Dhiraj Rabha is a master’s degree Student of Fine Arts from Kala Bhavana, Visva Bharati University, Santiniketan. He completed his Bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts from same institution. As an art practitioner he tried to build an art process that encourages interaction and collaboration between creative practitioner and the general public. His focus is to bridge the gap between art and society, making work that is designed as conceptual, interdisciplinary, and a collaborative process. His point of interest is mainly in site specific, community based and research oriented art practice. His approach to the process has been exploring the relationship of site and context, art and the landscape, artist and the community. During the development of a concept, himself being with community conversation and research of the site to provide a contextual framework for his work. The intent is to look for connections that will create a unique sense of place.
In his project ‘Blurred Hymn’ and ‘Reminiscence of Home’, he learn archiving, mapping documenting and ethnographic processes of art. The Blurred Hymn is about Bharigan, a theatrical practice of the Rabha community in lower part of Assam. Reminiscence of Home is a project on a ex-ulfa detention camp and the members, documented their memories in different forms to reclaim their home through the practice seeking answers for the loss of dignity and their stolen identity in their present existence. The process of incorporating and verbal interaction of the members and space, trying to narrate their life stories and collective memories of a home.
His photograph in Tribal Design Forum’s Photography Contest depicted Rabha community’s practice of Bharigan. On Bharigan theatrical practice he elaborates that it is performed in worship places in interior parts of Rabha community villages. The art narrates the Ramayana and Mahabharta in a different hymn and is performed wearing a heavy wooden mask. Most Bharigan practitioners are in their old age and the young members find no economic incentive to learn and practice it thus making it an endangered practice. He plans to make an audio-visual presentation of Bharigan practice so as to make it more appealing to the audience and easier to understand. Keen on learning, Rabha wishes to engage with children and arrange workshops and other creative spaces for the indigenous communities. Basically, his objective is to initiate a discourse on art practices of the marginalised. Initiative to promote Bharigan practice and revival, in his opinion, might save the livelihood as well as the art of Rabha community.