Flying Circus Project 2007 : Travelogue

Information Singapore Programme Ho Chi Minh Programme
Information Singapore Programme Ho Chi Minh Programme Ho Chi Minh Programme

Residency by Raqs Media Collective in Vietnam

For the first time, The FCP 2007 has invited artists to an extended residency in South East Asia.  This is unique as the residency does not take place in Singapore, it involves travelling through Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City and Vietnam.  Unlike any residencies, the central spine is the intimate one-to-one conversations with intellectuals and artists covering a wide spectrum of different subjects both in the indian experience and the vietnamese experience.

Raqs Media Collective 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.

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 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. Currently, Raqs Media Collective is co-curating Manifesta 2008 (Biennial of Contemporary European Art) in the Sud Tyrol-Alto Adige Region of Northern Italy.

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