The exhibition "Nothing Human is Alien to Me" features Delhi-based artist Aban Raza, whose work offers a spontaneous yet powerful reflection of socio-political themes. The title refers to Karl Marx’s philosophical concept of ‘alienation,’ which describes how human existence (self) is paradoxically created by the oppressions embedded in one's own creations or products, leading to ‘alienation,’ a phenomenon intensified in modern times by exploitation.

Aban’s activism and association with Sahmat, a left-leaning cultural organisation, are at the bedrock of this new body of work exhibited at Galerie Mirchandani Steinrücke in New Delhi. Earlier, Aban had two solo shows at the same gallery, focusing on insurgent movements, the repression of the Dalits, and the rights of minorities.

Like her previous works, the current paintings depict rebellious subjects – protesting authoritarian ideologies and denouncing the brutalities of the neoliberal system. Her paintings are likely to raise critical questions regarding the identity of today’s alienated subjects, extending beyond labour and its relation to the product, and exploring new insights by linking visual art and social protest, as exemplified in Aban’s practice.

Since her works are compared to protest art, scholars have recognised that they incorporate elements of expressionism. As Gayatri Sinha observes in her exhibition text, “Aban brings to her work a passionate engagement with colour and the early influence of the German expressionists, drawing on the bright, unselfconscious chrome for the working-class body.”

Interestingly, these works depict the struggles of labourers, migrants, farmers, and various subaltern groups facing oppression in India – as reflected in the disturbing images of dissent against the regime circulated in the media. Consequently, this art practice provides significant insights into India's contemporary political landscape through a creative medium.

Upon entering the gallery, the first painting that captures attention is the diptych “May Diwas, Mazdoor Mela, Bhim, Rajasthan (2025),” where an image diagonally recedes into multiple activities in a single picture: depicting local farmers, workers, and primarily subaltern women at a demonstration organised by the Majdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (MKSS), Rajasthan. The diptych balances vertical and horizontal compositions smoothly, creating the impression of a festive stage beneath a decorative tent filled with vibrant forms, fractured arrangements, and sometimes distorted images – combining amusing and somber expressions of local villagers, geometrically simplified figures, and overlapping bodies.

Eclectic and illustrative forms of colour and objects – such as drums in the distance, loudspeakers attached to the tent supports, and on a moving cart – evoke a sense of synesthesia by linking colours, sounds, and other senses of music. Looks bright and filled with partisan figures, as it may be, many activities unfold in the form of a fabula, emphasising a large canopy of tents that encourage participation in a lively, immersive, electrifying crowd.

Not only in this work but also in many of her other pieces, there’s a vivid depiction of three-sided, colourful tents adorned with popular motifs, highlighting the local obsession with a desi aesthetic. Tents serve a symbolic role in organising protests and political rallies in India, which the artist has depicted in great detail. The use of expressionist techniques heightens emotional intensity in many other paintings as well. Notably, Aban consistently identifies the effectiveness of tents as a conceptual foundation, as illustrated in her works, which aim to foster solidarity and dialogue among social groups. Precisely, this notion is exemplified by Rahul Mehrotra, a well-known architect who observes various forms of temporality and the ephemeral, along with their potential spatial uses, including those of tents.

Moreover, by defining their purpose and function, Aban's placement of tents responds to both moments of crisis and celebration. From the artist’s perspective, the foreshortening of a cooking pan and a pitcher on the left side of the composition invites viewers to participate in a sit-in protest. By further rendering this conceptual idea, the artist is likely to present cooking as a tool for social interaction, not only for the working-class people depicted, but also as a means to evoke emotional human experiences, emphasising its transformative potential; attributing to the concepts of radical hospitality and care, which have become a central feature in contemporary curating since the COVID-19 pandemic.  

A series of paintings, such as “Kolhantola Street, Rani Mandi, Allahabad, 2024,” and “Sorkhi, Hisar District, Haryana, 2025,” vigorously challenge traditional depictions of women in India. While questioning stereotypical feminised portrayals, Aban’s work conjectures a new mode of representation that moves beyond simply showing women as sensuous and vulnerable, using expressionist elements to highlight their heroic strength with such bold strokes, subjective emotion, and violent imagery.

Athough they appear calm in their posture, the women depicted represent the everyday struggles of the working class. Drawing on her extensive experiences at contested sites and through fieldwork, Aban shows distinctly impoverished or rural environments lacking basic amenities. The archetype of such women, recurring throughout her compelling works, resonates with figures like dadi/bebey (grandmother) and mausi (local aunt), who became exemplary symbols during collective protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019 (CAA) and the National Register of Citizens (NRC) at Shaheen Bagh (2019-20) and the farmers’ protest at the Singhu Border (2020-21) in the Delhi-NCR region. These rebellious women embody resilience, leadership, and the creation of a counter-hegemonic space, which was broadly transformed into artistic expression through their creative methods and slogans on protest sites.

Another essential element that needs to highlight in the works like “In our hundreds, in our millions, we are all Palestinians, 2024,” and “Maruti Suzuki Workers Union, July 18th, DC Office, Gurgaon, 2024,” is arousal of a feeling of entrapment, similar to Goya’s “Third of May, 1808,” and Courbet’s “The Stone Breakers (1849)”. The figures, as subjects, are enclosed on three sides, conjuring a theatrical atmosphere.

We see the local landscape, whether in urban buildings or in foliage receding into the horizon, establishing a contrast between the action taking place and the background. For the protagonists, there is little room left to escape from agony and their fate of deprivation. Inescapable from the doom and misery, especially evident among people at the Palestinian protest.

Traumatic illustration, in a heart-wrenching painting, “Faizan, Waseem, Rafiq, Kausar Ali, and Farhan from Kardampuri, North East Delhi, in 2020,” stands as a testament to the brutal acts inflicted by armed police on young protesters from the minority community. Aban honestly exemplifies the horrifying story that went viral on social as well as electronic media – in a cubo-expressionist manner, which allows the artist to depict the severity of horror and grotesque moments – of violence experienced by youth from a Muslim locality, leading to a custodial death. Similar to the forceful documentation seen in Käthe Kollwitz’s expressionist art, it conveys intense emotions such as anguish, despair, fear, and loss.

Like many other modern artists in India, Aban has aptly employed expressionism for formative rather than imitative purposes, shaping her view of the human condition of her own volition through her visionary creative powers. I have argued elsewhere that modern Indian artists of varied hues deployed expressionist tendencies to confront social, cultural, and political inequalities, a tendency that strongly characterises Aban’s body of work as well. Here, Aban endeavours to outrightly portray how the state is actively involved in oppressing women of the agrarian class, characterising the state as ‘patriarchal’, but with the Dalit community (and its women), the state gets an unaffordable tag line, is not only ‘patriarchal’ but also ‘Brahmanical’. For minorities, a state influenced by sectarian beliefs has necessarily become ‘communal’.

Rahul Dev is a researcher based in New Delhi and recently served as a Goethe-Institut Fellow at the documenta Archiv in Kassel, Germany. 

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