Biography
Artist and writer Shubigi Rao creates layered installations of books, etchings, drawings, pseudo-scientific machines, metaphysical puzzles, video works, ideological board games and archives. These often immersive and tongue-in-cheek works demonstrate her diverse interests in subjects such as archaeology, neuroscience, libraries, archival systems, histories and lies, literature and violence, ecologies, and natural history.
Rao’s work has been the subject of solo exhibitions at Objectifs – Centre for Photography & Film, Singapore; Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin; National Museum of Singapore; Grey Projects, Singapore and Institute of Contemporary Arts Singapore. Her work has been shown in group exhibitions at the Villa Vassilieff, Paris; DUCTAC, Dubai; Sundaram Tagore Gallery, Singapore; Curating Lab, NUS Museum, Singapore; Bermondsey Gallery, London and NTU-CCA, Singapore. Rao’s work has also been featured at international biennials and festivals such as the 4th Kochi Biennale (2018), 3rd Pune Biennale (2017), 10th Taipei Biennial (2016), Singapour en France–Le Festival (2015), Digital Arts Festival, Copenhagen (2013) and 2nd Singapore Biennale (2008).
Her current decade-long film, book and art project, Pulp: A Short Biography of the Banished Book, is about the history of the destruction of books. The first portion of the project, Written in the Margins, won the Juror's Choice Award at the APB Foundation Signature Prize (2018) and was shortlisted for the Singapore Literature Prize (non-fiction) (2018).
She recently completed a residency at Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin. Rao graduated from Delhi University with a BA (Hons) in English Literature, and she received a BA and MA in Fine Arts from LASALLE College of the Arts, Singapore.
Born in Mumbai, she currently lives and works in Singapore.
SAF participation:
March Meeting 2019
