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Celebrating the creative impulse
CRAC International Art Camp 2010
The basic feature of art camps organized by the Centre for Research on Art and Culture (CRAC) is the meeting of minds in an atmosphere of festivity, one which prepares the ground for spontaneous outpouring of creativity by the participants. The 2010 camp was no exception.
As has become the norm, the last CRAC International Art Camp took place between December 25, 2010 and January 1, 2011 in the bucolic setting of Rahimpur Village of Kushtia. Having some 29 multidisciplinary artists from both home and abroad as participants had its advantages; it opened up the possibility of exploring diversity of media and concepts. On top of that, engaging local children as well as devoted members of folk religious cults in various fringe activities of the camp had a decisively positive impact on the camp environment.
The large pond of a hatchery near the Dhaka-Kushtia Highway, the adjacent farmland, the surrounding greenery, all these served as work-spaces where the participants consisting of professional artists, poets, theatre or political activists tried to align their ideas with the natural surroundings by combining the local cultural heritage with their individual aesthetic mores.
The installations mostly sourced the cheap materials available at the location. Tanjina Khanom presented the marketization of women in the capitalist matrix and the decline of human values by basing her work on the concept of self-annihilation which she titled Apona Maashe Harina Boiree, a line borrowed from a popular verse by a famous poet of the ninth century Bengal. Artist Abdus Salam externalized his take on political aggression in the mode of the mystics. His title Shunner Majar also echoes his allegiance to the concept of the void – a subject of much discursive talks among the bauls and fakirs of the land.
Among other installations, there were works of much visual interests. Among them were Sha-Shorik by Palash Chowdhury and Ananta Kumar Das, Smrity o Shangskriti and Prokiti aar Aami by Sanjay Chakraborty, Bilupto Projati, Urban Centre, and Sacrificing Myself by Asim Haldar Sagor, Pakhir Jonya by Palash Bhattachrya, Samparko by Sumona by Akhter Suma, Kathopokathon by Wahid-uz-Zaman, Amar Lalon by Manosh Acharya and Sayed Taufik Riaz, Ekti Tuchchho Chintar Porinoti Ebong Atopar Ashroy by Asif-uz-Zaman, and Odrissho by Shikh Sabbir.
In this recent edition of the CRACK endeavour, there was a healthy mix of various forms of expression with many an artist resorting to performances based on the cerebral interpretations of circumstances and events.
Abu Naser Robii, Ashim Haldar Sagar, Sandip Samaddar Pantu, Sumona Akter Suma, Rahul Anand, and many more presented their works displaying a mark slant towards interactivity. Artist Kanak Aditya even created a musical track, Ekbar Apnare Chinte Parle Re, through a spontaneous arrangement of rhythmic sound. Video work too served as a means of expression. Parapar of Ashim Haldar Sagar and Abuse, Invisible Line, and Inner Eye are some notable videos developed in the course of the eight-day workshop.
Besides these works, the camp remained hypnotized by various instrumental musical numbers of Sandip Samaddar Pantu and the musical assemblages of Samaddar Pantu and Manosh Acrarjya from India and Rahul Anand and Kanak Aditya from Bangladesh.
- DEPART DESK