Rasheed Araeen
Discosailing: A Ballet on Water, 2024
Please note: Due to river conditions, we have had to cancel the event scheduled for 27 September 2024. We hope to present Discosailing again in the future, please keep an eye on our social media for updates.
Discosailing is a participatory art ‘action’ that was first conceived by the artist Rasheed Araeen in 1970 and has developed in the years since. Araeen describes it as “a system of sailing, or floating on water… Discosailing, performed individually or collectively involving many performers, may appear as a sport but its underlying conception is the idea of a floating sculpture or sculptures. It can also be perceived as a form of a live performance.”
On 27 July 2024, to coincide with the first day of the Paris 2024 Olympics, The Line realised the first manifestation of Discosailing to have ever been performed in the UK on the Waterworks River at Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. Six performances unfolded during the day, each lasting 30 minutes. Nine participants floated on discs wearing sails in bright colours that echo Araeen’s bold sculptures and painted works.
Like much of Araeen’s practice, Discosailing is an invitation for people to become part of his work. Through a meditative, experimental encounter, participants are invited to play with a connection between the body, object, water and space.
Discosailing will be performed on the Waterworks River between London Aquatics Centre and UCL East at what3words location mixed.songs.motion. Spectating is welcomed – and free.
Co-curated with Arup Phase 2
In collaboration with London Youth Rowing
Courtesy of the artist and Grosvenor Gallery
Location:
Discosailing will be performed on the Waterworks River between London Aquatics Centre and UCL East at what3words location mixed.songs.motion
Biography
Born and educated in Pakistan, Rasheed Araeen trained as an engineer before moving to Europe in the 1960s to become one of the pioneers of minimalist sculpture in Britain.
In the following decades, Araeen’s practice – in performance, photography, painting and sculpture – began to develop an overtly political content which drew attention to the way in which Black artists were invisible within the dominant Eurocentric culture.
Through his activities as a publisher, writer, and artist, Araeen was a pivotal figure in establishing a Black voice in the British arts. In 1987 he founded the groundbreaking journal Third Text and in 1989 he curated the seminal exhibition The Other Story, Afro-Asian artists in post-war Britain at the Southbank Centre. This was the first major retrospective of work by Asian and African artists in Britain, all of whom had made significant contributions to the artistic scene since the 1950s,
Araeen has exhibited widely, and his work is included in public and private collections around the world. Recent exhibitions include Frieze Sculpture, London (2021) and 2018’s Rasheed Araeen: A Retrospective which toured to Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, The Netherlands, MAMCO Genève, Switzerland, BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead, and in 2019, to the Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, Moscow, Russia. In 2019 he opened Shamiyaana, a communal meeting place and restaurant in Stoke Newington. As an extension of his studio practice, the space is also a manifestation of his belief in the potential of collective action. In 2023, Araeen’s participatory sculpture, Zero to Infinity, was shown in the Turbine Hall at Tate Modern, London.
Araeen lives and works in London.
Image:
1: Stephen Chung
2: Stephen Chung
3: Stephen Chung
4: Rasheed Araeen
WATCH: Rasheed Araeen - 'Discosailing: A Ballet On Water'
