Partition Is Imaginary

Rohena has blue hair and two pigtails. She reaches high to paint on a large colorful canvas with paint splatters and text that reads "The Indian Visa Form, What's your religion; Religion:Art"

Partition Is Imaginary

August 7, 2025 - October 4, 2025

Reception: August 7, 2025

Partition Is Imaginary emerges from artist and curator Rohena Alam Khan’s journey retracing her grandparents’ footsteps from Delhi to Rawalpindi on August 15, 1947. That journey, undertaken in the spirit of remembrance and inquiry, took her to West Bengal, to the India-Pakistan border at Wagah, and to the Partition Museum in Amritsar, Punjab. This exhibition is a collective reckoning with the enduring legacies of Partition and the porous boundaries between memory, identity, and nationhood. This exhibit features artists Rohena Alam Khan, Yaminee Patel, Savneet Talwar, Sara Singh, Manisha Davesar, Riaz Ali, Maleeha Bukhari, Suhaila Meera, Swaleha Masude, Petra Kaur, Syeda Wafa Zahra, Shima Star, Dev Jhala, and Shruti Ghatak.

Artist Bio

Rohena Alam Khan is a Seattle-based interdisciplinary artist. She was born and raised in Dhaka, Bangladesh and completed her Bachelors in Journalism and Fine Art from Winthrop University in South Carolina. During the early years of Rohena’s corporate career in Copywriting, she completed another degree in Graphic Design from Raffles International College in Bangkok, Thailand.

What to Expect

Partition Is Imaginary contains 2D and 3D work and film media containing depictions of the human form, cultural objects and clothing, borders, modes of transportation, and abstract representations.

Themes include displacement, religious and political conflict, generational trauma, the impact of colonialism, familial and cultural connections, and the dream of solidarity.

Partition Is Imaginary