Background
Shubigi Rao was born in 1975 in Mumbai, India. She was raised in Darjeeling and Nainital, India.
2019
93 Stamford Rd, Singapore 178897
Private dinner and opening of the "Lucy Liu and Shubigi Rao: Unhomed Belongings" exhibition with Lucy Liu (right), Shubigi Rao (left).
2019
93 Stamford Rd, Singapore 178897
Lucy Liu (right) and Shubigi Rao (left) at the National Museum of Singapore.
Benito Juarez Marg, South Campus, South Moti Bagh, New Delhi, Delhi 110021, India
Shubigi Rao graduated from Delhi University, India, in 1996, with a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature.
1 McNally St, Singapore 187940
Shubigi Rao graduated with a Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts in Fine Arts from LASALLE College of the Arts, Singapore, in 2006 and 2008 respectively.
Shubigi Rao was born in 1975 in Mumbai, India. She was raised in Darjeeling and Nainital, India.
Shubigi Rao graduated from Delhi University, India, in 1996, with a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature, followed by a Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts in Fine Arts from LASALLE College of the Arts, Singapore, in 2006 and 2008 respectively.
Shubigi Rao is an artist and writer who makes layered installations of books, etchings, drawings, pseudo-scientific machines, metaphysical puzzles, video works, ideological board games, and archives. Her interests include archaeology, neuroscience, libraries, archival systems, histories and lies, literature and violence, ecologies and natural history.
Since 2014 Shubigi Rao has been visiting public and private collections, libraries and archives globally for Pulp: A Short Biography of the Banished Book, a decade-long film, book and visual art project about the history of book destruction. As an artist in residence at CCA, Gillman Barracks, Singapore, she released her first book from the project in January 2016.
Shubigi Rao recently completed a residency at the Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin, Germany. Rao has recently presented solo exhibitions at the Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin, Germany; National Museum of Singapore (2017-2018); Grey Projects, Singapore; and the Institute of Contemporary Arts Singapore.
She has also recently participated in notable group exhibitions at the Villa Vassilieff, Paris, France; Objectifs Gallery, Singapore (2016); DUCTAC, Dubai, United Arab Emirates; Sundaram Tagore Gallery, Singapore; Curating Lab, NUS Museum, Singapore; Bermondsey Gallery, London, United Kingdom (2015); and the Centre for Contemporary Art, Singapore.
Rao has also been featured at international biennials and festivals such as the 10th Taipei Biennial, Taipei, Taiwan (2016); 3rd Pune Biennale, Pune, India (2017); Singapour en France-Le Festival, France (2015); Digital Arts Festival, Copenhagen, Denmark (2013); 2nd Tehran Annual Digital Art Exhibition (2012), Tehran, Iran; and the 2nd Singapore Biennale, Singapore (2008).
Her numerous publications include Written in the Margins (2017); Pulp: A Short Biography of the Banished Book; Vol. I of V (2016); and History’s Malcontents: The Life and Times of S. Raoul (2013), which chronicled 10 years of artwork and writing under the pseudonym S. Raoul.
Rao lives and works in Singapore. She lectures part-time in Art Theory and is an MFA Dissertation supervisor for the Faculty of Fine Arts at LASALLE College of the Arts, Singapore.
In addition, Shubigi Rao has been named the curator of the fifth edition of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale (KMB) that begins on December 12, 2020.
The Study of Leftovers
2004The Study of Leftovers
2004The Study of Leftovers
2004The Study of Leftovers
2004The Study of Leftovers
2004The Study of Leftovers
2004The Study of Leftovers
2004The Study of Leftovers
2004The Study of Leftovers
2004The Tuning Fork of the Mind
2008The Tuning Fork of the Mind
2008Confetti: Litter from a Fascist Parade
2009Confetti: Litter from a Fascist Parade
2009Stabbing at Immortality: Building a Better Jellyfish
2013Shubigi is a firm believer that progressive behaviour should start at home. As a mother, she does not try to control her son, and encourages him to express every emotion that he experiences. "It is wrong to say boys shouldn’t cry," she said. She said if you force boys to always act tough, they lose touch with who they really are. "Feminists call this ‘emotional castration’. Because of this, the solution to everything is anger, rage and violence. You see it especially in places where men are not allowed to show emotion in any other way."
Moreover, S. Raoul was a male pseudonym Shubigi used, for about ten years, because she was "thirsting for honest critique" of her work. "As a woman, I would always be that female artist talking about feminism," said Shubigi. "The content of my work would never be critiqued." Shubigi said the pseudonym helped her be herself. "It became a very interesting outlet for me," she said. It meant that she did not have to "waste her time being a woman". "It was an experiment," said Shubigi, "because there are lots of women whose work is discredited just because of their gender. So, I was trying to gather proof and I did."
Quotations:
"To shift the lens through which we read the spectacle of exhibition, we must reposition discourse and practice through acknowledging intersecting contexts."
"We always associate the artist with a kind of mythic figure. And, the idea of genius is also very troubling. I don’t believe in it. So, if you call someone a genius, you have just called them a testicle."
Shubigi Rao lives in Singapore with her husband, Samir Sahay, and her six-year-old son. Her son is named Raoul, a name given by her husband.