Parallel Universe

The first Indians to curate the provocative Shanghai Biennale, Raqs Media Collective promise some big surprises ahead. 

- Phalguni Desai

“There will be storm gods in a chimney,” say Raqs Media Collective about what we can expect from the Shanghai Biennale 2016. The Delhi artist trio of Jeebesh Bagchi, Monica Narula and Shuddhabrata Sengupta, who insist on being quoted in one voice as the Raqs Media Collective (RMC), are curating the 11th edition of the exhibition held in the vast, state-run museum Power Station of Art. RMC will be the first Indians to curate the Shanghai Biennale, an event known for sparking critical dialogue and an exchange of ideas in a market driven industry. “There will be lunacy and gravity,” they add. “There will be chronicles of rice and rain, there will be love, black holes, space travel, sickles, an occasional hammer-headed idea, spiders and oil stains, there will be joy, laughter, tears, and crackling intelligence. There will be surprises.”

Getting your head done in by their impressive “menagerie” of references is but standard. The trio, who frequently switch hats between being artists, curators, film-makers, lecturers and thinkers, say that this menagerie features “beings and life forms that have walked into our consciousness from our previous works.” For instance, there is a runaway rhinoceros (from However Incongruous, 2011), from whom they say they learn persistence. A mysterious yaksha-yakshi pair (from Yaksha Prashna: The Riverbank Episode, 2010) that continues to pose to them “rarely asked questions and difficult riddles.” A garden of tough cacti (which often shows up in texts they’ve authored) that teaches them that “nothing is arid, not even a desert —they make us read the world differently.”