A city forgets but an archive grows. In March 2009, the Raqs Media Collective's time in Hong Kong was spent in the shadow of the vanished walls of Kowloon Walled City and between the shelves of Asia Art Archive. The transience of this sojourn inaugurated new strands in the collective's investigations into the memory and amnesia, persistence and erasure, of streets, walls and documents.

Part 1: Lecture Performance
In conclusion of their residency at the archive, Raqs Media Collective presented the results of their foray into Hong Kong in the form of a lecture performance titled 'As Transient as a Whale', with images, research notes, film fragments and stories of lost whales and found objects. Held on 26 March 2009 at Pao Galleries, Hong Kong Art Centre, the lecture performance annotated an in-situ installation at Asia Art Archive titled 'Decomposition'. The documentation of the lecture performance is now available for viewing at the Archive.

Part 2: In-situ Installation
The in-situ installation, which uses found poetry and accidental discoveries in the Archive is a playful gesture of appreciation of the labour of the archivist. It is on view from the end of March to the end of June 2009. The installation is composed of the following parts:

Two sets of jigsaw puzzles imprinted with the words Key & Mu(目) over/inside the display box: “The word Index – the key to archive and to memory – in a Chinese dictionary offers the character – Mu (目). Mu – or the eye – can also be used to begin all sorts of words including miracle, and sub-list, or catalogue or index. There is something mundane yet miraculous in the diligent labour that an archivist performs in order to transform a mass of disorderly information into a working archive. The eye, the lists that the eye makes, is the key to the delicate balance between order and decomposition in the archive.” (excerpt from the lecture performance)

- 25 pieces of tiles imprinted with the map of Kowloon Walled City during 1987 next to the Archive’s files of news clippings.

- 120 index cards individually imprinted bringing together 40 sets of prose from the titles of books, publications and catalogues held by the archive. In its own way, this assemblage can act as a MU to the holdings of the archive. The 40 stamps of prose, randomly put on 4 jewellery trays, are displayed at the reception of the Archive.

The 40 sets of prose from the AAA collection:

About Raqs Media Collective

Jeebesh Bagchi, Monica Narula and Shuddhabrata Sengupta of the tri-artist collective began their residency on 2nd March and stayed until 30th March, during which they spent their time conducting research, using the Archive’s collection and their new environment to develop a project. Throughout the month, a series of interventions, performances and events took place around the Residency.

Raqs Media Collective was formed in 1992 by Jeebesh Bagchi, Monica Narula, and Shuddhabrata Sengupta. The Collective is based in Delhi and works at Sarai, a programme at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, an initiative they co-founded in 2001.

Their work takes the form of installations, video, photography, image-text collages, media objects, performances, and encounters. They cross contemporary art practice with historical and philosophical speculation, research and theory.

The Collective has been exhibited widely in major international spaces and events including Documenta 11 (2002), the Venice Biennale (2003, 2005), the Guangzhou Triennial (2005), the Istanbul Biennial (2007), 'Chalo! India', Mori Art Museum, Tokyo (2008) and 'Indian Highway', Serpentine Gallery, London (2008). Their writings have also been published extensively. They curated 'The Rest of Now' in Bolzano/Bozen and co-curated 'Scenarios' for Manifesta 7, Italy.

For more information about Raqs Media Collective, please click here.
For their materials at the archive, please click here.

Sponsored by Sovereign Art Foundation
Supported by home2home