Page 269 - Art and Crafts of Bangladesh

266 ART AND CRAFTS

their respective countries under the same network. Khoj International was a
consequence of these activities. The activities of Khoj International were explained in
the following excerpt found in the booklet published on the occasion of its
international workshop held in Modinagar, India in 1997. ‘All these have been guided
by the Triangle Art Trust based in London, whose mission is to expand the workshop
network, Khoj in India now is linked to this active international workshop chain which
is a kind of movement with a primary network in Africa. Its direction is towards an
empowerment of third world artists and their multicultural bonding outside a white
bias, for an exchange and flow of information along other lines.’ 7
As a consequence of the inspiration gathered from attending the Khoj workshops in
India and exchanging views with the founder of Triangle Art Trust, Robert Loder,
Britto Art Trust was formed in 2003. Chaired by Artist Shishir Bhattacharjee and
coordinated by Tayeba Begum Lipi, Mahbubur Rahman, Salahuddin Khan Srabon,
Imran Hossain and Kabir Ahmed Masum Chisty, Britto initiated various activities
within and outside the country. Among these were organizing of workshops and
residencies that encouraged works on installation, performance, video projections and
such other new trends. Britto continued their activities in collaboration with many
national and international organizations, In addition to the ones in the Triangle
network. Britto organized a fortnight-long workshop from 25 January to 7 February in
2003. This workshop was held in Tepantar Film City in Bhaluka, some 60 kilometres
away from Dhaka. Artists, including nine from other Asian and European countries,
participated in this exhibition. It was a major event for new trend arts in the local
context. Other local artists, apart from the organizers of Britto, who participated in this
workshop were Niloofar Chaman, Dhali Al Mamoon, Lala Rukh Selim and Nisar
Hossain. Almost all these artists, including Britto President Shishir Bhattacharjee,
have incorporated social and political sensitivity as an essential element in their works
since the 80s. Keeping this element as a focus of their works, these artists adopted the
new trend media in the 90s for presentation of their artworks.
After this workshop organized by Britto, Nisar Hossain and Aziz Sharafi, an expatriate
artist residing in the USA, organized another workshop in 2004 jointly with Dhaka’s
French Cultural Center (Alliance Française), a private exhibition gallery called
Chitrak and an adjacent under-construction building. Along with the active artists of
the new trend, experienced and young artists, sculptors, architects, actors and such
other creative and perceptive professionals from different fields participated in this
workshop. Since the workshop aimed to practice alternative trends of arts, the
participants attempted to create works in the light of the contemporary local and
international trends. In this workshop, the participants emphasised on the analysis,
localization and originality of the arts of the new trends.
Conceptual Art and New Trends and Related Local History:
Although the practice of Conceptual Art and new trends started in the 1990s in
Bangladesh, it is still in a primary phase. Bangladesh lags far behind from the state of
maturity that this trend has reached in the west, having started in the 70s. Though