RAMAN MUNDAIR
////an urgent and surging voice////
director///writer///dramaturg///artist///filmmaker///playwright///poet///activist
contact me: rmundair@gmail.com ///twitter: @MundairRaman///Instagram: @ramanmundair + @rmundair///
facebook.com/ramanmundair///anchor.fm/raman-mundair
​
Raman's entry at the Scottish Documentary Institute
​
​
​

PUBLICATIONS
Discover Your Next Read

LOVERS, LIARS, CONJURERS AND THIEVES
Peepal Tree Press

THE CHOREOGRAPHER'S CARTOGRAPHY
Peepal Tree Press

THE ALGEBRA OF FREEDOM
Aurora Metro Press

INCOMING: SOME SHETLAND VOICES
Shetland Amenity Trust
VISUAL ART///EXHIBITIONS///ARTIST INTERVENTIONS///PERFORMANCE
2020 resist///dance; Tramway
2019 Still/Ill; DanceBase Edinburgh
2019 Mother/Love; Centre for Contemporary Art
2019 Sow, Reap and Slowly Savour, Centre for Contemporary Art, Glasgow
2019 Let Me Hold You 2019 (Ubuntu ), Transmission Gallery, Glasgow
2011 A Servant's Tale at Coast Festival, (site-specific installation for the Coast Festival) a collaboration with artists Margaret Stewart and Elspeth Winram from the Itchee Wasp Collective. The work was exhibited in the East Pavilion of Banff Castle, Scotland and draws on the perceived history and hidden narratives of Banff Castle.
2007 Amygdalae, (text/performance/installation) a collaboration with artist Maedhbh McMahon (Ireland), Kevin Kavanagh Gallery, Dublin, Ireland
RAMAN MUNDAIR
*****NEWS*****
Raman's latest piece in Bella Caledonia on WoC, sex selection and foeticide
<~~**************************~~>
Raman is delighted to announce that she will collaborating as a writer with Tom Gentle and Harry Truman of Gentle Giant Productions on a forthcoming short film project.
<~~**************************~~>
Raman has been chosen to participate in the FIELD digital residency
https://www.twodestinationlanguage.com/curation/field-scotland
<~~**************************~~>
Delighted to announce that Raman has been chosen by the BBC to develop an original piece of drama. She will be partnering with award winning Synchronicity Films.
<~~**************************~~>
Raman has been awarded an IASH/Traverse Digital Fellowship 2021 and will be working with the Traverse Theatre, Scotland.
<~~**************************~~>
Raman's short film, Graffiti, has been shortlisted for the Convergence, BFI/Short Circuits development programme.
<~~**************************~~>
Raman has been awarded an Ignite Fellowship from the Scottish Book Trust
Raman has been awarded a Tramway residency to work with Sarya Wu in 2021
<~~**************************~~>
<~~**************************~~>
<~~**************************~~>
​
Raman Mundair is an Indian born, director, writer, artist, activist, filmmaker and playwright. She is not neuro-typical and identifies as disabled, Queer and a British Asian intersectional feminist. She is based in Shetland and Glasgow. She is the award winning author of Lovers, Liars, Conjurers and Thieves, A Choreographer’s Cartography, The Algebra of Freedom (a play) and is the editor of Incoming: Some Shetland Voices.
​
Raman is an ALL3Media Scholarship winner and a graduate of the National Film and Television School. She has been invited by BBC writers room to be part of their Scottish Drama Writers Programme 2021 initiative and has been commissioned to develop an original drama with Synchronicity Films
She was shortlisted as a writer and director for Sharp Shorts. Tramway, Glasgow commissioned three new experimental artist films which debuted on the Tramway TV initiative.
She is currently a dramaturg and mentor for Scottish Youth Theatre on the Stories 2020 project.
She is a Margaret Tait Award 2021/2022 longlist nominee.
​
Raman was longlisted for the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative Award​ and is a winner of the Robert Louis Stevenson Award and a Leverhulme Fellowship.
​
Her work is socially and politically observant, bold, mischievous, cutting edge and potent with poetic imagery and integrity. Her writing plays with the intersections of race, gender, sexuality and class and challenges notions of British and colonial histories and identities. Raman's work focuses on the experiences, knowledges and life-worlds of people of colour and reframes their experience from a fresh, new perspective. She has published poetry, fiction, drama and non-fiction and has performed and exhibited her artwork around the world from Aberdeen to Zimbabwe. She presents the Intersectional Voices (IV) podcast.
