Sohorab Rabbey’s new body of work for Borås Art Biennial 2026 is presented in public space, by the river Viskan, and at both the Art Museum and the Textile Museum of Sweden. In the textile installations, Rabbey brings two rivers into dialogue: the Viskan in Borås and the Turag in his hometown of Dhaka, Bangladesh, scrutinising their textile production practices and transportation legacies.

Amphibian Myths of an Unseen River: Waves and Wounds (2026) is a performance by the river in Borås. With the act of “carrying a dead river”, Rabbey introduces grief in a ritualistic procession. The work is composed of textiles dyed with various components using traditional Bangladeshi tie-dye techniques. Two of the dyes are based on the chemical composition of textile industry pollutants found in the rivers Turag and Viskan. The other two are based on organic dyes grown in Bangladesh, such as indigo and turmeric, and plant dyes used traditionally in Sweden. The latter are also represented in Kalle Hamm’s work for the city’s flower programme.

At the Textile Museum, Rabbey presents an installation of the textiles from the performance alongside a new video work Digging Dead from the Grave (2026). The video sheds light on a historically significant weaving craft in Bangladesh called “Tangail Handloom”, which is about to disappear due to the competition from industrial production.

At the Art Museum, a video work documents the making of the textiles used in the performance. River Runs Violet (2026) is filmed at the industrial pollutant discharge site associated with the Swedish fast fashion industry in Bangladesh. A mixed-media installation, Amphibian Myths of an Unseen River: Viskan, Turag and Other Beings (2026) offers a transient space for the audience to navigate through the centuries-long colonial, industrial, and ecological entanglements of Europe and Bangladesh. The installation brings together environmental data from the Turag in new digital weavings, mythical figures, and rituals of ecological care woven and embroidered by river communities in Bangladesh on contemporary textiles made in Borås.

Sohorab Rabbey (born 1994, Dhaka, Bangladesh; lives in Hamburg, Germany) is an artist and researcher from Bangladesh. Rabbey grew up on the banks of the Turag, and his visual practice stems from an engagement with the river community and embodied research into the political ecology of the water bodies.