CV





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Statement and Bio

Rajinder Singh  

Most documentation of my paintings, sculpture and performance work is available on my website and instagram sites

See www.choreographingborders.com and  www.unprimed.com   Email: raj1712@gmail.com

See https://www.instagram.com/woundbloom 

See https://www.instagram.com/_____rajinder/

A small example of my film work is on my vimeo site https://vimeo.com/user30768666



Rajinder Singh is a London based  Malaysian-Irish  artist, poet  and choreographer who explores the human body as an interface between space, object and movement, and prepares the ground to orientate the body towards politics, towards its capacity for resistance. Rajinder’s paintings and  installations as well as  photography, video and performance work explore ideas around the vulnerable body and its pain, interrogating the economies of power  that deny it space and shape. Often focused on the power of ritual action in the construction of the social body, his practice explores the ways the human body unfolds  around various topographic and symbolic borders.


Rajinder graduated with a PhD in Engineering (UK) in 1993 and a Master's in Fine Arts (La Salle Singapore) in 2010. He is the artist in residence for Race, Migration and Decolonial Studies at UCD Dublin and a member of the migrant artist group Art Nomads. He is the recipient of several awards for his sculptures and movement based work. He was recently shortlisted for both the prestigious Golden Fleece Award and EVA International Biennale. He was part of the year long exhibition ‘Narrow Gate’ at the Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA) and ‘Bodyworks’ at Crawford Art Gallery.  Rajinder Is a recipient of substantial bursaries for his body based movement oriented work from the Arts Council of ireland. He has been commissioned for new work by various museums and art festivals in Ireland, Singapore and Malaysia. Rajinder teaches as a guest artist/choreographer at the Irish World Academy, Maynooth University, University College Dublin. His work is part of the national arts collections in both IMMA The Glucksman Museum and the Arts Council of Ireland. Rajinder is the founder of the contemporary art review magazine Drenched Reviews ( www.soaked.space).  He has written three books of poetry: Trapping Silence (2021), Pale in Saffron (2024) and The Turban Imaginary ( 2024).



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Portfolio

Rajinder Singh

 www.unprimed.com and www.choreographongborders.com and  @woundbloom on instagram



1: Masterclass

Masterclass on Choreography with London/Paris based centre for research and experimentation in the public culture of cities, Theatrum Mundi (see here).

‘My space of folds is always folding’ at  Siobhan Davies Dance Studios.

The workshop is a movement workshop that uses the South Asian ritual of turban tying functions as a constructive principle for a decentred approach to exploring spatial justice.


 2 - Pale in Saffron


I opened 'pale in saffron', an  exhibition of sculptures at the royal academy on the 16th of Feb curated by Sarah McAuliffe . It is on till the 26th of March. I call it  'sculptural dance-making' and it transports me back to my childhood, to the rituals and the gestures, movements and rhythms of the everyday growing up in South Asia. See here.


In 'Pale in Saffron', Rajinder’s  sculptural dance-making  is informed by his research into the gestures, movements and rhythms of the often sacred practice of turban tying in South Asia. In his work, the fabric and the rituals connected to it become a springboard to the architectural and to movement. He uses choreographic approaches to analysis through  techniques of  scoring, staging, rehearsing and improvising to create structures that attempt to transcend, shed their material, negate their weight and rise into an abstraction, something beyond, something yet to be revealed. As a sculptor, Rajinder moulds and organises various forces to a state of equilibrium to a particular moment, when through the intermediary of all materials involved - human, chemical and mechanical, an imprint is taken, creating a world as it isn't. Rajinder’s lifelong connection to the fabric and the gesture, movements and rhythms that come with it  brings agency in the processes of subjectivation to the apparatus of flow and formlessness entering into a dialogue with form, structure and systems.





 3 - Alien Embodiments: Guide



See my current choreographic work with the Department of Xenogenesis for IMMA with the Turner prize nominated The Otolith group and performers from around the world including Harvard University and Singapore’s Dance Nucleus etc  here and on my instagram for snippets of each video here.

I worked  with a global cohort of performers, artists and academics  for 6 months to develop body based movement oriented work in response to Xenogenesis at IMMA - Irish Museum of Modern Art as part of Alien Embodiments: Guide, a program I created and deployed.

