A Site Where Art Awakes
3rd Regional Art Workshop’ 2014 at Silchar, Assam

Abhibrata Chakrabarty

The green meadow of a remote village of Choto Dudh Patil in Silchar was awash in colour on the evening of 15th January of 2014. The topsy-turvy landscape of the meadow stood transformed into a new architectural horizon of an unknown space in the other reality with various works of site-specific installation. A group of young artists from different parts of the country, as well as abroad, enjoyed these works under the open sky along with the people of that village. An installation and site-specific art workshop was held under the title of ‘3rd Regional Art Workshop, 2014’ in Barak Valley on 13th, 14th and 15th January at Daffodil School, Malugram and Choto Dudh Patil village respectively. It was organized by Shilpangan, a premier institute of Fine Arts and Craft in association with ACRDS (Art and Cultural Research Development Society). Shawon Akand was invited by the organizers as a resource person of the workshop from Dhaka, Bangladesh, to manifest a new kind of art practice in the valley. Shawon is a doyen of the field of site-specific installations and performance arts. He, himself, is involved with art practices where the socalled gallery involvement is not necessarily required. Shawon used to practice art in the remote villages of his country with the indigenous people and practice performances with their folk resources.

The first two days of the workshop involved painting rickshaws. A good number of participants attended the workshop from different parts of the North East, most of whom were students from various art forums of Barak Valley and from the Department of Visual Arts, Assam University. Shawon Akand encouraged the execution of a particular kind of site-specific project along with an interactive process of sharing thoughts and ideas among the participants. Rickshaw painting is a popular genre of the urban culture in Bangladesh. Usually the rickshaws of Bangladesh were painted gorgeously with highly contrasting colours and defined contours. Shawon’s idea was to transform this cultural genre of painting rickshaws beyond his own soil by breaking the political barrier between two countries through a process of a typical act of art. He has tried to enhance a form of art where installation, site-specific and performance art can intermingle together with the common folk.