“There is an urgency to save our time from becoming the cost of business.” Raqs Media Collective’s trio-logue binds economics to climate change, extinction, and extractivism. They stress the externalized costs of our accepted capitalist logics: including extreme weather, species extinction, and language loss. In content and form, the Collective wryly critique the “rationality” of economic thinking, shedding light on its many casualties. “Artists-in-Presidents” is initiated by Constance Hockaday, curated by Christine Shaw, and commissioned by The Blackwood (University of Toronto Mississauga). Podcast production by Vocal Fry. Transmissions are released every Friday from August 6–December 17, 2021. To view the portrait gallery, access ASL videos and transcripts, and for additional information about the project, visit www.artistsinpresidents.com and www.blackwoodgallery.ca. Raqs Media Collective was formed in 1992 in 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 Media Collective take this sense to mean “kinetic contemplation” and a restless entanglement with the world, and with time. Raqs enlists objects such as an early-modern tiger-automata from Southern India, or a biscuit from the Paris Commune, or a cup salvaged from an ancient Mediterranean shipwreck, to turn them into devices to sniff and taste time. Devices and modalities are also played with to undertake historical subterfuge and philosophical query. Raqs practices across several media; making installation, sculpture, video, performance, text, lexica, and curation. Photo: Vicky Roy

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