Artist and writer Shubigi Rao makes layered installations of books, etchings, drawings, pseudo-scientific machines, metaphysical puzzles, video, ideological board games, garbage and archives, and has been exhibited and collected in Singapore and internationally. Her interests include archaeology, neuroscience, libraries, archival systems, histories and lies, literature and violence, ecologies and natural history.
Her immersive and tongue-in-cheek books, artworks and installations range from creating archaeological archives of garbage, writing How To manuals for building a nation and a culture from scratch, discovering and diagnosing peculiar forms of urban malaise where digital dandruff and pixel dust accumulate like lint and cloud the contemporary brain, building immortal jellyfish, to pseudo-museums regenerating mechanisms of knowledge accumulation, storage, and destruction.
Her art, texts, films, and photographs look at current and historical flashpoints as perspectival shifts to examining contemporary crises of displacement, whether of people, languages, cultures, or knowledge bodies. As an artist, Rao’s films, art, texts, and photographs have critically, poetically and wittily examined the systems of knowledge that structure our world.
---
Since 2014 she 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. (see here for more info). As an artist in residence at CCA, Gillman Barracks, Singapore, she released her first book from the project in January 2016. It was shortlisted for the biennial Singapore Literature Prize 2018 (non-fiction).
The second book from the series won the Singapore Literature Prize (nonfiction) in 2020.
The first instalment of the project 'Written in the Margins', won the Juror's Choice Award at the APB Signature Art Prize 2018. Read more here
She was included in the 10th Asia Pacific Triennial (2021-22), the 4th Kochi-Muziris Biennale (2018), 10th Taipei Biennial (2016), 3rd Pune Biennale (2017), and the 2nd Singapore Biennale (2008) .
Rao represents Singapore at the Singapore Pavilion in La Biennale di Venezia (Arte) from 21 April to 27 November 2022. She is also currently the Curator for the upcoming Kochi-Muziris Biennale, South Asia's biggest visual arts event.
Notable exhibitions include the solos The Wood for the Trees (2018), Written in the Margins (2017) The Retrospectacle of S. Raoul (2013), and Useful Fictions (2013). Selected group shows include Arus Balik (2019), State of Motion (2019), About Books at AlbumArte, Rome (2018), the Signature Art Prize finalist exhibition at National Museum Singapore, (2018), Ghost on the Wire 2 (2016), Dear Painter (2015), Urban:ness (2015), Modern Love (2014), Still Building (2012), Singapore Survey: Beyond LKY (2010), Found and Lost (2009), Singapore Art Show at the Singapore Art Museum (2007), Second Dance Song (2006), Appetites for Litter: the 8th emerging artist show at PKW (2006), and New Contemporaries (2005).
---
Her awards include the Singapore Literature Prize 2020 (nonfiction) for Pulp II: A Visual Bibliogrpahy of the Banished Book, APB Signature Art Prize's Juror Choice Award (2018), the Künstlerhaus Bethanien international artist residency in Berlin (June 2016 - May 2017), artist in residence at NTU-CCA Singapore (Oct 2015-Jan 2016), and artist in residence at KHOJ International Artist Association, New Delhi (Sept-Oct 2017). She was awarded the Creation Grant (2019, 2013), and the Presentation Grant (2018, 2013, 2012), both by National Arts Council Singapore. She has been commissioned by the Land Transport Authority for public artwork on the forthcoming Stevens MRT Interchange. Her other awards include The Winston Oh Travel Award (2005), the Student Development Award (2006), and twice the Award for Excellence in the Arts for outstanding student of the year (postgraduate - 2008 and undergraduate - 2006).
A featured author at the Singapore Writer's Festival in 2018, 2016 and 2013, Shubigi's publications include 'Pulp II: A Visual Bibliography of the Banished Book (2018), 'Written in the Margins', (2017), 'Pulp: A Short Biography of the Banished Book', (2016), Bastardising Biography (2005), 3 pseudo-encyclopaedia under the joint title No Cover No Colour (2006), and Useful Fictions, (2013). Her publication History’s Malcontents: The Life and Times of S. Raoul (2013), chronicled 10 years of artwork and writing under the pseudonym S. Raoul.
