Rabiul Khan: Artist who asks questions

Khan's collective called Gabba creates art with an effort to uphold the history of the site and generate political, social and domestic conversations that can create mutual learnings between the artists and the community

By Jasodhara Banerjee Forbes India Staff

Published: Feb 7, 2025 12:41:29 PM IST

Updated: Feb 13, 2025 05:37:45 PM IST

Full Bio

Rabiul Khan
Image: Debarshi Sarkar for Forbes India; Photo Imaging by: Kapil Kashyap Rabiul Khan Image: Debarshi Sarkar for Forbes India; Photo Imaging by: Kapil Kashyap

Rabiul Khan was born in Adampur village of the Birbhum district of West Bengal, in a family that was involved in the coal mining business. “When most people think of Birbhum, they associate it with Santiniketan, and all things cultural,” he says. “However, there has always been, what I call, a ‘camouflaged gun culture’.” It is this everyday violence and uncertainty that Khan’s father wanted to leave behind, and moved his family to the city of Dubrajpur, so that they could get access to better education.

Once in school, Khan’s artistic skills caught the attention of his teachers, who suggested that he take art classes from teachers around Santiniketan, which he did. Eventually, Khan would go on to complete his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in fine arts from Kala Bhavan, Visva Bharati University, and has now established a collective, called Gabaa, along with his like-minded friends from college. He has received the Inlaks Fine Art Award in 2023 and the Prince Claus Fund Seed Award in 2024.

“We have tried to establish an interdisciplinary and researched-based practice at the collective,” says Khan. “There is a lot of conventional studio-based practice such as painting, sculpture and ceramics going on at the university here, but there were no new or research-based studios. Even while studying for my bachelor’s degree during the Covid-19 lockdowns, I wanted to establish a space where we could incorporate such a practice. Four of us have acquired a space, which was funded by my father, where we are inviting and conversing with young artists with a new mindset to develop issue-based projects, which may be community-centric or a reinterpretation of history.”

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Khan works with site-specific installations, with an effort to uphold the history of the site and generate political, social and domestic conversations that can create mutual learnings between the artists and the community; it becomes a temporary pedagogical site. “We try to ask provoking questions, because I feel we don’t ask enough questions anymore,” he explains. For instance, his research revealed that his ancestors were of Afghan origin, who have been, for centuries, systematically used by the authorities—be it the nawabs of Bengal, the subsequent British administration or the politicians of independent India—to instill violence among local people. This gave rise to his project ‘Amar Birbhum’ (My Birbhum) at Kala Bhavan during his master’s degree, which highlighted how his perception of his land and people is very different from that of most others.

As part of his Inlaks Award residency in Mumbai, he created a project called ‘Bombay kiska hai?’ (Who does Bombay belong to?). “Everyone wants to take ownership of Bombay. I worked with the women of Koli community who are involved in fishing, created a meeting space for people of upper and lower classes, to discuss the history of the city.”

“Rabiul has always been interested in trying to work in a process-based practice, which interfaces with his own personal dialogue around his environment and lifestyle he comes from, and he has tried to interface it between the private and public situation. He has tried to explore the relationship between different kinds of spaces. He doesn’t keep things within a frame, and engages with the idea of material as a parallel memory, as a surface, as a situation,” says Sanchayan Ghosh, associate professor in the department of painting at Kala Bhavan.

Rabiul Khan (27)

Artist

Art