Taha Ahmad With Art Turns Partition Wounds into Spaces of Reflection

For Lucknow-born visual artist and photographer Taha Ahmad, memory is not just a personal archive — it is a collective inheritance that continues to shape contemporary lives. His latest project, Drawn into Two, Which Way Home?, builds on that inheritance, taking viewers back to the 1947 Partition of India and Pakistan while pulling them into the lived realities of Punjab today.

Conceived during a residency supported by the University of British Columbia, Ahmad spent months along the Indo-Pak border, gathering stories of displacement, resilience, and longing. What sets the work apart is its layered approach: not just oral testimonies, but photographs, installations, archival scans, and sensory experiences that allow audiences to inhabit the space of Partition in an immersive way.

“The Partition isn’t something that happened and ended in 1947,” Ahmad reflects. “Its aftermath is still present in Punjab today — whether in drug abuse, violence, or fractured identities. The seed of these crises was sown during that moment of division.”

Personal histories, fractured geographies

Ahmad’s engagement with Partition is rooted in family history. His grandmother’s family was divided across the Radcliffe Line, never to reunite fully. That rupture continues to echo in stories he encounters — such as the tale of a sister in India who recognised her long-lost brother, separated in 1947, on a Pakistani television programme 65 years later.

“These are not distant histories,” Ahmad insists. “They live inside families even today. I wanted my work to hold both the intimacy of personal memory and the magnitude of collective trauma.”

This sensitivity to identity crises is also what led him to scan passports, family albums, and documents from Partition survivors. In one church near the border, he encountered a mass that began with an Islamic kalma, included Hindu-style chanting, and ended with Christian rites — an embodiment of the uncertainty around ancestry that continues to ripple through the region.

Building an experience, not just an archive

While photography remains his first medium, Ahmad has increasingly turned towards interdisciplinary formats. His installation of Drawn into Two, Which Way Home? includes textiles printed with survivor portraits, barbed wire and split curtains symbolising separation, and infinity mirrors that trap the viewer in a loop — a reminder that cycles of division continue to play out across South Asia.

“If I had just put pictures on a wall, some people would sip champagne at the opening and walk away,” he says. “I wanted the audience to feel it in their bodies — to understand the weight of Partition and why it should never be repeated.”

Ahmad’s career has steadily bridged local storytelling with global recognition. From featuring in Sharja to working on projects like Mira Nair’s A Suitable Boy and Vishal Bhardwaj’s Khufiya, his work has travelled far. Yet, he remains deeply anchored in South Asian identities.

“There’s always a responsibility when you represent communities that have faced trauma,” he notes. “I ask families how they want their stories to be told. It’s not about my gain — it’s about honouring their truth.

Art as a practice of purpose and perspective

For Ahmad, art must have a purpose. “A carpenter is also an artist because they make chairs that give comfort. In the same way, my work has to serve something larger. It may not change the world overnight, but it can shift perspectives. And change always begins there.”

As he continues to exhibit Drawn into Two, Which Way Home? across India and abroad, Ahmad hopes the project fosters conversations not only about Partition, but also about reconciliation, identity, and the dangers of forgetting.

“History is repeating itself in different ways,” he says. “As artists, our responsibility is to hold up a mirror to society. If my work can help someone pause, reflect, and feel — then I’ve done my part.”