Simulation & Abor Wars
Ejum Riba examines Indigenous erasure and the history of the Adi people in “Simulation & Abor Wars.” These paintings for Students’ Biennale Kochi explore the complexities of the British Raj, decolonial practice, and the personal family histories that shape our view of the past.
Published 28 December 2025
This has finished
- On view
- 12 December 2025 – 31 March 2026
- Times
- 10AM to 6PM (Mon to Sunday) Till March 31st, 2026
- Performer
- Ejum Riba
- Part of
- Kochi-Muziris Biennale 2025–26
Where
Arthshila Kochi
Art gallery · 1/298, Parade Road, Fort Kochi
Free
You’ve just missed it — take it home anyway
The 2025–26 Biennale ended on 31 March 2026. The next is expected around December 2027. We made a book of all 72 exhibits, venue by venue, with the photographs — 76 pages, 9 MB.
History is never neutral. Neither is education.
Artist
Ejum Riba (Sarojini Naidu School of Arts and Communication, University of Hyderabad)
Medium
Acrylic on canvas
About
Ejum Riba’s two paintings tackle big questions through deeply personal lenses. Simulation examines how certain educational systems work to erase Indigenous cultures and local knowledge. It’s a meditation on indoctrination—and what gets lost when we homogenise young minds.
Abor Wars reaches further back, to the conflicts between the British Raj and the Adi people of Northeast India (1858-1912). But Ejum complicates the resistance narrative through his own grandfather’s complicated admiration for certain British officials. History, he shows us, is rarely black and white.
