Cavalcade, a new film by the Delhi-based Raqs Media Collective, zooms in on a gathering where humans and non-humans jostle for space. A congregation of figures emanate from dreams, myths, and speculations, posing the question of what it might mean to extend human solidarity to forms of animal, mythic, and machinic sentience. Moving through forests, climbing the upthrust of petrified lava, flying over brick kilns and dry riverbeds, observing ships at sea, and walking with a procession of devotees celebrating the nuptials of the Indic deities Shiva and Parvati, Cavalcade expands our understanding of what it means to be cosmopolitan. The video is accompanied by three works in print that incorporate AI responses to the artists’ prompts, a welcome intrusion of proto-sentience into the cosmos of the show.

The artist talk and opening reception were presented as part of the Reimagining Cosmopolitanism conference, which brought together an international group of scholars who are rethinking the concept of "cosmopolitanism" for our times.