Thank you for visiting this archive of performance works and projects by Rajni Shah. This website contains documentation of Rajni's work from 1999-2019. Since then, Rajni has moved away from the idea of being a 'professional' artist, focusing less on career and visibility, and more on relationship and community. If these things interest you, maybe you will enjoy a visit to their more informal, in-progress web portal here.

ARCHIVE
You are warmly invited to browse this archive via the titles in the red ribbon above, or there are some links to significant moments below. With great thanks to Theron Udaykee Schmidt, with whom this website was made.

Rajni’s work as an artist leans gently but clearly across disciplines, countries, and thought structures. They are a quiet voice of change, creating invitations to gather, to read, to meet, and to listen. 

Rajni has been making performances and leading creative projects since 1999. From 2005-2012 they worked with a group of other artists to create and tour a trilogy of works exploring moments of cultural identity and alienation: Mr Quiver (2005-2008), Dinner with America (2007-2009), and Glorious (2009-2012). Alongside these larger performance works, Rajni and other members of Rajni Shah Projects created a series of public interventions exploring ideas of gift and conversation. Initially entitled small gifts, this series culminated with two touring pieces made for public spaces: give what you can, take what you need which toured alongside Dinner with America, and Write a Letter to a Stranger which was at the core of Glorious. From 2013 to 2017, Rajni conducted research towards a practice-based PhD at Lancaster University, working with Professor Geraldine Harris. The writing from this period was published in July 2021 as a monograph and series of zines, entitled Experiments in Listening.

In 2017, Rajni Shah Projects formally closed as a company with One Final Act.