Delhi Makes Meaning
There is a fantastic and fascinating cultural scene in Delhi. It’s home and host to one of the most interesting art collectives in the world, the Raqs Media Collective. This is a group of three people who are connected to a magnificent network of artistic organizations, disorganizations, and projects that take place locally and globally and makes the head start to spin, pleasantly and right away. They began working together in the early 90s, when they all graduated from the Mass Communications Research Center at Jamia Millia Islamia university in Delhi. Five star hotels were not necessarily in mind when they began, and may never have intended to become famous, and the truth is that they fly way too far under the radar, and are way too savvy to embrace anything like public appreciation.
They do work and they make art and they speak about the work and it’s multiple connections in a world of multiple connections. Since then, it’s been one amazing project after another, and their way of working is a lot like their early documentary work, formally very difficult, but difficult only because it’s brilliant. One of its members, Shuddhabrata Sengupta attends conferences in Vienna, speaking of open cultures, speaking to an open source community about the way we might be able to think if we allow ourselves the opportunity.
The connections are endless and very exciting. It’s almost enough to wonder if, when we were all traveling last summer, on the train from Linz to Trento, did we know we were entering into a network where we might meet the members of Raqs? Were they there when we were sleeping in an installation that was open to artists while they were traveling, with free rent if they were willing to be observed? Were we observed? We don’t know, because we were busy observing ourselves, and our own obsessions with creating cultures that connect, and chasing after the same specters of cities that Sengupta was after in Cambridge. And when we came back, there was only a matchbox from Delhi left with a phone number that we can no longer read.
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