Raqs is a word in Persian, Arabic and Urdu and means the state that “whirling dervishes” enter into when they whirl. It is also a word used for dance.

At the same time, Raqs could be an acronym, standing for ‘rarely asked questions’...!

Raqs is a collective of media practitioners that works in new media & digital art practice, documentary filmmaking, photography, media theory & research, writing, criticism and curation.

Raqs Media Collective is the co-initiator of Sarai: The New Media Initiative, (www.sarai.net) a programme of interdisciplinary research and practice on media, city space and urban culture at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi.

Members of the collective are resident at the Sarai Media Lab, Delhi, where they work on projects interpreting the city and urban experience; make cross-media works; collaborate on the development of software; design and conduct workshops; administer discussion lists; edit publications; write, research and co-ordinate several research projects and public activities of Sarai.

They are co-editors of the Sarai Reader series.