Raqs Media Collective Curates Disobedience Archive at Migros Museum

Raqs Media Collective has curated the latest iteration of Marco Scotini's Disobedience Archive at Migros Museum of Contemporary Art in Zürich, running from 7 February to 25 May 2026. The exhibition, titled Disobedience Archive (Canopy for Broken Time), features over 100 videoworks from the archive, which began in 2005 and intersects artistic practice with political activism. Raqs Media Collective designed five canopy-like structures inspired by the South Asian shamiana tent, made from fabric, acrylic glass, and LEDs, paired with thematic chapters: 'Archives in Revolt', 'Insurgent Communities', 'Diaspora Activism', 'Radical Ecologies', and 'Gender Disobedience'. A sixth canopy serves as a gathering space without films. The exhibition includes 50 films total, plus three works from the museum's collection. Key works include Sim Chi Yin's Requiem (Internationale, Goodbye Malaya) (2017), showing elderly former guerrilla fighters struggling to recall anti-colonial songs; Mohanad Yaqubi's R21 aka Restoring Solidarity (2022), tracing a lost letter of solidarity from a Japanese activist to a Palestinian filmmaker; and Graciela Carnevale's Archivio Tucumán Arde (1967–75/2014), documenting the 1968 art protests against Juan Carlos Onganía's dictatorship. The scenography interrupts Eurocentric viewing norms, encouraging collective attention and reflection on digital extractivism.