Raman has been a judge on several awards panels for the Scottish Book Trust. She is a member of Scottish PEN. She is care-experienced and has been a member of Scottish Children's Panel. She is part of the Herbal Unity Collective that works with people in the immigration system in Glasgow.
​
​
**You can read via the British Council website: Some Critical Perspective's on RM's work by Dr James Procter**
​
Poetry, Prose, Plays & Public Art
​
A Choreographer's Cartography (Peepal Tree Press, ISBN 1 84523 051 5) - collection of poems
BUY HERE:
https://www.peepaltreepress.com/books/choreographers-cartography
The Algebra of Freedom (Aurora Metro, ISBN 978-09551566-6-3) - play
BUY HERE:
https://www.aurorametro.com/product/algebra-of-freedom/
Lovers, Liars, Conjurers and Thieves (Peepal Tree Press, ISBN 1900715805) - collection of poems
BUY HERE:
https://www.peepaltreepress.com/books/lovers-liars-conjurers-and-thieves
The Incoming Project - Some Shetland Voices (Shetland Museum and Archives / Shetland Heritage Publications, ISBN 978-0-9572031-4-3) - editor/contributor
Chattri Memorial, ArchiTexts - web installation A response in prose and poetry to the Chattri Memorial, near Brighton, Sussex in memory of the Sikh and Hindu soldiers who died while in hospitals in Brighton and Hove during WW1.
Secrets of the Green, public art: poetry & art plaque trail, The Green, Aberdeen
Filmography
​
choreographies of resist///dance is a triptych of films commissioned by Tramway, Glasgow for their Tramway TV project. Mundair's films meditate on rituals for resistance for women of colour during troubled times. It incorporates healing and uplifting practices and presents them as poetic strategies for self defence: dance, breath-work, music, song, and dialogue with other women of colour and moments with nature all become radical acts of self-care and self-love.
Mundair uses the traditionally Punjabi female folk dance of Giddha and female group singing of Boliyaan as a rallying call for resistance. For a call to literal, spiritual, emotional and psychological movement – a physicality that embodies resist///dance. The work was available for 1 week to view via instagram tv.
https://www.tramway.org/events/pages/event-details.aspx?event=1/raman-mundair-choreographies-of-resistdance
​
https://www.glasgowlife.org.uk/event/1/raman-mundair-choreographies-of-resistdance
​
​
Mu Vich, Ajeeb Jeeb :: In My Mouth, Strange and Curious Tongue (2020) – a film quartet
meray jhutay hai japani (1.45mins) //sirh pay lal topi russi (1.23mins)//english is an unsubtle act (1.50mins)//your tongue in my mouth (1.33mins)
Mu Vich, Ajeeb Jeeb :: In My Mouth, Strange and Curious Tongue is a series of four films designed to be viewed simultaesnously or individually or in different combinations. It's an experimental exploration of articulation, of the act of naming and forming ways of expressing in a creative, textual, visual and performative way. It is an open ended conversation without an assigned syntax or grammar. It is a diasporic, cultural and linguistic free association, each moment enhancing and amplifying the previous moment. It is a multi-genre work that dances within the evocative space of emotional exile, the space that many of second and third generation people of colour can step into and emerge with an innovative new language and identity – a unique way of seeing and telling our lived experiences. Commissioned by Oxford University's Slanguages Project.
https://www.creativeml.ox.ac.uk/blog/exploring-multilingualism/mu-vich-ajeeb-jeeb-my-mouth-strange-and-curious-tongue
Her Third Eye Was Erased at Birth (3.16mins, 2020)
Her Third Eye Was Erased at Birth is a film-poem: This poem was commissioned by Aoife Lyall as part of the Scottish Poetry Library’s ‘Champions’ project, a guest curatorship programme to help extend our national reach.Lyall says, ‘Raman’s poem breathes into the weight of responsibility and expectation ‘vision’ lays at a woman’s feet: to be painfully delicate, perpetually self-aware, purposefully made less to be thought more. It is a call to action and a cry to freedom, a realignment of purpose and function, ideals and realities.’