Here is an introduction to 'Guide':

Guide is a body based movement oriented program focused on the role of the body in art. It asks what kind of questions or discussions in exhibition-making may necessitate an engagement of choreographic thinking. It is underpinned by the consideration that our engagement with art always comes from a place of embodiment and attempts to harness the senses which are often marginalised in art practice, criticism and appreciation to enable new modes of engagement and appreciation.







 4 - Border Tours



See ‘Border Tours’ commissioned by curator Sarah Browne for Tulca 2020 and acquired by the Arts Council Of Ireland in 2021 and shortlisted for the prestigious Golden Fleece Award. The full video for the entire tour can be viewed here. 




My floor map of a room in a Direct Provision centre. It took months piecing together the intricate details of the room for a family of 5. 

The installation is accompanied by a 12 minute audio tour that takes you through an embodied experience of a cramped living space and the daily trials of a family living in the Direct Provision system. ( You see a participant taking the tour in the photograph).








 5 - Elsewheres - film short

See  commission for choreographic project  ‘Elsewheres’ by  PlatformAsia UK,  an Art Council England sponsored project,  here.


Elsewheres by Rajinder Singh is an embodied story of migration, which through movement communicates the parallel ‘elsewheres’ that the artist inhabits all the time. Singh defines an elsewhere as a remembered space, located in a place and time that often we cannot reach. When we long for our elsewheres, the feeling is often palpable; this is because the spaces we have travelled through are imprinted on our bodies, they define the way we move, hold ourselves and speak.



 






6 - Saffron Songs ( exhibition of paintings)



See gallery page here


I opened a solo exhibition of paintings in Asia in 2022. In ‘Saffron Songs’, I pay attention to the qualities of active citizenship through its connection to the sonic substance and materiality of a specially commissioned Punjabi folk song (lok git), a paean to my long dead grandfather. In my paintings, I create large 'scores' to allude to a 'space of refusal' that my grandfather carved into his existence amidst the conflict and colonisation that took place around him in pre independence Malaya.  Using sound to open up a field of transaction,  I hope to  build  a bridge in time to learn from my grandfather and usher in the fugitive moments of his past into the turmoil of race relations that is present day Malaysia.









7 - Saffron Songs ( exhibition of paintings)




I opened a solo exhibition of paintings in Asia at Wei Ling gallery  in 2024.In ‘Saffron Surrender’, Rajinder returns to wrestle with the inheritances of coloniality through three stories from his childhood growing up in Ipoh, Malaysia, passed on through generations and shared by the Sikh diaspora in Malaysia and around the world. These stories of objectification and humiliation by the British colonial forces of the Sikh body form the powerful underlying narrative behind his poetry, paintings, and sculptures. He contemplates what decolonisation could mean in the Malaysian-Sikh context as a basis for transitioning from acknowledged embodied colonial inheritances to being otherwise.









8 - My Sister’s Coven



The artwork: Turban fabric sculptures

In the national permanent collection of the Irish Museum of Modern Art

It was shown first at Tulca Festival of Arts 2020 and  in the exhibition  ‘Narrow Gate’ at IMMA and ‘Bodywork’ at Crawford Art Gallery.

Year made : 2020.









9- Performing Borders - Instructions for a performance with turban fabric

The artwork: Instructions for performance

Medium : 10pp A4 guide to danst fabrique, a framework for choreographing a performance with the turban fabric.

Performed by dancers in various countries all over the world in  2020

Year: 2020






10 - unmigranting 

10 birdhouses on metal poles - wood, metal rods, metal poles and acrylic sheets 

Various sizes (about 40 x 30 x 35cm each) 

Shown around Ireland in Botanic Gardens and Arts Festivals.





About the sculpture: 

Ten wood and metal sculptures of birdhouses on poles.I made these birdhouses to talk about the ten worst Direct Provision Centres in Ireland. My emails correspondences with migrant activists Bulelani Mfaco are printed, laminated and displayed at the bottom of each birdhouse. 


Each of the ten parts of the commission at the Botanic Gardens and Kilkenny Arts Festival is an open-prison birdhouse named after the ten worst Direct Provision Centres in Ireland . We have many migrant birds in Ireland, many of which make arduous journeys across oceans to get here. They are welcomed with open arms. What if we didn't want them anymore!? We need to build shelters where they can be isolated away to protect the local fauna and flora. 






