Raisa Kabir is an interdisciplinary artist and weaver based in London.
2023 year exhibited in Biennial Find out more
Kabir utilises woven text/textiles, sound, video, and performance to materialise concepts concerning the cultural politics of cloth, gendered archives, and colonial geographies. Kabir’s (un)weaving performances and tapestries comment on histories of trans-national power, global production, and matrixes of labour. Her textile works uses a queer theory of entanglement to weave discourse around disability, resisting function and the queer racialised body as a living archive of collective trauma.
She has participated in residencies and exhibited work internationally at, among others: The Whitworth, The Tetley, Glasgow International, Craft Council London, Ford Foundation gallery NYC; and has lectured on her research at Tate Modern, Institute of Contemporary Art London, The Courtauld, and the V&A.
Liverpool Biennial 2023
Utterances: Our vessels for the stories, unspoken. Subaqueous violence. Sea. Ocean... (2016-present)
A survey of Raisa Kabir’s work, titled ‘Utterances: Our vessels for the stories, unspoken. Subaqueous violence. Sea. Ocean…’ (2016-present) encompasses woven text, textiles, sound, video, and performance to convey and visualise concepts concerning the cultural politics of cloth, its associated labour and networks of extraction. The works explore the material histories of cotton, silk, indigo, cochineal, jute and flax. Kabir investigates the production and global trade of these materials, referencing the maritime boats, ships and sails that arrived cargo-laden to Liverpool’s docks. The exhibition is inspired by Kabir’s research into the journey made by Bengal Lascars – Indian sailors employed and exploited by the British East India shipping company – many of whom docked and settled in Liverpool.
Showing at Bluecoat
Tuesday to Sunday 11:00am–5:00pm
