Desi Futures 1

Ruby Singh is a multi award winning composer and producer residing on the unceded territories of the xwməθkwəy̓ əm, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, and səl̓ílwətaʔɬ/Selilwitulh Nations (Vancouver BC.). His creativity crosses the boundaries of music, poetry, photography and film engaging with mythos, memory, justice and fantasy. Singh is an artist whose work is informed by sound found all around us, from the whirling planets and stars of distant galaxies to percussion of an umbrella under coastal rains, to the perpetual moving birdsong of the dawn chorus, constantly circling the globe. The richly imaginative visual textures to his sound design have found kinship in the theatre, film and dance worlds, where he has been celebrated by multiple Jessie and Leo award nominations. His distinct approach uses traditional and emergent sonic practices to create compositions that express the vast spectrum of the human experience. Singh’s artistic impulses gravitate in many directions, in 2022 he received the Lieutenant Governor’s Jubilee Award for excellence in art and music. His previous works range from ambient audio-visual worlds of the Polyphonic Garden to Jhalaak, a Sufi hip hop album made alongside Manganiyar musicians recorded in the clay huts of the Thar desert in Rajasthan India, reinterpreting 13th century Sufi poetry. His most recent offerings include: Vox.infold, an a cappella project bringing together the sounds of Inuit, Indigenous, Black and South Asian voices, has been met with critical acclaim and The Future Ancestors a blues and soul infused live hip hop project. Singh believes in art’s ability to reimagine futures, to repurpose aesthetic freedoms toward civil and environmental justice.