11 - Spasm

Explores politics through the body in a series of 16 short films available to view at https://glucksman.org/spasm/

Spasm is a new digital commission by artist Rajinder Singh that explores minor and emergent movements through a series of 16 short online films. These brief, repetitive clips capture the physical gestures of dancers and performers, with their abrupt, unconscious actions moving in tandem with the endlessly looped, highly-edited format of internet videos.











12 - See ‘The Headcoils of a Ban’ choreographic project at TempleBar Gallery and Studios here.






13 - See work on Spatial Justice with MA students with Prof Till from Maynooth Geography here.





14 - See interviews on support structures with Art Nomads videos here.





15 - See my work with artists Nuala Clarke and others at the Folklife Residency with the National Museum of Country Life in 2022 here.






16 - EVA International Biennial 2022 Installation. Shortlisted






17 - See my work with Irish world academy and the students of MA Contemporary Dance at University of Limerick here




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18 -  See some of my instruction based choreographic work here.






19 - Social Circus - An EU Funded program

I designed and ran a full three day workshop for circus trainers as part of an intercultural encounter project. See here







20 - ‘Ireland as Borderland’ series of workshops in The Lab @Foley street, Dublin on the 29th Feb 2020 designed and run by artist Rajinder Singh.







21- Recent Sculptures


















22 -  A Choreography of Worship

 30 x 40cm x 40cm, Inkjet digital prints on 300gsm paper, 2018, Rajinder Singh, shown at Galway Arts Centre 2018

Title: Tumours, Clay figurines with gold leaf, 100 x 5cm, 2018, Rajinder Singh, Galway Arts Centre

(Shown also are closeups of Tumours and 5 of 30 photographs)













23 - Rubia 5m wide, 30 x 40cm x 40cm inkjet digital print on 300gsm paper, 2018, Rajinder Singh, shown at National Visual Arts Gallery, Malaysia 2018

(Shown also are closeups of 2 of 30 photographs)












24 - Archiving Rituals (video still), 30 min continuous loop, 2018, Rajinder Singh, shown at Art Stage Singapore, Malaysia 2018

Link for video: https://vimeo.com/334282259































25 -  Archiving Rituals (video still), 1min continous loop, 2018, Rajinder Singh, longer version shown at Wei Ling Contemporary, Malaysia 2018/2019

Link for video: https://vimeo.com/324808621 


















26 - Performance Documentation of ‘Undiscovered Country’, performance work, 2018, Rajinder Singh, shown at Art Stage Singapore. And ‘Woundbloom’, performance work, 2017, Rajinder Singh, shown at Wei Ling Contemporary.








27 - Cage of Deliverance, various sizes, paintings with oil, powder and gold leaf on canvas, 2016, Rajinder Singh, shown at Wei Ling Contemporary










28-  ,,the ceiling floats away with a sigh.. Various dimensions, paintings with  acrylic on acetate, 2014, Rajinder Singh, shown at Wei Ling Contemporary 2014.









29 - The turban and its utility (after Frank E.Walther)

Prayer forms - a performance. Dedicated to the vulnerable body and its pain and the gestures and movements it inspires..

Link for video: https://vimeo.com/324833928


30 - See my sculpture ‘Point at a passing migrant bird with a raised locked arm and an open palm’. purchased by the arts council of Ireland here.













Education:

2010 Master’s of Fine Arts

(LaSalle College of Fine Arts, Singapore

1993 PhD Engineering and Mathematics

Queen’s University of Belfast



Choreography Residencies, Fairs and Awards:

2023 Choreographic work as part of the Festival of Irish Choreographers, Dublin, Ireland.

2023 Masterclass on Choreography and Spatial Justice with London based Theatrum Mundi in July 2023

2023 Alien Embodiments: Guide program guest choreographer with IMMA and The Otolith group from Oct 2022 to May 2023

2023 Guest Choreographer on film set with Irish filmmaker Susan Gogan on housing precarity in Ireland from AUg 2022

2022- Shortlisted for Golden Fleece Awards 2022

2022 - Folklife Residency, with National Museum of Ireland

2022 - Shortlisted for EVA International 2023

2021 - Guest choreographer, workshop and performance, Tipperary Dance Festival

2021 - Guest choreographer, workshop and performance, Tipperary Dance Festival

2021  - Guest choreographer Irish World Academy.

2021 - Test Virtual Residency Limerick City Gallery.

2021- Agility Award Round 2 Ireland

2021 - 'Culture Night- Showcasing the Collection - The Arts Council or Ireland' - Conversation with Maeve O' Flaherty on recent acquisition.

