DARCH, the collaborative artistic practice of Umulkhayr Mohamed and Radha Patel, has been selected as one of 30 artists to participate in the Liverpool Biennial 2025. Representing Wales in this prestigious international event, DARCH will present a new and highly anticipated work – Heaven In The Ground - responding to the Biennial's theme, "Bedrock".
Formed in 2023, DARCH is a practice rooted in themes of ancestral grief, colonialism, displacement, and the emotional impacts of trauma and being poor. DARCH is grounded in finding creative ways to articulate care centered practices for people of colour, with a politic grounded in solidarity and liberation.
Their first piece of work, ‘Grief/Rage’ Ritual, was commissioned by Arcade Campfa in May 2024 as part of a digital residency. The film, which is available to view online, researched different cultural rituals for processing and validating colonial/ancestral grief and liberatory rage, before making their own.
The duo’s work blends elements of their individual practises including visual art, sound, ritual, installation and storytelling to create immersive spaces for healing and reflection. Their participation in the Liverpool Biennial 2025 marks a significant moment in their emerging careers and a platform to bring their transformative work to an international audience.
Both artists have also received support from Arts Council of Wales' Creative Steps Grant in 2024 to develop their individual practices. For Umulkhayr this grant is being used to complete several works in progress, including "Officer, Am I Too Far Gone?"—a multi-medium series made under their artistic moniker Aisha Ajnabi in collaboration with the ancestors, photographer Kieran Cudlip, and sculptor Brian Denman.
The series was selected for the Ffoto Cymru International Open Call “Histories, Legacies & Futures” and is currently on exhibition at Oriel Y Bont, University of South Wales in Treforest, alongside the work of Melissa Rodrigues, until January 2025. The photographic series documents a performance in which Aisha Ajnabi walked the length of Newport Road in Cardiff, re-enacting a historical moment from the 1920s when a Somali seaman was told by a police officer that he could not walk the same path.
Radha Patel used her Creative Steps Grant to develop the beginnings of ‘That’s When We’ll Meet’ – a time travelling play connecting the lives of Welsh people who lived on the land that is now the National Botanical Gardens of Wales, to Indians during the construction of ‘The Great Hedge’.
It’s a story about friendship, mythology, ritual and the colonisation of plants, people and salt exploring the role of the East India Company in the founding of the National Botanical Gardens of Wales. The construction of many of these buildings and the appropriation of the land that the gardens now sit on would have coincided with the Estate Acts, pushing out many Welsh farming families who had deep connections with the land and surroundings.
The Liverpool Biennial 2025 will run from the 7th of June 2025 to the 14th of September 2025, will feature new commissions, performances, and installations from 30 international artists. The full list of artists can be found here.