ajaykumar

Ajaykumar’s (aka Raphael Jay Adjani) art and research focuses on ‘being’: interrogating notions of ‘relational being’, ‘the being of a space’, and ‘non-anthropocentric being’. It is concerned with engendering new epistemologies in ontological art practice: through reappraising Buddhist, Tantric, and Animistic processes; through investigating the contemporary pertinence of a hypothesis of ‘dependent origination’ beyond its original Buddhist cultural and religious significance, particularly with regard spectatorship, ludic, performative, and pedagogic processes. Ajaykumar teaches at Goldsmith’s College, London. His current courses include: Technology, Art, and Being; Narrative Construction in Film; Notions of void, emptiness, and ‘an art of spectatorship’ in Japanese Art and Culture; Multi-Media and Site-Specific Art. He is a member of the University of Arts London Research Centre, Transnational Art, Identity and Nation (TrAIN); and a co-director of the Shapes Design Studio where he is collaborating with an architect and product designer to engender furniture, lighting and gardens that come into ‘being’ through the play of others. Ajaykumar studied fine art, film, and performance at Chelsea College of Art and Design, London College of Communication, University of the Arts London; the Institute of Education, University of London; and at the Royal College of Art.