2021 - Teaching ‘Exercises in Solidarity’ at IMMA Summer School 2021

2021 - Spasm - Glucksman, Cork commission (performance videos) on Seamus Heaney with Dr Adam Hanna (UCC) for permanent collection.

2021 - One installation and sculpture acquired by Arts Council Ireland

2021 -  3 sculptures acquired for the national permanent art collection for IMMA Ireland

2020 - Awarded project studio TempleBar Gallery and Studios.

2020 - Workshops - as a response to Paula Rego exhibition - IMMA Ireland

2020 - Guest Lecturer - Maynooth University, Geography, MA Spatial Justice

2019 - 2021  Artist in Residence, University College Dublin commissioned by MA Race and Decolonial Studies

2020- Performance lecture, Creative Collaboration and Transdisciplinarity, LSAD, Ireland

2020 - Basic Talk - Hugh Lane Gallery, Dublin

2020 - Speaker at International Literature Festival.

2020 - Ireland as Borderland workshops at The Lab, Dublin.

2019: Art’s Council R&D funding with mentor ( Anthony Haughey) with Create Ireland AIC scheme.

2019 - Art Jakarta, group exhibit.

2019- Create Ireland and FireStation Studio AIC Scheme Residency

2018 - Curator for performance section, Art Stage, Singapore

2017 - Solo exhibition, Art Stage, Singapore

2014Solo exhibition, Bologna Fiere SH Contemporary Shanghai Exhibition Centre

2014 - Final worldwide of ‘100 Painters of Tomorrow’, a London based initiative between Thames & Hudson and curator Kurt Beers.

2013 - Group Show, Art Basel, Hong Kong

2nd round selection finalist, BP Portrait Award, National Portrait Gallery, London

2012 – London Art Fair with Stephanie Hoppen Gallery, London

2011 – Finalist in Summer Open Call, 3rd Ward, New York.

2010 - One of thousand worldwide artists listed on the Amsterdam based biannual compendium of artist Thousand Living Painters

2008 - Three lithographs on plate and stone Residency at IDEM (former Mourlot Studios), Paris, France.

2007 - Energy 20 artists of Asia, TT Awards, Hong Kong.

2006/2009 - Artist Ambassador for Capannelle Wine, Italy.





Selected One Man Exhibitions




2025 Saffron Surrender at Seafocus 2025 Singapore

2024 Saffron Surrender  (paintings, sculptures); Wei Ling Gallery, Kuala Lumpur Malaysia

2023 Pale in Saffron  (paintings, sculptures); Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin Ireland

2022 Saffron Songs (paintings, sculptures); Wei Ling Gallery, Kuala Lumpur Malaysia

2021 Spasm a commission by The Glucksman, Cork, curated by Chris Clarke for their permanent collection.

2021 The Headcoils of a Ban, Templebar Galleries and Studios, Ireland

2021 Homing in a commission by Platform Asia UK funded by Arts Council England

2020 Border Tours  as part of Tulca Festival of Arts, An Post Gallery, Galway, Ireland - Nov 2020 

2020 Un-Migrant-ing, LinenHall Gallery, Mayo

2019 My Sister’s Coven as part of Tulca Festival of Arts, Engage Art Studios, Galway, Ireland - Nov 2019

2019 Ireland as Borderland as part of Landscapes of Hope and Displacement - a look at border policing at its worst, FireStation Studios, Ireland, July 2019

2018 The Undiscovered Country - a reflection on mortality through performance art, Art Stage

Singapore 2018, Marina Bay Sands Exhibition Centre, Singapore

2017  Woundbloom, performance art in collaboration with Dublin based German dancer Alina.Maria.O., Wei-Ling Contemporary, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

2017  Woundbloom, Art Stage Singapore 2017, Marina Bay Sands Exhibition Centre, Singapore

2016 Cage of deliverance (paintings, videos, sculptures and performance); Wei Ling Contemporary, Kuala Lumpur Malaysia

2014  ..the ceiling floats away with a sigh..  (paintings); Wei Ling Contemporary, Kuala Lumpur Malaysia

2013 Number-Trance-Face ( paintings) Isabel Anchorena Gallery, Buenos Aires, Argentina.

2012 FOLD( installation) Institute of Contemporary Arts, Singapore.

M.O.L.C. (paintings) Chan Hampe Gallery, Singapore

2011 Ya-ad ( installation) Institute of Contemporary Arts, Singapore.

Ellaline  (paintings) Stephanie Hoppen Gallery, London.

