Raqs is a word in Persian, Arabic and Urdu and means the state that "whirling dervishes" enter into when they whirl. Raqs signifies and embodies the practice of a kinetic contemplation of the world. It is also a word used for dance.

Raqs Media Collective (India) was formed in 1992 by independent media practitioners Jeebesh Bagchi, Monica Narula and Shuddhabrata Sengupta. The group has been variously described as artists, media practitioners, curators, researchers, editors and catalysts of cultural processes. Their work, which has been exhibited widely in major international spaces and events, locates them squarely along the intersections of contemporary art, historical enquiry, philosophical speculation, research and theory - often taking the form of installations, online and offline media objects, performances and encounters.

Based in Delhi, their work engages with urban spaces and global circuits, persistently welding a sharp, edgily contemporary sense of what it means to lay claim to the world from the streets of Delhi. At the same time, Raqs Media Collective articulates an intimately lived relationship with myths and histories of diverse provenances. Raqs sees its work as opening out a series of investigations with image, sound, software, objects, performance, print, text and lately, curation, that straddle different (and changing) affective and aesthetic registers, expressing an imaginative unpacking of questions of identity and location, a deep ambivalence towards modernity and a quiet but consistent critique of the operations of power and property.

In 2001 Raqs co-founded Sarai at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS) in Delhi where they coordinate media productions, pursue and administer independent research and practice projects and also work as members of the editorial collective of the Sarai Reader series. For Raqs, Sarai is a space where they have the freedom to pursue interdisciplinary and hybrid contexts for creative work and to develop a sustained engagement with urban space and with different forms of media. They have had solo exhibitions at The Tate Britain and Frith Street Gallery in London; Palais des Beaux Arts, Brussels; Asia Art Archive, Hong Kong, the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, The Taipei, Liverpool, Ogaki and Venice Biennales, as well as curated "The Rest of Now" and co-curated "Scenarios" for Manifesta 7 (2008).

During their time as Artists-in-Residence in 2010, Raqs spent many hours in the galleries, did research in the archives, and poured over books from the collection with Anne-Marie Eze, a Curatorial Fellow specializing in manuscripts and Heraldry. These included a set of Japanese fairy tales for children, several Books of Hours, Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy with commentary by Cristoforo Cristoforo Landino, and a copy of The Divan of Haifiz. Raqs were also interested in Mrs. Gardner’s textiles and tapestries in the collection. They met with textile conservator Tess Fredette to view several pieces including a Bengali wall hanging of a triumphal arch from the mid-17th century and the treatment to one of five tapestries from the story of Abraham in the Tapestry Room. The group also made trips to the grounds of the old Brookline greenhouses that were used from 1926 through 1972 to cultivate and grow plants for the Courtyard, as well as the site currently used at the Honeywell Estate in Wellesley.