RAHEE PUNYASHLOKA | FIELDNOTES FROM BEGUMPURA

Pulp Society is very excited to present Rahee Punyashloka's debut solo exhibition in Delhi, Field Notes from Begumpura. The exhibition is on view at B-247, Okhla Phase 1 in New Delhi from 14 September, through 4 November, 2023.

"Begumpura, literally, the city without sorrows, is a utopian, casteless city imagined by Ravidas, the first utopia in South Asian history. The citizens of this city would no longer have to organize their limits around caste lines. Their life would be forged through an inherited legacy of anti-caste struggle, and abundant expression of the same would be found at every corner of this city. In this series I fashion myself as an ethnographer of this imagined city, recording chronicles of its people and everyday life. The resulting 'field notes' are an attempt at inverting the field notes of colonial ethnographers which, aided by extant Brahmanical ideas around caste, provided blueprints for Dalit-Adivasi communities which shape how our communities are perceived and governed till today. The style of the artworks also reflects anti-caste aesthetic histories, drawing on the blurry, near-abstract figural art of many Dalit-Adivasi artists before me. " ~ Rahee

The show had a special weekly ‘Tuesday Drop’ of a set of limited edition prints that Rahee, with guest Printmakers, at the Pulp Studio, live, for all to see. The works thus made are available for consumption at a special price during the show (extending through 2024), and will be marginally higher hence.

Rahee Punyashloka is a multidisciplinary artist, writer, and filmmaker based out of Bhubaneswar, and New Delhi. He creates anti-caste art, and discourse under the moniker 'artedkar'. His works have been exhibited at the International Film Festival Rotterdam; Athens Video Art Festival; Tribeca Film Festival (New York); ARKIPEL (Jakarta); Ishara Art Foundation (Dubai); KHOJ (New Delhi); Museum of Art and Photography (Bangalore); Arts House (Melbourne); among others.