DARCH is the collaborative practice of Umulkhayr Mohamed and Radha Patel formed in March 2023, and a culmination of 6 years of work individually.
2025 Biennial Year Find out more
As artists of colour, they wanted to take this as an opportunity to self-direct their creative practice and develop work they know is important, such as to support people to work through ancestral grief related to colonialism, displacement, capitalism / being poor, familial trauma and the environment.
DARCH is grounded in finding creative ways to articulate care-centred practices for people of colour, with a politic grounded in solidarity and liberation. DARCH overlaps shared elements of their practices, namely rituals, shrine building, animism and ancestral honouring, and relationships to land through sound work, conversations and storytelling.
Liverpool Biennial 2025
'Heaven in the Ground', 2025
DARCH is the collaborative practice of artists Umulkhayr Mohamed and Radha Patel. Their work seeks creative ways to articulate care-centred practices for people of colour, with an approach grounded in solidarity and liberation. Central to their shared practice are rituals, shrine building and animism – the belief that objects, places, and creatures all possess a distinct spiritual essence. Their work also explores relationships to land and the environment through sound, conversations and storytelling.
For Liverpool Biennial 2025, DARCH have produced a new installation in collaboration with residents in Sefton, who have contributed stories about how their connection to spiritual traditions and their Merseyside community have shaped their relationship with death and grief. ‘Heaven in the Ground’ tells the story
DARCH is the collaborative practice of artists Umulkhayr Mohamed and Radha Patel. Their work seeks creative ways to articulate care-centred practices for people of colour, with an approach grounded in solidarity and liberation. Central to their shared practice are rituals, shrine building and animism – the belief that objects, places, and creatures all possess a distinct spiritual essence. Their work also explores relationships to land and the environment through sound, conversations and storytelling. For Liverpool Biennial 2025, DARCH have produced a new installation in collaboration with residents in Sefton, who have contributed stories about how their connection to spiritual traditions and their Merseyside community have shaped their relationship with death and grief. ‘Heaven in the Ground’ tells the story of the earth underneath our feet, and the bedrock as a great connector which holds all histories (prehistoric, colonial, personal) as well as possible futures. The work explores concepts of the afterlife, the relationship between life and death, and the need to acknowledge the labour of other species. DARCH ask us to consider the soil, and the bedrock that holds it up, as a space that is shared equally amongst all species – plants, animals and our ancestors, both human and more-than-human – and one through which we can collectively bring into being a gentler and more compassionate world. Courtesy of the artists. Co-commissioned by Liverpool Biennial and At The Library, with support from Paul Hamlyn Foundation. Credits: Heaven in the Ground was made in collaboration with Javier Sanchez, who lent his knowledge and time to teach DARCH a soil ritual, which was performed to honour the life of the soil in this installation, and Brian Denman, who created the narrative moulds that border each soil mound. Additional voices in the sound piece were performed by (in order of appearance): Lili Evans Williams, Nessi Mahi, Fadumo Hassan, Farah Allibhai, J Beli Friel, Nia Tilley, Aiman Rahim, and Subeer Ali. The artists would also like to thank Rule of Threes, At The Library, Sefton Library, Rhi Christie and Morgan Dowdal. Showing at FACT
'Heaven in the Ground', 2025
Showing at FACT
Wednesday to Sunday 11:00am-6:00pm-
DARCH, ‘Heaven in the Ground’, 2025. Liverpool Biennial 2025 at FACT. Photography by Mark McNulty.
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DARCH, ‘Heaven in the Ground’, 2025. Liverpool Biennial 2025 at FACT. Photography by Mark McNulty.
Liverpool Biennial 2025
'Heaven in the Ground' at Crosby Library
DARCH is the collaborative practice of artists Umulkhayr Mohamed and Radha Patel. Their work seeks creative ways to articulate care-centred practices for people of colour, with an approach grounded in solidarity and liberation. Central to their shared practice are rituals, shrine building and animism – the belief that objects, places, and creatures all possess a distinct spiritual essence. Their work also explores relationships to land and the environment through sound, conversations and storytelling.
For Liverpool Biennial 2025, DARCH have produced a new installation in collaboration with residents in Sefton, who have contributed stories about how their connection to spiritual traditions and their Merseyside community have shaped their relationship with death and grief. ‘Heaven in the Ground’ tells the story
DARCH is the collaborative practice of artists Umulkhayr Mohamed and Radha Patel. Their work seeks creative ways to articulate care-centred practices for people of colour, with an approach grounded in solidarity and liberation. Central to their shared practice are rituals, shrine building and animism – the belief that objects, places, and creatures all possess a distinct spiritual essence. Their work also explores relationships to land and the environment through sound, conversations and storytelling. For Liverpool Biennial 2025, DARCH have produced a new installation in collaboration with residents in Sefton, who have contributed stories about how their connection to spiritual traditions and their Merseyside community have shaped their relationship with death and grief. ‘Heaven in the Ground’ tells the story of the earth underneath our feet, and the bedrock as a great connector which holds all histories (prehistoric, colonial, personal) as well as possible futures. The work explores concepts of the afterlife, the relationship between life and death, and the need to acknowledge the labour of other species. DARCH ask us to consider the soil, and the bedrock that holds it up, as a space that is shared equally amongst all species – plants, animals and our ancestors, both human and more-than-human – and one through which we can collectively bring into being a gentler and more compassionate world. Courtesy of the artists. Co-commissioned by Liverpool Biennial and At The Library, with support from Paul Hamlyn Foundation. Credits: Heaven in the Ground was made in collaboration with Javier Sanchez, who lent his knowledge and time to teach DARCH a soil ritual, which was performed to honour the life of the soil in this installation, and Brian Denman, who created the narrative moulds that border each soil mound. Additional voices in the sound piece were performed by (in order of appearance): Lili Evans Williams, Nessi Mahi, Fadumo Hassan, Farah Allibhai, J Beli Friel, Nia Tilley, Aiman Rahim, and Subeer Ali. The artists would also like to thank Rule of Threes, At The Library, Sefton Library, Rhi Christie and Morgan Dowdal.
'Heaven in the Ground' at Crosby Library
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DARCH, ‘Heaven in the Ground’, 2025. Liverpool Biennial 2025 at Crosby Library. Photography by Stuart Whipps.
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DARCH, ‘Heaven in the Ground’, 2025. Liverpool Biennial 2025 at Crosby Library. Photography by Stuart Whipps.
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DARCH, ‘Heaven in the Ground’, 2025. Liverpool Biennial 2025 at Crosby Library. Photography by Stuart Whipps.
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DARCH, ‘Heaven in the Ground’, 2025. Liverpool Biennial 2025 at Crosby Library. Photography by Stuart Whipps.
This edition
‘Heaven in the Ground’
This soundwork consists of an audio story which is a speculative fiction piece that follows the artist’s, Radha and Umulkhayr after they have died and have been buried in the ground separately. As their bodies decompose – returning their spirits to the soil, they seek to find each other and it is the bacteria and insects they meet in the soil who offer to guide them back to each other, at the meeting place of spirits, the Bedrock. And as they guide Radha and Umulkhayr along this journey they talk about life and death, human supremacy, deconstructing faith traditions and weaving together a new/old story of the afterlife that gives us (humans and the more-than-human) another chance to find the sacredness and solidarity that the soil holds.
The soundscape that is underscoring the story and is played in the gallery, collages together samples from songs connected to the artists cultural and religious upbringings, sound archives, and original composed elements that make audible the liveness of the Earth, its underground inhabitants and its utopian qualities.