Raheem Jaan
Shenakhti Card Nahi ( not an ID card), 2024
Opaque watercolour on handmade paper
18.5” x 13.5”
I Don’t Know, 2024
Opaque watercolour and gold leaf on
18” x 15”
In Shenakhti Card Nahi (not an ID card), Jaan questions the seemingly universal rights of citizenship by blurring the ID card beyond legibility, thus brutally erasing the holder’s identity. By further replacing the ubiquitous phrase “If you find the missing card, put it in the nearest letterbox” to “on finding lost identity…”, the artist criticizes the casual indifference of governmental bureaucracies towards human living. In an emotive condemnation of hostile nationalist policies against migration that have become more common due to climate catastrophes, Jaan articulates the suffering of alienation and of having the very basis of one’s existence being questioned and denied.
I Don’t Know draws inspiration from Indo-Persian miniature painting, where the central subject is framed by decorative borders. However, the artist subverted this convention by painting a blurred self-portrait, while emphasizing the border with intricate floral and vegetative patterns. By effacing himself while letting the abstract system dominate, Jaan expresses the psychic imbalance when the representation of nature and the thriving of self are not in relation. Similar to Feroza Hakeem’s works that are also on view in Akbari Mahal, Jaan appropriates the visual language of miniature painting that are traditionally used by the ruling Mughals and Persians to express the plight of the long-oppressed and displaced Hazaras.
Raheem Jaan (b. 1994) is a visual artist from Quetta, Balochistan. Graduated from the National College of Arts with a major in Indo-Persian miniature paintings, Jaan currently lives & works in Islamabad. His work mainly deals with issues of social justice, displacement and identity, drawing from his autobiographical experiences of navigating the world while being undocumented. Jaan’s works have been exhibited nationally in O art space, Artsoch Gallery, and Ejaz Gallery in Lahore, and PNCA in Islamabad.