For the opening weekend of Liverpool Biennial 2023, Raisa Kabir presents a durational performance at Stanley Dock entitled ‘Our vessels for the stories, unspoken. Subaqueous violence. Sea. Ocean...’

Raisa Kabir is an interdisciplinary artist and weaver who utilises woven textiles, sound, video, and performance to materialise concepts concerning the interwoven cultural politics of cloth, archives of the body, and colonial geographies.

Building on a survey of the artist’s work exhibited at Bluecoat, Kabir presents a performance sculpture at the iconic Stanley Dock. The performance will pull the artist’s past works into focus, connecting them directly with the rising tides and seas and their associated colonial and industrial histories. The performance centres around a collection of coracles (small one-person boats made from woven bamboo and a waterproof coating) positioned in Stanley Docks. Each coracle, filled with various materials, will be pulled along the banks of the Docks where Kabir will undertake basket weaving using reeds and rope. Kabir’s (un)weaving performances and tapestries comment on histories of trans-national power, global production, and matrixes of labour.

This performance is commissioned by Liverpool Biennial.

Viewing the performance

This performance can be viewed from a number of locations around Stanley Dock, including; the ground floor balcony of Titanic Hotel, Tobacco Warehouse, and Regent Road.