The New Nation - Internet Edition

Sheikh Arif Bulbon

Britto Arts Trust, the artists' lead non-profit registered trust, established in 2002 committed towards promoting exchange and dialogue between artistic communities internationally and within the region. Britto recently organised an international artists' workshop at Nijera Kori's idyllic premises in Bogra.

There, for a fortnight, the young experimenting artists got together to exchange ideas and views. Each artist did something different, bringing in his or her own feelings and aspirations, and mingling them with the surrounding environment. Out of the 17 artists, eight were local painters and sculptors, experimenting with various mediums taken from their vicinity in Bogra.

Artists Tayeba Begum Lipi, one of the founders of Britto, said, "Britto attempts to be a truly multicultural encounter that provides a dynamic platform for a dialogue between cultures. We organised the two-week long workshop during where eight Bangladeshi artists and nine overseas artists would live and worked together in a spirit of camaraderie, exchange and experiment."

"As part of the workshop, an outreach community arts programme involving slide presentations, video screening and open discussion were organised at the workshop venue. An open studio day at the end of the workshop that would mixing up the educational and socially interactive possibilities of the workshop," she said.

The overseas participants were - Simon Tipping from UK, Susanta Mandal from India, Atif Khan from Pakistan, Nishanta Hettriarachchi from Sri Lanka, Sujan Chitrakar from Nepal, Mariyam Omar from Maldives, Ya-Chu Kang from Taiwan, Krishna Luchoomun from Mauritius and Juman Al Nimri from Jordan.

Bangladeshi artists were - Ashok Karmakar, Mostafa Sharif Anowar, Ronni Ahmmed, Manjur Ahmed, Lucky Barua, Yasmin Jahan Nupur, Mahmudur Rahman and Tejosh Halder Josh.

In the workshop, works of Ronni Ahmmed were conceptual and dealt with languages. Ronni tied a backdrop of trees with brown ropes, bringing in abstract sculpture. The red fallen trees lent colour. In his other installation piece, Ronni introduced an imaginary language contributed by the different participants.

His other composition was 'Egg plant' in which a bush was decorated with egg-like images. This too was a play with words.

His last work was dabbling with the concept of extremity of consumerism with everyday items like cars and refrigerators and their rocketing prices.

Tejosh Haldar Josh made a swing, with figures incorporated in the ropes of the swing. The seat also contained a figure and reflected the control over our lives by other people like our family members. This also symbolised foreign influences in our lifestyle. Each of his installation pieces was called 'Life behind lives.'

His last piece conveyed his feelings of resting on a canoe and this he did with ply-board cut-outs. This was a study of man and nature.

Lucky Barua's pieces were called 'White Eye' and 'Dead feelings,' which introduced contrasting images of happiness and sorrow.

The first included work on laptop with slides of the fun time the participants had during the workshop. This was a resume of their get-together. The latter evocated the feeling of loss during the Cyclone SIDR. There was burning of incense, use of attar, reading of the Holy Quran and lamenting family members.

Yasmin Jahan Nupur introduced an installation piece and a 'Performance.' Nupur concentrated on the auditorium door. Her image was a stitched version with cotton of this striking red door, done on cloth and cotton bits. This endeavour dealt with the social bindings of women and was related to the door. The second piece dealt with the custom of imposing 'Burqa' on women by the conservative society.

Earlier, a press conference was held at Dhaka where artist, and cartoonist Shishir Bhattacharya, Khushi Kabir, Coordinator of Nijera Kori, Tayeba Begum Lipi, participants from UK, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Mauritius, Jordan, Taiwan, Maldives and Bangladesh, among others, were present.