Dhiraj Rabha was born in a pristine village named Borali Gaon, Assam, India, and grew up in an ex-ULFA detention camp in Goalpara, Assam. He earned a bachelor’s degree in political science in
2016 and a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Painting in 2021. Later, he completed his Master of Fine Arts in Painting from Kala Bhavana, Visva Bharati University, Santiniketan. Recently he exhibited at the Serendipity Festival Curated by Vidya Sivadas. In 2023, and received Generator Cooperative production fund by Experimenter, 2023-24. He did the Next-Step Residency by Sher-Gil Sundaram Arts Foundation, 1Shantiroad, Bangalore. In 2022, He was awarded a Production Grant under the Art Practice Program from India Foundation for the Arts (IFA), and in 2021, he received a Special Mention in the Alkazi Theatre Archives’ Theatre Photography Grant (The Alkazi Foundation). He was Final shortlist for Rhodes Scholarship India for the master’s program 2021.

He hails from a lineage of resilient political fighters, and his art practice is deeply rooted in his exploration of his own identity and its intersection with the multifaceted layers of communal memory and representation. Drawing inspiration from the disciplines of ethnography and anthropology, he employs his insider status to engage with cultural memory in a direct and meaningful way. His artistic vision is driven by a desire to bring social memories and narratives to the forefront of public consciousness. In this respect, he has been engaging with different forms of individual and collective memories of loss and violence and generating a physical archive in the present that is based on both inter and intra-community engagement.

As an art practitioner, he has honed his skills across multiple mediums to best suit the contextual needs of his practice. His artistic interests have primarily revolved around site-specific installations and research-based projects. To truly understand the complex interplay between site, context, and community, his process involves extensive engagement with the people and environment surrounding a given project. It provides a contextual framework for his work. The intent is to look for connections that will create a unique sense of place.