For Liverpool Biennial 2025, DARCH have produced a new sound work in collaboration with residents in Sefton, who have contributed stories about their connection to spiritual traditions and their Merseyside community, have shaped their relationship with death and grief.
1 artist in this exhibition
DARCH is the collaborative practice of artists Umulkhayr Mohamed and Radha Patel. Central to their shared artistic practice are rituals, shrine building and animism – the belief that objects, places, and creatures all possess a distinct spiritual essence. Their work explores relationships to land and the environment through sound, conversations and storytelling.
‘Heaven in the Ground’; tells the story of the story of the earth underneath our feet, and the bedrock as a great connector which holds all histories and possible futures.
The work has resulted from a series of workshops with The Colour of Pomegranates group – an informal space led by At The Library for sanctuary-seeking women to connect with others over conversation and creative activities, and members of the public.
Touching on 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.
The audio component of this work is available to listen to online at biennial.com/DARCH.
Further work by DARCH is exhibited at FACT Liverpool.
Courtesy of the artists. Co-commissioned by Liverpool Biennial and At The Library, with support from Paul Hamlyn Foundation.