Mundair says, ‘The proposed subject of vision made me instinctively narrow my eyes. I wanted to filter and notice the peripheral, the liminal and let that land in me. I wanted to consider the weight of the concept of vision and visioning and let it irritate a little and then let it settle. ‘Her Third Eye Was Erased at Birth’ is as playful as it is experimental and as equally poetic as it is political.’
https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/her-third-eye-was-erased-at-birth/
still/ill ::: breatheyesmemory (13.21 mins, 2019)
still/ill ::: breatheyesmemory ::: is an experimental filmwork - Beta hypothesis 1: White space renders me invisible My brown body moves but you can't always see it, catch it, feel it. There is pain and trauma in this brown body but you can't always see it, catch it, feel it, know it. Fact: I have an invisible disability to accompany my stifled voice and censored presence. Fact: I make signs and gestures and signal from this brown body but you can't always see it, catch it, feel it, know it. Fact: I am stillmovingstill In process and in inertia In the tension between dis/abl(e)ility versus agility versus pain versus trauma versus memory versus breath versus eyes From tautness and in between these spaces What do we need to say? How do we need to be remembered? - As a whole, not in parts. In subtlty and in the murk and gray rather than the convenience of white and binary space. This brownbodymoves through space like underwater, a resistance wearing at my skin - This brownbodymoves despite the steroidbloating and the exhausted sinew and muscles that give way - This brownbodymoves even in a low dose naltrexone blur and didn't you know walking is falling, falling is moving stillmovingstill? This brownbodymoves and you do not see that I am stillmovingstill and still/ill - Note my hands, here – see these feet now, look, these eyes this memory - stillmovingstill Commissioned by and premiered at Dancebase Edinburgh, UK 2019
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ArEpaNrg1dk
Sow, Reap and Slowly Savour (10.33mins, 2019)
Film documentation of Raman Mundair's 2019 Sow, Reap and Slowly Savour action/intervention/sound work and installation at the Centre for Contemporary Arts, Glasgow, Scotland. ::: exhibition notes: The seeds were planted beneath our tongues many moons ago Now is the time to reap and taste the language Say their names and slowly Savour… For Sow, Reap and Slowly Savour, poet and artist Raman Mundair will create a new work that will be recorded and installed as sound and text. As part of the process, she offers an opportunity to women of colour and women with a lived experience of the immigration and asylum system via a workshop where they make a place setting for a woman – living, past or mythical. The patterns, text and design of the place settings will be influenced and inspired by Raman's work and draw from seeds, spices, culture, women's mythology and plants from Asia, Africa, the Caribbean and the Arab world. The workshop will be followed by a meal in the space between the participants. Following the workshop and meal, visitors are invited to view a text and sound based installation that will record stories, memories and sounds related to the seeds, spices, culture and mythology of the women participating in the workshop. The meal place settings will be left in the space to mark the work, offering people who might not have a lived experience of borders, the opportunity to understand processes of generational migration.
Commissioned by and premiered at the Centre for Contemporary Arts, Glasgow, UK 2019
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HkIxd9Cd6wE
Noctuary (6.08mins)
'Noctuary' is a triptych of artists films made by Raman Mundair & Lotta Petronella. The three films: Pavor Nocturnus, Apnea & Cataplexia explore the effects of domestic violence on sleep. The films were originally exhibited at the Gallery of Modern Art, Glasgow.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWmWGCDU5ak
​
​
​
Theatre
The Algebra of Freedom - produced by 7:84 Theatre Company. Text published by Aurora Metro
text of produced play can be bought here:
https://www.aurorametro.com/product/algebra-of-freedom/
Side Effects - a site/cast specific collaboration with and produced by the National Theatre Scotland
The Orange Sari - (a play for 7 - 12 year olds) produced by Blue Elephant Theatre, London
Essays///Articles///Panels
​
On sex selection, foeticide and resistance.
https://bellacaledonia.org.uk/2021/11/29/act-of-disappearance-part-1/
​
On La Minga Indigena, COP26 and resistance.
https://bellacaledonia.org.uk/2021/11/04/minga-indigena-voices-from-the-frontline-struggle-for-climate-justice/
​
On the politics and intersections of COVID - Who Killed TY?
