays and Images by Raqs
Sternberg Press (forthcoming, October 2009)
TimeBook
Artist Book
One Star Press, Paris
Three Cubic Conundrums
Story Cubes, Proboscis, London, 2008
http://diffusion.org.uk/?p=898
The Surface of Each Day
Artists and Activists Pamphlet Series, Printed Matter Publications, New York,
2008
ISBN 978-0-89439-033-3
Point D'Ironie, Issue # 28
Commissioned by Agnès B + Hans Ulrich Obrist (in association with
Documenta11)
http://www.pointdironie.com/