Rakini Devi and Karl Ockelford
About
Dr. Rakini Devi’s work can be described as intercultural hybrid performance art, integrating her knowledge of Indian Classical Dance and her own visual arts practice. Her inquiry into the female body as symbol, using sacred Hindu iconography as protest against misogynist atrocities are illustrated in her performance installations: The Female Pope (Sydney, New York, Sweden), The Widow, The Two Madonnas (Mexico 2014), Kali Madonna and The Black Madonna. Her highly stylized choreographic installations using her own crafted props and visual art have been presented in site- specific venues nationally and internationally. She completed a DCA (Doctor of Creative Arts, UOW) in 2018, presenting her exegesis, Urban Kali, From Sacred Dance to Secular Performance, and her doctoral presentation, Urban Kali, at the Lennox, 2017, produced by FORM dance and supported by UOW.
In 2019, Devi presented performance installations at the Lock Up, Newcastle, and at Artbar, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney.
In 2020 she was AIR at The Rex Cramphorn studios, funded by Create NSW, which led to her first art exhibition at Articulate Project space in March 2021, Inhabiting Erasures, embodying traces of the feminine, also funded by Create NSW.
She continues her research-based practice in dance, live art, visual arts and academic writing.
Karl Ockelford is a multi-disciplinary artist who works individually and in collaboration across fields of film, sound, installation, photography and visual design. His work explores improvisation, abstraction, ritual and subterranean themes. Karl’s collaborations include work with Decibel New Music Ensemble and individual members Stuart James and Cat Hope on sound and visual projects, Rakini Devi with music/video production for live performances pieces as well as ongoing film projects. Over the past ten years he has record releases with improvised experimental groups Abe Sada & Sub Ordnance, remixes for labels Hidden Shoal and ENDE Records and has exhibited installation and photographic works in a number of group exhibitions. Karl’s current creative practice involves sonic experimentation through his solo music projects Reluctant Carnivore and Goat Lung, personal studies of the interaction of sound/form through cymatics and investigations into sound sculpture utilising drone and resonance.