Sahej Rahal

Sahej Rahal (b. 1988) is a storyteller who weaves counter-mythologies that interrogate narrations of the present. This myth world takes the shape of sculptures, performances, films, paintings, installations, video games, and AI simulation programs. Drawing upon folklore prophecies, archeological conspiracies, hidden histories, and occult manuscripts, he renders scenarios where the fictive and the real begin to converse, at the borderlines of myth and memory.

Rahal’s artistic practice has been featured in institutional exhibitions internationally, including the Munch Triennial (forthcoming Nov-2025), the Biennial of Moving Images at Centre d'Art Contemporain in Geneva, The Nairobi Contemporary Art Institute, Manifesta 14, the Gwangju Biennale, the Liverpool Biennial, the Kochi Biennale, the Vancouver Biennale, Transmediale, MACRO Museum Rome, Kadist SF, ACCA Melbourne, CCA Glasgow and the CSMVS Museum in Mumbai. 

He is the recipient of the Cove Park/Henry Moore Fellowship, Akademie Schloss Solitude Fellowship, the Sher-Gil Sundaram Arts Foundation Installation Art Grant, the Digital Earth Fellowship, the first Human-Machine Fellowship organized by Junge Akademie ADK, the Eyebeam Democracy Machine Fellowship 2024, and the ‘Enter the Hyperscientific’ fellowship program 2025 organized by EPFL Pavilions in Lausanne, Switzerland.

In his writing, Rahal has cultivated a form of speculative philosophy, which has been featured in the first anthology of Anti-Caste speculative fiction, The Blaft Book of Anti-Caste SF produced by BLAFT publications in Chennai, and in WEEB THEORY, a resource for artists encountering the dreamworlds of Japanese anime, video games, and comic books, published by Banner Repeater, UK.
 

Rahal is a self-taught video game programmer, and his multiplayer video game ‘Distributed Mind Test’ has been featured at the 2024 Biennial of Moving Images at the Centre d’Art Contemporain in Geneva, the Fondazione Spazio Vitale in Verona, and at FACT Liverpool. 

Date of Residence: 1. 8. – 31. 8. 2025

RESIDENCY PROJECT

During the residency, Sahej Rahal will be conducting research and producing new work for his upcoming exhibition at Rudolfinum, scheduled for next year. The exhibition will bring together paintings, sculptures, interactive AI simulations, and a multiplayer video game — all part of an alternate mythology unfolding upon our world. More information about the overarching mythological framework and the individual works can be found on his website.

EDUCATION

2011    Diploma in Fine Arts, Rachana Sansad Academy of Fine Arts and Crafts – Mumbai, India

SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2019    Juggernaut, Chatterjee & Lal, Mumbai, India

2018    The Dekkan Trap, MAC, Birmingham, United Kingdom

2017    Barricadia, CCA, Glasgow, United Kingdom

2017    Dry Salvages, PRIMARY, Nottingham, United Kingdom

2016    Adversary, Chatterjee & Lal, Mumbai, India

2013    Forerunner, Chatterjee & Lal, Mumbai, India

2011    Hardboiled Wonderland, Solo exhibition at Kunst (Zeug) Haus, Rapperswil-Jona, Switzerland

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2021    Technoshamanism, Hartware Medien Kunst Verein, Dortmund, Germany

2021    Radical Gaming – Immersion Simulation Subversion, House of Electronic Arts, Basel, SW

2021    limitrophy, Foreign Objekt, Online

2021    Transmediale 2021, Berlin, Germany-Online

2021    Minds Rising Spirits Tuning, Gwangju Biennial, South Korea

2020    At The Center of The World There is Fiction, Aici Acolo, Cluj-Napoca, România

2019    Continuous Voyage, Sun Wa Centre, Vancouver Biennale, Canada

2019    Feedback Loops, ACCA Melbourne, Australia

2018    Ghosted, Akademie Schloss Solitude & ZKM Center for Art and Media, Stuttgart, Germany

2018    Asymmetrical Objects Dr. Bhau Daji Lad Museum, Mumbai, India

2018    D/CODE, Mumbai, India

2018    India Art Fair, New Delhi, India

2017    The 10 Year Hustle, Chatterjee & Lal, Mumbai, India

2016    Contingent Farewell, Kadist SF, United States of America

2016    Liverpool Biennial, Liverpool, United Kingdom

2016    The Missing One, Dhaka Art Summit – Dhaka, Bangladesh

2016    Temporal Turn, Spencer Museum of Art – Kansas, United States of America

2016    Setouchi Triennial – Shodoshima Island, Japan

2016    Ideas travel faster than light, NIV Art Center – New Delhi, India

PUBLICATIONS

2026    Futures Theory: Philosophies of the World to Come (edited by Jason Bahbak Mohaghegh), Bloomsbury – London, United Kingdom
2024    The Blaft Book of Anti-Caste SF (edited by R.T. Samuel et al.), BLAFT Publications – Chennai, India

2023    Weeb Theory (edited by Jamie Sutcliffe & Petra Szeman), Banner Repeater – London, United Kingdom

All information is valid as of 1 August 2025