Raju Rage is an interdisciplinary artist based in London who uses art, education and activism to forge creative survival. They are concerned with bridging the gap between dis/connected bodies, theory and practice, and aesthetics and the political substance. Focusing on techniques of resistance they use sculpture, textiles, print, video and sound.
Their current practice focuses on ‘Under/Valued Energetic Economy’ (a term inspired by Alexis Pauline Gumbs) that comprises a series of works which converse about the tangled ecology between ‘activism’, ‘arts’ and ‘academia’. Referencing Rage’s interest in kitchen-table conversations and the knowledges and ethos that are produced by them, the work highlights informal non hierarchal strategies of organising such as collectivity, intergenerationality and transparency whilst highlighting issues such as desire, complicity, instrumentalisation, sustainability, care, capital and value.
Recent exhibitions are Technogender: A Pyramid Revealed By A Sandstorm at Transitional States, UK, Italy and Spain, 2018, Under/Valued Energetic Economy in more of an avalanche, Wysing Arts Centre, 2018 and yeah but can we listen tho? in Habits of Care/Take Care, Blackwood Gallery, Toronto, 2017.
Rage is an artist on the Holding Space programme as part of Object Positions at The Showroom.
Holding Space is a one-year programme of research and support for eight UK based artists, as part of the Object Positions programme at The Showroom.
Raju Rage, Under/Valued Energetic Economy, at Wysing Arts Centre, Cambridgeshire, 2018, printed objects and soundscapes. Image: Wysing Arts Centre. Courtesy the artist.
Raju Rage, Fem/me Lovers/Haters and Heartbreak, at I would've Done Everything For You/ Gimme More!, London, 2016, lipstick, love songs and performance. Image: Jack Louie Batchelor. Courtesy the artist.
Raju Rage, Let There Be Cake/ May The One Without Hunger Lift The First Knife, sculptural cake and performance, with Jesse Darling, at Block Universe London, 2016. Image: Arron Leppard. Courtesy the artist.