https://bellacaledonia.org.uk/2021/10/08/who-killed-ty/
​
On rape culture and intersectionality
https://bellacaledonia.org.uk/2021/03/17/on-rape-culture-and-the-violent-systems-and-structures-we-support-that-allow-it-to-flourish/
​
On The Politics of Representation///The Mundair Test
https://bellacaledonia.org.uk/2021/02/08/passing-the-mundair-test/
​
On The Urgent Need to Decolonise Theatre
https://bellacaledonia.org.uk/2020/09/01/decolonising-theatre-a-playwrights-perspective/
​
On Mele Broomes film: A Service in Committing to Love
https://www.fringeofcolour.co.uk/responses/black-women-the-body-and-acts-of-service-a-service-in-committing-to-love?rq=raman%20mundair
​
Thoughts on Race and Britishness
https://www.conter.scot/2018/4/12/thoughts-on-race-britishness-2/
​
Your Land is My Land
https://bellacaledonia.org.uk/contributor/raman-mundair/
​
On feminist language, women of colour and erasure of lived experience
https://www.engender.org.uk/news/blog/f-words-raman-mundair/
​
On time losing meaning, the difference between solitude and isolation, and missing dancing.
https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/2020/05/from-the-front-lines-raman-mundair/?fbclid=IwAR1GprKkc3wOw_LQ18_vfU4PZxf7058_FlpyK7oDjItqdvloCqrEgrojqjw
​
On the Corona Virus, living with constant pain, 'invisible' disability, chronic illness and the very real, daily intersectional impact.
https://disabilityarts.online/magazine/opinion/being-in-process-and-inertia-raman-mundair-on-writing-and-dancing-with-and-through-pain/
​
On People of Colour in the Shetland Islands - the incoming project
https://www.shetlandamenity.org/the-incoming-project
​
Savarna Sisters (on Caste & film)
https://www.eurobollywood.net/sarvana-sisters-are-doing-it-for-themselves/
​
RM on The Chance to Change - Future of Publishing. I was invited to speak at the Edinburgh Book Fesitival. You can find my contribution at the 50minute mark via the link below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xr7iKBg5lo8&feature=emb_title&fbclid=IwAR2nCi779vKkLj-m_CGXHqs4FfpC6_CkURwTEvqlzpV6IDvdBlwKsBZGek4
​
RM in dialogue, on the subject of under representation and the single story in theatre.
https://artsbuildontario.adobeconnect.com/_a1123960638/psnw75qvoxqa/?fbclid=IwAR0sG-fGE2FPMt3a6xCZ62m5Y0mJL7svr6xRoWmh36gmRFz3NqYJqh96trA
​
RM on gentrification, race, class and artist interventions.
https://soundcloud.com/user-339865797/02-raman-mundair
RM on losing your mother tongue. A discussion around the associations of language with identity, land and culture. And how it feels to lose these connections. From her Sow, Reap and Slowly Savour installation at the CCA, Glasgow as part of the Refugee Fesitival.
https://soundcloud.com/user-724492265/losing-my-tongue-raphie?fbclid=IwAR3RPAmLKW_qHLJqoMzknVP3iAjREUC4NaZ4PcBQdkA-hGDsjvYwSvA0AGg
RM - Reflecting on the demise of secular India, and the representation of Punjab and Sikhism
in Hark1karan's photography.
https://bellacaledonia.org.uk/2020/09/15/photographer-hark1karan-documents-rural-punjab-its-culture-and-people-offering-a-portrait-of-fast-disappearing-secular-india/?fbclid=IwAR3JihAFM0vGvs_D10nwmzizIhetqrQWaojOxuxHEGT0-hEkxplF68wxKDE
​
RM speaking on gentrification and intersectionality:
https://soundcloud.com/user-724492265/1563564061864_0_swap-market-gentry-aefmtconversion1563564386463-aetrim1563565226653
​
​
​
​
Spoken Word///Performance///Soundart
​
RM reading at Scottish Poetry Library:
https://soundcloud.com/raman-mundair/whatsapp-audio-2019-06-07-at-3446?fbclid=IwAR32Qo3T-k1WDZ9cab9YiVgQvQaRTorRIvQQ1xc5IpmxorgEpy_hZTduM4k
​
RM performing at Glasgow Mela:
https://soundcloud.com/user-724492265/rmmela4
​
RM impromptu performance for the NEON crew at the Dublet Pub, Glasgow:
https://soundcloud.com/raman-mundair/last-night-a-poet-saved-my-life-1
​
Mu Vich Ajeeb Jeeb:
