Sahej Rahal

Sahej Rahal (b. 1988, Mumbai, India) lives in Mumbai. Rahal’s installations, films and performances are part of an elaborate burgeoning mythology. He creates it by drawing characters from a range of sources, from local legends to science fiction. By bringing these characters and narratives into dialogue with each other, Rahal creates scenarios where indeterminate beings emerge into the everyday, as if from the cracks of our civilisation.

At Liverpool Biennial 2016, Rahal’s sculptures imagine artefacts from science fiction and popular culture thousands of years into the future, fossilised. These belong within a burgeoning mythology, which draws on characters from a range of sources, from local legend to science fiction. He encourages these indeterminate beings to emerge into our everyday lives, as if through cracks in our civilisation. The backdrop is a square behind the Town Hall that is often used by the film industry: it has been cast as New York several times, and once it was covered in snow, to represent Moscow. The sculptures also appear elsewhere throughout the Biennial exhibition. 

His work has been exhibited at the Jewish Museum, New York, USA (2015); GALLERIA CONTINUA, Boissy-le-Châtel, France (2014); Kochi Muziris Biennale, Kochi, India (2014); Vancouver Biennale, Vancouver, Canada (2014-15); GASWORKS, London, UK (2013); Art Stage Singapore, Singapore (2014); and the MACRO Museum, Rome, Italy (2013). He is the recipient of the Forbes India Art Award 2014 for best debut show for his solo exhibition at Chatterjee & Lal, Mumbai, India.

Sahej Rahal at Liverpool Biennial 2016

---

UNDERGOD, 2016
Terracotta, scrap metal and cement
Commissioned by Liverpool Biennial in partnership with METAL
Exhibited at Exchange Flags.Cains Brewery and Tate Liverpool

Forerunner, 2013
Adversary, 2016
Videos
Exhibited at Cains Brewery

Saras, 2012
Video
Exhibited at Tate Liverpool