2026 Research Fellow
For the past six years, Raoni has developed an artistic practice that centers on the erotic, political and connecting dimensions of ‘The Moan as a performative lamenting practice’. Through facilitating ‘mourning socialities’ and solo performances, he explored the transformative power of witnessing each other’s cries of pain and injustice. However, what happens when we rush towards the closing of the wound that grief makes? While witnessing the ongoing genocide of Palestinians, Raoni has seen a growing interest in the theme of collective grief in artistic and cultural institutions and spaces. He questions the depoliticization and institutionalization of grief in these spaces and asks what happens when we instead honor and sit in the ugliness of the wounds of injustice?
In this conversation with Wayne Modest, Raoni shares his research questions around the ethics and poetics of grief, wounds and wounding, particularly of and by marginalized people. Please enjoy listening to a part of their conversation below.
