Shubigi Rao: Pulp I–IV

Shubigi Rao / Pulp I–IV, opening at Bildmuseet on March 14, is the first comprehensive survey of Pulp—the artist’s decade-long project so far about censorship, destruction of books, assaults on literacy and libraries, erasure of women’s voices, and loss of languages. With her conviction that “paper will trump rock”, Rao examines the history of cultural obliteration while also sharing strategies of survival and resistance through her books, films, drawings, and photography.

Rao has filmed and written about public and private libraries, as well as pirate and anarchist libraries in numerous countries across the world, with particular focus on regions that have suffered historical or contemporary conflict, from Bosnia and Armenia to the Philippines. We encounter librarians, researchers, and activists who hide books, rescue damaged collections, publish banned manuscripts, create shadow libraries, and establish alternative networks for shared knowledge.

For this exhibition, Shubigi Rao has created a new film, Shadowstitch, in collaboration with Bildmuseet and the Museum of Contemporary Art and Design, Manila, and with support from the National Arts Council, Singapore. In a vein similar to These Petrified Paths, her 2023 film on Armenia, Shadowstitch spotlights the resistance of women as authors, cultural workers, community organisers, rural activists, and independent publishers. The Filipina poet Marjorie Evasco’s concept of “actionable hope” resonates with the ethos of Pulp, that in the face of relentless state and capitalist destruction, resistance is not just possible, but inevitable and communal. “When we write, we are collective.” (Shubigi Rao)

The exhibition also includes excerpts, both textual and artistic from Rao’s upcoming book, Pulp Vol IV. A special issue of Swedish PEN’s journal PEN/Opp will be dedicated to Rao’s research and released during the Banned Books Week in Sweden. The public programme Artist to Writer includes talks by Rao and invited artists reflecting on literary works that have inspired them.

Shubigi Rao (b. 1975, India) has exhibited at biennials and museums worldwide. She represented Singapore at the Venice Biennale in 2022 and was the Artistic Director of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale the same year. The second and third volumes of her Pulp book series were awarded the Singapore Literature Prize for Non-Fiction, and the first instalment of the Pulp project won the APB Signature Juror’s Choice Award. This is her first solo exhibition in Sweden and her most extensive presentation in Europe to date.

Shubigi Rao / Pulp I–IV is produced by Bildmuseet. Curators: Sofia Johansson and Anca Rujoiu. With thanks to the Arts Campus Library, Umeå University; National Arts Council, Singapore; Museum of Contemporary Art and Design, Manila; Swedish PEN; and Umeå Municipality.

Artist to Writer
A series of case studies exploring the intersection between visual arts and literature. The programme highlights artists working with literary texts as material to reflect on aspects of censorship, acts of resistance and dissent, networks of solidarity, processes of translation, experiences of migration, and inter-species encounters. With thanks to the Academy of Fine Arts, Umeå University; Accelerator, Stockholm University; IASPIS; and Littfest—Umeå International Literature Festival.

Saturday, March 15 2:15–3pm
On Banned Books, Acts of Resistance and Dissent
The artist Shubigi Rao in conversation with publisher Per Bergström. The book Too Loud a Solitude (1976) by Czech writer Bohumil Hrabal serves as a point of inspiration to discuss print-based resistance in the face of attempts to silence and destroy. In collaboration with Littfest—Umeå International Literature Festival

Wednesday, March 19, 6–7:30pm
Artist talk by Shubigi Rao
An introduction to Bildmuseet’s survey of Pulp at Accelerator, Stockholm University, in collaboration with Swedish PEN.

Sunday, April 27, 2–3pm
On Notes in the Margins, Marks and Annotations as a Way of Reading 
The artist Kajsa Dahlberg in conversation with curator Sofia Johansson about her work A Room of One’s Own / A Thousand Libraries. Dahlberg borrowed all copies of Virginia Woolf’s essay A Room of One’s Own from Swedish libraries and transferred all their margin notes into one volume of the book, which she printed in 1000 copies.

Sunday, May 11, 2–3pm
On Experimental Acts of Translation from Text to Image
The artist Lika Tarkhan-Mouravi in conversation with curator Anca Rujoiu on the artist’s experimental acts of translating the marginalised poetry writings of Marijan (pseudonym of Mariam Tkemaladze, 1890–1978), a renowned writer of Georgian children’s literature as well as a proto-feminist whose poetry work is yet to be acknowledged.

Sunday, September 14, 2–3pm
On Children’s Literature and Our Worldviews  
Departing from an anthology by Romanian writer Iordan Chimet, the artist Ana Kun will explore the formative role of children’s literature in shaping our views on humans’ and more-than-humans’ livelihoods.