She previously lectured part-time in Art Theory and is a MFA Dissertation supervisor for the Faculty of Fine Arts at LASALLE College of the Arts, Singapore, where she obtained her MFA (First Class), and BFA (First Class). She also holds a BA (Hons) in English Literature from Delhi University, India.
Her immersive and tongue-in-cheek books, artworks and installations range from creating archaeological archives of garbage, writing How To manuals for building a nation and a culture from scratch, discovering and diagnosing peculiar forms of urban malaise where digital dandruff and pixel dust accumulate like lint and cloud the contemporary brain, building immortal jellyfish, to pseudo-museums regenerating mechanisms of knowledge accumulation, storage, and destruction.
Her art, texts, films, and photographs look at current and historical flashpoints as perspectival shifts to examining contemporary crises of displacement, whether of people, languages, cultures, or knowledge bodies. As an artist, Rao’s films, art, texts, and photographs have critically, poetically and wittily examined the systems of knowledge that structure our world.
---
Since 2014 she 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. (see here for more info). As an artist in residence at CCA, Gillman Barracks, Singapore, she released her first book from the project in January 2016. It was shortlisted for the biennial Singapore Literature Prize 2018 (non-fiction).
The second book from the series won the Singapore Literature Prize (nonfiction) in 2020.
The first instalment of the project 'Written in the Margins', won the Juror's Choice Award at the APB Signature Art Prize 2018. Read more here
She was included in the 10th Asia Pacific Triennial (2021-22), the 4th Kochi-Muziris Biennale (2018), 10th Taipei Biennial (2016), 3rd Pune Biennale (2017), and the 2nd Singapore Biennale (2008) .
Rao represents Singapore at the Singapore Pavilion in La Biennale di Venezia (Arte) from 21 April to 27 November 2022. She is also currently the Curator for the upcoming Kochi-Muziris Biennale, South Asia's biggest visual arts event.
Notable exhibitions include the solos The Wood for the Trees (2018), Written in the Margins (2017) The Retrospectacle of S. Raoul (2013), and Useful Fictions (2013). Selected group shows include Arus Balik (2019), State of Motion (2019), About Books at AlbumArte, Rome (2018), the Signature Art Prize finalist exhibition at National Museum Singapore, (2018), Ghost on the Wire 2 (2016), Dear Painter (2015), Urban:ness (2015), Modern Love (2014), Still Building (2012), Singapore Survey: Beyond LKY (2010), Found and Lost (2009), Singapore Art Show at the Singapore Art Museum (2007), Second Dance Song (2006), Appetites for Litter: the 8th emerging artist show at PKW (2006), and New Contemporaries (2005).
---
Her awards include the Singapore Literature Prize 2020 (nonfiction) for Pulp II: A Visual Bibliogrpahy of the Banished Book, APB Signature Art Prize's Juror Choice Award (2018), the Künstlerhaus Bethanien international artist residency in Berlin (June 2016 - May 2017), artist in residence at NTU-CCA Singapore (Oct 2015-Jan 2016), and artist in residence at KHOJ International Artist Association, New Delhi (Sept-Oct 2017). She was awarded the Creation Grant (2019, 2013), and the Presentation Grant (2018, 2013, 2012), both by National Arts Council Singapore. She has been commissioned by the Land Transport Authority for public artwork on the forthcoming Stevens MRT Interchange. Her other awards include The Winston Oh Travel Award (2005), the Student Development Award (2006), and twice the Award for Excellence in the Arts for outstanding student of the year (postgraduate - 2008 and undergraduate - 2006).
A featured author at the Singapore Writer's Festival in 2018, 2016 and 2013, Shubigi's publications include 'Pulp II: A Visual Bibliography of the Banished Book (2018), 'Written in the Margins', (2017), 'Pulp: A Short Biography of the Banished Book', (2016), Bastardising Biography (2005), 3 pseudo-encyclopaedia under the joint title No Cover No Colour (2006), and Useful Fictions, (2013). Her publication History’s Malcontents: The Life and Times of S. Raoul (2013), chronicled 10 years of artwork and writing under the pseudonym S. Raoul.
She previously lectured part-time in Art Theory and is a MFA Dissertation supervisor for the Faculty of Fine Arts at LASALLE College of the Arts, Singapore, where she obtained her MFA (First Class), and BFA (First Class). She also holds a BA (Hons) in English Literature from Delhi University, India.