»Where Do You Wander Alone?« with Raqs Media Collective
The online lecture series »Transformation – Unfolding the Future« will be crowned with Raqs Media Collective in December!
Since December 2, 2020, 7 pm you can find the video lecture »Where Do You Wander Alone?« by Raqs Media Collective, on our Vimeo channel. In a live conversation on December 16, 2020, 4 pm, you will have the opportunity to talk directly with Jeebesh Bagchi, Monica Narula and Shuddhabrata Sengupta. The talk will be hosted by current fellows Olivia Berkowicz and Viktorija Šiaulytė.
For the live conversation with Raqs Media Collective on Wednesday, December 16, 2020, at 4 pm, advance reservation is required. Please register at: register@akademie-solitude.de
There is a limited number of participants.
Video lecture: from Wednesday, December 2, 2020, 7 pm (CET)
Online conversation: Wednesday, December 16, 2020, 4 pm (CET), hosted by Olivia Berkowicz and Viktorija Šiaulytė
In »Where Do You Wander Alone?« Raqs Media Collective reads the poetry of robots and rebel princesses, thinks from the vantage point of deep time and deep space, and considers transformations in thinking, feeling, living and acting.
While doing this, Raqs recognize the elusive primacy of insubstantial »nothing« as a binding principle between objects and awareness. Their insistence on this primacy of nothingness is not an admission of ontological failure or epistemic collapse; rather it is a recognition of the fact that what binds one thing to another cannot be easily named, marked, or numbered. This radical uncertainty can be an occasion, not for the paralysis of awareness, but for transformative joy. Then, the question »Where Do You Wander Alone?« can be seen for what it is – a signpost marking a moment of expanding sentience in an unfolding cosmic adventure
Raqs Media Collective was formed in 1992 by Jeebesh Bagchi, Monica Narula and Shuddhabrata Sengupta. The word »raqs« in several languages denotes an intensification of awareness and presence attained by whirling, turning, being in a state of revolution. Raqs Media Collective take this sense to mean »kinetic contemplation« and a restless and energetic entanglement with the world, and with time. Raqs enlists objects such as an early-modern tiger-automata from Southern India, or a biscuit from the Paris Commune, or a cup salvaged from an ancient Mediterranean shipwreck, to turn them into devices to sniff and taste time. Devices are deployed in order to undertake historical subterfuge and fabulist adventures. Raqs practices across several media; making installation, sculpture, video, performance, text, lexica, and curation. Their work finds them at the intersection of contemporary art, philosophical speculation and historical enquiry.
The members of Raqs Media Collective live and work in Delhi/India. In 2001, they co-founded the Sarai program at CSDS New Delhi and ran it for a decade, where they also edited the Sarai Reader series. They have shown extensively globally, as well as curated numerous exhibitions, including the Shanghai Biennale 2016, »Why Not Ask Again?«. They were the Artistic Directors for the recently-concluded Yokohama Triennale 2020, »Afterglow«, where they developed sources around toxicity, care, and the luminosity of friendship, with artists, and publics.
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Image: Agnieszka Mastalerz, »Mould«, 2025, 7min 21sec, film frame. Performers: Adrianna Mrowiec (and choreographer), Agnieszka Janosz, Director of Photography: Marcin Gołąb. The film was financed by the Young Poland Scholarship for 2024, granted by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage.
Rachel Gill, »The Eight Positions or Could This Go on Forever?«, 2024. Performer: Chelsea Hecht. Photo: Anna Witenberg.
Design: Basics09