https://soundcloud.com/user-724492265/mu-vich-ajeeb-jeeb
​
breatheeyesmemory:::still/ill
https://soundcloud.com/user-188666667-76863612/breatheeyesmemorystillill-installation-soundtrack
​
​
​
​
Raman's writing has been anthologised in the following:
Not Quite Right For Us, (Flipped Eye Publishing, April 2021)
Field Scotland, On Value, (Two Destination Language, 2021)
Shoreline of Infinity 19 (December 2020)
The Women Writers Handbook, (Aurora Metro, July 2020)
Almarks, an anthology of radical poetry from Shetland (Culture Matters, June 2020)
Shoreline of Infinity Magazine, (May 2020) – guest editor
Island Review, (May 2020)
Gutter Magazine, (March 2020)
Ceremony, (Tapsalteerie Press, 2019)
The Colour of Madness, (Skiddaw Books, 2018)
Scottish Writers' Centre Anthology, (Red Squirrel Press, 2018)
Exhibition Catologue, The 192nd Royal Scottish Academy Annual Exhibition (RSA, 2018)
Thali Katori - An anthology of Scottish South Asian Poetry, (Luath Press, 2017)
Closure, (Peepal Tree, 2015)
Archipelagos - poems from Writing the North, (University of Edinburgh, 2014)
Conversations About Empires, (Ilkley Literature Festival, 2012)
Out of Bounds, (Bloodaxe, 2012)
The Harper Collins Book of English Poetry, (Harper Collins India, 2012)
The New Shetlander, Yule Issue (SISS, 2011)
ImagiNation, Stories of Scotland's Future (Big Sky Press, 2011)
These Island We Sing, (Polygon Birlinn, 2011)
Departures and Arrivals, (Scottish PEN, 2009)
Red, (Peepal Tree Press, 2009)
The New Anthem, (Tranquebar Press, 2009)
One Poem in Search of a Translator: Re-writing 'Les Fenêtres' by Apollinaire, (Peter Lang, 2008)
Atlas 02, (Aark Arts, 2007)
Addicted to Brightness, (Long Lunch Press, 2006)
​
​
​
///RAMAN MUNDAIR ARCHIVE///
​
Archived in the Wellcome Trust Digital collection - early RM collaboration with photographer Parminder Sekhon. Taken in Russell Square during days of SOAS university activism Parminder's art features on the cover of 'Lovers, Liars, Conjurers and Thieves' (1st RM book). RM later wrote an introduction for Sekhon and P.Desai's photographs - 'Red Threads' to be uploaded soon!
https://wellcomelibrary.org/item/b16664875#?c=0&m=0&s=0&cv=0
​
Documentation of RM feminist writing workshops and performance in Namibia
https://sisternamibiatest2014.files.wordpress.com/2017/09/a-poetry-workshop-with-raman-mundair.pdf?fbclid=IwAR0uDA_tUGOh2Ku1AnR_Sds6bbSH1t6t_WcnBM6_k-YlYM0zgLswkPMVd8Q
​
European vignettes by RM
https://my-european-history.ep.eu/myhouse/user/2079/stories
Let Me Hold You 1
https://www.seanclark.me.uk/static/fragments/?fbclid=IwAR2_44Z3AzaNCMduxuzAiOQXsg-YjqwlJlAAGjk3bG37x6xS-pKxe64YpoM
https://www.seanclark.me.uk/static/fragments/display.php?id=2&fbclid=IwAR3xLszmiVt5rEt4t44ZJMjop8Gcz6xNJCQxYrYjhv9Aid6HBTDRXN8PwBE
​
​
Aberdeen City Council, erected visual legacies in the form of a 'Secrets of the Green' plaque trail. The plaque trail was conceived by Leafing the Green Writer in Residence, Raman Mundair. The trail consists of eight plaques forming an interactive poetry and art installation, each providing an engaging insight into the local history of The Green...how many can you find when walking at various sites in and around The Green?
http://moodofcollapse.blogspot.com/2012/11/seen-on-green.html
​
​
Collaborations with Apples & Snakes (performance poetry archive)
https://www.spokenwordarchive.org.uk/search?st%5B%5D=raman+mundair&css_searchfield%5B%5D=text
​
​
RM's poetry as an education tool:https://www.theguardian.com/education/2012/jun/25/teaching-resources-protest-music-poetry?fbclid=IwAR1edA1tX6IOyBY7v42tQ6WdlCJAgzhLzk-UkTjS1RxO6w4AbH79dL5_yO8
​
​
​
​
PORTFOLIO OF VISUAL ART
images from resist///dance






PORTFOLIO OF VISUAL ART
details from resist///dance






PORTFOLIO OF VISUAL ART
details from resist///dance
![]() | ![]() | ![]() |
---|

PORTFOLIO OF VISUAL ART
details from voice/over
















