Raqs Media Collective
Raqs Media Collective is a group of three media practitioners – Jeebesh Bagchi, Monica Narula, and Shuddhabrata Sengupta – who live and work in New Delhi, India. The word “raqs” in several languages denotes an intensification of awareness and presence attained by whirling, turning, and being in a state of revolution. Raqs take this sense to mean ‘kinetic contemplation’ and a restless and energetic entanglement with the world, and with time. They formed in 1992 and are known for their work that spans contemporary art, historical inquiry, philosophical speculation, research, and theory, often manifested as installations, online and offline media objects, performances, and encounters. They were recently voted one of the top 10 contemporary artists in India by Contemporary Art Issue.
Invisible Dust has collaborated with Raqs Media Collective on a trilogy of works:
The Waves are Rising – part of Sea Change at the Royal Docks and Thames Barrier Park in 2023
An animated augmented reality (AR) wave on a large scale LED screen, superimposed upon live video feed video of the still waters of The Royal Docks, filling the vista of the usually calm waterscape with an animated surging wave as well as detritus and data from the high seas.
The Tides of Our Tears at Richmond’s Thames Tideway in June 2025, was a trail of augmented reality poems along the regularly flooding Thames riverside path, ‘The Tideway’, as part of Richmond Arts & Ideas Festival 2025.
Cloud Messengers, the final chapter in the trilogy made in collaboration with Invisible Dust, explores the deep entanglement of unquiet water, trade, risk, and human emotion: in London and across the world. Comprising an exhibition and performance at Seed130, Fenchurch Street, in the heart of the City of London, Cloud Messengers draws speculative philosophical connections between monsoon rains, floods, trade and financial markets and actuarial science assessing risk.