Number-Trance-Face (paintings) Boscia Art Gallery, Melbourne, Australia.

Assemblage(paintings) Nomu on Monu galleries, Singapore.

2010 Cause & Defect (paintings) Gajah Gallery, Singapore.

Curio  Chinese House Gallery, Phnom Penh, Cambodia;

Hong Kong Expo Centre, Hong Kong;

PACE Gallery, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia;

 Fullerton Hotel for ParkerAsia event, Singapore.

The Traumatised Body ( Installation) Tri-Space, LASALLE School of Arts, Singapore.

2008 Number-Trance-Face (paintings)Yering Art Gallery, Melbourne, Australia;

PACE Gallery, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia;

Hong Kong Expo Centre, Hong Kong.

O.Fournier Galleries, Mendoza, Argentina.



Selected Group exhibitions:


2023 A Tapestry of Us, Henderson Industrial Park, Singapore

2023 HansaeYes24 Foundation International Culture Exchange Exhibition “Embrace Malaysia, Insa Art Center, Seoul, Korea

2023 WLG IGNITE, Wei-Ling Contemporary, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

2023 - Group exhibition ‘ Body at work’ Crawford Art Gallery, Cork, Ireland.

2023 - Group exhibition ‘Embrace Malaysia’ Seoul Korea

2022 Art Expo Malaysia 2022, GMBB, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

2022 - A Paradigm Shift – Reflecting on Twenty Years of The Malaysian Art Scene, Wei Ling Gallery, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

2021 - The Aesthetics of Silence, Wei Ling Contemporary, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

2021 The Narrow Gate of Here-and-Now at IMMA Ireland 

2020: Un-Migrant-ing, Connected, Kilkenny Arts Festival, Kilkenny, Ireland

2020: The Past Three Months, Courthouse Gallery, Clare

2020: Imagine, with Art Nomad at  Christchurch Cathedral, Dublin 

2020: Transhumance: The Nomadic Artist : Part Of This Land,  with Art Nomad at Phizzfest The Space, Dublin

2020- Performance lecture, Creative Collaboration and Transdisciplinarity, LSAD, Ireland

2020 Jali, Wei Ling Contemporary, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

2019 - 18@8 Turning Points, Wei-Ling Contemporary, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

2019- Art Jakarta 2019, Jakarta Convention Center (JCC) Senayan, Jakarta, Indonesia

2019 : Un-Migrant-ing, Sculpture in Context, National Botanic Gardens, Dublin Ireland

2018 Paralogical Machines Wei Ling Contemporary, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

2018  Teh Tarik and the Flag  National Visual Arts Gallery of Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

2018  Ex-VOTO the body + the institution  Galway Arts Centre, Galway, Ireland.

2018  Art Stage Singapore 2017, Marina Bay Sands Exhibition Centre, Singapore

2016 The Past Is Never Where You Think You Left It (paintings) Wei Ling Gallery, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

2015 18@8 Heirlooms (sculpture)  Wei Ling Gallery, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Common Ground (paintings) Chan Hampe Gallery, Singapore.

2014 Muestra Colectiva de Verano 2014 (paintings) Isabel Anchorena Gallery, Buenos Aires, Argentina.

 2013 Spice Pace Gallery, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

 2012 Timeless Wei Ling Galleries, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Pace Gallery Anniversary 2012 (paintings); Pace Gallery, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

London Art Fair 2012 with Stephanie Hoppen Gallery, London.

2011 18@8 Save The Planet (vinyl toy and paintings)Wei Ling Galleries, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Interchange: The Tribute Edition (installation and paintings) Chan Hampe Galleries, Singapore.

The Lasalle Show’11 Exhibition (installation); ICA Galleries, Singapore.

Spice ( paintings) Pace Gallery, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

 2010 4/12 (installation) ICAS Galleries, Singapore

Trapolle (installation) Art Trove gallery, Singapore.

Object (installation) Praxis Space, LASALLE School of Arts, Singapore.

 2009 pace gallery: anniversary 2009 (paintings) PACE Gallery, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Aliya and Farouk Khan Collection Show (paintings) Danga City Mall, Johor Bahru, Malaysia.