Rahee Punyashloka

The first issue of fourteen mag is live now. I think we have come up with something special. Take a look, won't you? Shoutout to all the wonderful, wonderful artists and writers who we got to work with for the past several months to bring this issue out. I'm usually very good with my words, but the gratitude I feel for you all leaves me speechless. Thank you for your community and generosity and your insights and your love. You are the echo of Jai Bhim personified. What a blessing to be contemporaries with y'all. 💙💙

For Rohith, my Brother With Fantastically Large Wings

DAY 1: SESSION 3 Panel Discussion: Caste Apartheid in India - The Rohith Act and the Struggle for Justice Join us for a crucial discussion connecting the anti-caste movement to the struggle for Palestinian liberation. This panel will explore the Rohith Act - a legislative response to caste-based discrimination that emerged from the movement in response to the institutional murder of Rohith Vemula. Our speakers will trace the origins of this legislation, examine its specific implications in the context of the movement in Bangalore, and discuss what meaningful implementation looks like for other states across India. As part of Israeli Apartheid Week with the theme “Palestine frees us all,” this session will draw parallels between different systems of apartheid and interconnected struggles for dignity. Just as the campus movement has been instrumental in challenging Israeli apartheid, we examine how student activism and solidarity has been at the forefront of the anti-caste movement. The format will be a hybrid panel discussion with 2-3 speakers followed by a Q&A.

The Bhoir family resides inside the Aarey Forest, and were crucial stakeholders of the Aarey Forest Movement. Through their songs, Warli Art, and activism, they continue to fight for indigenous rights and for the Aarey Forest. This film documents their songs, and is created by Rahee Punyashloka. View the whole film by visiting fourteenmag.com or visiting the link in our bio. [Fourteen Magazine, Aarey Forest, Lungs of Mumbai, Aarey Colony, India, Climate Justice]

In part two of our conversations with the Bodies–Machines–Publics 2025 residents, Kiraṇ Kumār (India), Rafa Roeder (UK), and Rahee Punyashloka (India) reflect on their evolving inquiries tracing intricacies and blurred thresholds between bodies, technologies, and publics. The Open Studio begins tomorrow, 5 December, 5:30 pm onwards at Khoj Studios, and continues till 9 December, featuring performances and artist-led interactions on 6–7 December, and a two-day workshop by Sundar Sarukkai on Body, Technology and the Arts (registrations open — link in bio). Stay tuned, and see you at the Open Studio. Supported by the Pro Helvetia Synergies Program, the project is a collaboration between NAVE (Chile), Khoj International Artists Association (India), Immersive Arts Space/ZHdK (Zurich, Switzerland) and Kornhausforum (Bern, Switzerland). Rafa Roeder’s participation in the residency is supported by the British Council, and Cyanne van den Houten’s participation is supported by the Netherlands Embassy in India. Artists-in-residence: @cyannevdh  @rafaroeder  @porgoteo  @kaldi_moss  @artedkar  @archipelagrams Collaborators: @prohelvetia  @inbritish  @britisharts  @centro_nave  @zhdk_immersiveartsspace  @kornhausforum  @nlinindia

Hi friends! As part of what has been a richly rewarding residency and start to a rather ambitious set of enquiries around extraction interfaces, volumes, image histories, and the ground beneath our teeth, I invite you all to a conversation between me and two of the most brilliant thinkers of our times- @brahm.prakassh and @mirrorsandwater !! We will discuss how the bulldozer is a punctum for a crisis in the future of images, about how it acquires mythic potency, and how its teeth could be the key to reconfiguring axiomatic ways in which we confront our bodies and our machines in everyday life. Register through the QR code on the poster or through the link in my bio. See you!! :)

What happens when waste, residue, and the discarded insist on being seen? In his first essay for the Arts Journalism Grant, Rahee Punyashloka @artedkar draws us into the practices of artists Mohit Shelare @mohit_shelare , Asish Palei @paleiasish , and Tabitha Percy @percykaki —where flies in the gallery, soil as metaphysics, and the outstretched limb reveal the radical vitality of what society casts aside. Read the full essay on link in bio!

