A screening and discussion by Raqs Media Collective
To mark the end of their G.A.S. Farm House residency, New Delhi-based Raqs Media Collective (Monica Narula, Jeebesh Bagchi, Shuddhabrata Sengupta) are hosting a screening and discussion at G.A.S. Lagos. Raqs are the Yinka Shonibare Foundation delegates for the World Weather Network, a visionary response to the climate crisis uniting 28 arts agencies worldwide in an endeavor to create an archipelago of voices, viewpoints, and responses to one of the most pressing issues of our time.
During their time in Nigeria, Raqs have visited several heritage sites in neighboring states such as Sungbo’s Eredo, the Osun-Osogbo Sacred Groves, and the palace of the Ooni of Ife. These trips were punctuated with meetings with local architects, scholars ecologists, researchers, and artists, all coordinated as a means of conducting vital research for the World Weather Network. Raqs Media Collective are embracing this event as a means of engaging in a dialogue with the local community and sharing insights from their experiences. The evening will start with a screening of their film The Blood of Stars which will be followed by a discussion.
EVENT DETAILS
Date: 21st June 2023
Time: 6:00 - 8:30 PM
Venue: G.A.S. Lagos, 9B Hakeem Dickson Drive, off T.F. Kuboye Rd, Oniru, Lagos
Access Code: The access code will be communicated via email to all those who RSVP for the event
Raqs Media Collective at the Osun-Osogbo Sacred Groves.
A note from Raqs Media Collective
"We’ve just come back from a farm under a big sky in Ijebu-Ikise, and a deep forest in Osun-Oshogbo. Our thinking curves with the landscapes we pass through, and the forest and the farm have entered our consciousness. It may be too early to talk just yet, about what we’ve been experiencing in Nigeria. Like all good things, that will marinate, it will take time, it will emerge.
But we want to share with you now - thoughts from a different landscape - to give an indication of our method, our process, and our concerns. In the last few days, we have been thinking a lot about what connects the insides of our bodies to the far edges of deep outer space, and what this has to do with transformations of landscape, Working through and with this tangle resulted in an itinerary for a walk inside a cave, and a film - ‘The Blood of Stars’ - that looked at blood, iron and stars. Our presentation at the Guest Artist Space Foundation, Lagos, will think through this walk inside a mountain in the Arctic circle, that connects space, time, the earth, blood, and stars - ‘The Blood of Stars’. registers resonances that ricochet between mining, militarism, and the mutations that mark a remote landscape. Perhaps this can start a conversation between all our selves and all the ground we cross between us."
Raqs Media Collective at Tafawa Balewa Square, Lagos