Free Gulfisha Fatima, 2025 . It's been five years since the revolutionary overtures of Shaheen Bagh were met with by retribution of the state, leading to the endless purgatory state of being held without trial for people like Gulfisha. I read these poems by her recently, they hold so much tenderness and profundity. Hope you read some of her poems, remember her, and push, in whatever way, for justice. #gulfishafatima #freegulfishafatima

𝗔𝗻𝗮𝘁𝗼𝗺𝘆 𝗼𝗳 𝗮 𝗦𝗺𝗼𝗼𝘁𝗵 𝗦𝘂𝗿𝗳𝗮𝗰𝗲 emerges from Rahee Punyashloka’s engagement with granite, considering deep time, materialities, and the way extraction interfaces with the artistic object. Punyashloka draws an analogy between the way civilizational interactions with granite occur, and the way the Dalit body and imagination is ‘smoothened’ in a similar process. Rahee Punyashloka is an artist, writer, researcher, and filmmaker based in Bhubaneswar and New Delhi. His practice seeks to illuminate the vastly un/underrepresented artistic history of Dalit identity and the anti-caste struggle. 🔈🔉🔊 𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝒑𝒍𝒂𝒄𝒆 𝒘𝒆 𝒅𝒐 𝒏𝒐𝒕 𝒌𝒏𝒐𝒘 𝒊𝒔 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒑𝒍𝒂𝒄𝒆 𝒘𝒆 𝒂𝒓𝒆 𝒍𝒐𝒐𝒌𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒇𝒐𝒓 is showing at West Space until 29 March. Visit Wed to Fri, 11am → 6pm, Sat, 12 → 4pm. Entry is free. All welcome. 🔈🔉🔊 Curated by Laura McLean @laura.mclean and Suvani Suri @suvanisuri 𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝒑𝒍𝒂𝒄𝒆 𝒘𝒆 𝒅𝒐 𝒏𝒐𝒕 𝒌𝒏𝒐𝒘 𝒊𝒔 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒑𝒍𝒂𝒄𝒆 𝒘𝒆 𝒂𝒓𝒆 𝒍𝒐𝒐𝒌𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒇𝒐𝒓 is presented by West Space and @liquid_architecture (Naarm/Melbourne) with @sarai.csds (Delhi, India). Supported by Centre for Australia-India Relations Maitri Cultural Partnerships Program. Image: @artedkar , 𝗔𝗻𝗮𝘁𝗼𝗺𝘆 𝗼𝗳 𝗮 𝗦𝗺𝗼𝗼𝘁𝗵 𝗦𝘂𝗿𝗳𝗮𝗰𝗲 #𝟮, installation view, West Space, @collingwood_yards , 2025. Photo by @janellelow_

It is my immense joy and privilege to invite you all for the first exhibition of works by @perishablegoodscollective opening this Saturday at Walker's Point Center for the Arts @walkerspointart , running through this month and the next. 'invitations to a feast...' speaks to the ways in which risk and joy are intertwined for so many of us when it comes to questions of food. About how caste, culinary histories, consumption pathways, logics of purity, and the threat of extinction, all come together in deciding whether the invitation to a feast may or may not reach you. Featuring new pastel works and photographs by me, as part of an evolving series called 'Strange Fruit.' And, of course, truly stellar work by my collective brethren, Vamsi, Percy, and Bao. Drop by and check it out, won't you? 💙💙

Perishable Goods Collective is a transdisciplinary collective of anti-caste practitioners working between creation, curation, and conservation at the interface of food and oppressed caste identities in South Asia. The collective consists of Sri Vamsi Matta, Tabitha Percy, Bao, and Rahee Punyashloka, each of whom artistically contend with their Dalit identities and the culinary lifeworlds it activates.

This portrait by Rahee Punyashloka is based on a staged photograph of an unknown person, who may or may not be Dhobi themself, and which is the first ever photograph of the Dhobi community. The person smoothens a white cloth laid out on a table with an iron, an occupational task of my people for generations before and after this photo, Rahee writes. There is plenty of metaphorical smoothening that occurs within this image too, be it in the matter of the enduring casteist legacy of the image, of the smooth surface to which my people have historically been mere means, or, of the passivity and the unifying limits of the caste structure. What you see in this portrait is my response to this idea of the Dalit body as a smooth, malleable artefact. The pleats and creases and accentuated grains and noisiness that populates my version of this photograph is the first step toward imagining my ancestors differently than as passive facilitators of smoothening. Anatomy of a Smooth Surface #1 by Rahee Punyashloka Mixed Media, Archival Photograph, Photograph, Digital and Physical Manipulation 21" X 30" Edition of 10 This work is on view at Method Kala Ghoda as part of their 5 year anniversary exhibition, Portrait Of A Time. Dm @methodindia for enquiries to collect this work.