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Far from the

madding crowd
6 li'i['.'1r jiiri

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PHOTOS BY NAEEM MOHAIEMEN AND ZIHAN KARIM

While buyrng water, I overheard, 'Eta ki...qshudh naki? (is

Shome's installation,'Reality'. ' Oshudh naki?' he asked again.

this medicine?)' I turned to find a young shopper pointing to a wall of swollen

polythene bags that was Satabdi

'It's installation art,' I interjected, helpfully (I thought). 'The whole

street is taken over by these projects.' 'Charukala students?'

Yes... probably. This is organised

by Jog, an artist collective.'

He pointed at the only'traditional'

work on the street, 'Juncture',

painting with a multipronged figure,

by Fahima Binte Zahed. 'I understand that work. I know that one is shilpc (art). But, polythene bags?'he said.

'Arre bhai,' his companion interrupted, 'did your father think there would be something called
mobile phone. Everything changes, so

whynotshi/pa?' He seemed to like this explanation,

turning away from me and launching into a discussion with his friend. This was healthy. Not a dismissal, only
questions.

Throughout the day I saw a walkthrough crowd similar to this man: puzzled, curious, and eventually engaged with the work. Not just
friends of the artists, or invited guests, as is common in many Dhaka

openings,
Chittagong.

but people

almost

accidentally discovering the exhibition

at Cheragee Pahar, a small hub in

Cheragee Pahar
walkrvay because of the presence of

Batighor bookshop

is a crucial 'and various

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JUNE 29, 2OL2

newspaper offices

(the latter

gently

lampooned in Afsana Sharmin Jhuma's Don't Worry, Shuprobhat'). As Batighor was one of two shops in the area carrying our book,

'Chittagong

Hill Tracts in the Blind Spot of

Bangladesh Nationalism', this was my entry point into local culture nodes.

As the crowds swelled in the street, each installation attracted a cluster. Every piece facing questions like, 'eta ki (What is this?)'. Only the live performance of shaggy-maned Mishuk Ehsan- a loudspeaker miming a cinema announcement - had a thin crowd- (it
was too loud to approach, by design). A corner

daab-taala did roaring business (and created a mountain of trash), an involuntary conscript
into the show.

As an hour of power outage ended in the next few minutes, the lights of Cheragee came back on. It was early evening, so I had not noticed the absence. Now as circuits reconnected, I realised that some of the pieces

had been sitting half-blind, waiting for electricity. The spot lighting for Sohlab
Jahan's '...& Zoo', Ripon Saha's 'Third law of emotion' and Shaela Sharmin's 'Spiry Story' were ceremonial, not essential. But for other pieces, including givol Shaha's'We are fine',

Shuprobhat Do not Worry by Afsana Sharmin

Palash Bhattacharjee's 'Horn', Sharad Das'

'My father's chair', Arup Barua's 'Stress', and Zihan Karim's 'A simple death", the electric circuits seemed to bring the machine back to
Iife. Now, the crowd swelled even more.

People surged and followed, creating a

thick, enthusiastic cordon around the

interactive/ performance pieces. I could still make out the vectors of what was happening in Aloptogin Tushar's 'Banana 5' Give drawing), Smita Purakayastha's 'Don't try this at home' (suspended caram board), Mehrun Akter Sumi's'Onushoron' (guide and tug of war), Zesika Tasnim's 'Floating wish' (paper boat flotilla) and Farah Naz Moon's 'Ami jani fui... tumi' (ludo board as body tarpaulin). But the crowd was too intense for a clear line of sight.
Jog's Cheragee site-specific project featured

Afsana Sharmin Jhuma,, Aloptogin Tushar, Arifujjaman Chowdhury, Arup Barua, Bival Saha, Farah Naz Moon, Fahima Binte Zahed,
SNrEtHiA$.Er utr,jir

Khelaram khele ja, Dekharam dekhe ja by'Joydeb Roaja

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Joydeb Rowaja, Mehrun Akter Sumi, Mishuk Ehsan, Palash Bhattacherjee, Razib Datta, Ripon Saha, Shaela Sharmin, Sharad Das, Shatabdi Shome, Smita Purakayastha, Sohrab Jahan, TnsicaTasnim, Zihan Karim. The show was curated by Yuwaj (Zahed A Chowdhury).

I fell back and talked with Dhali

Al

Mamoon. Most of the artists here were either current or former students of Mamoon, and both he and his partner, artist Dilara Begum

Jolly, seemed exhilarated at how their

new directions.

interventions were now being generative in

hile the usual Bengali

Muslim

domination of our art scene is slightly lessened in Chittagong, performance artist Joydeb Roaja (' Khelar am khele j a, Dekharam dekhe ja') is one of the very few Adivasi/jumma artists I have seen in the district scene, and certainly the only one at the

Do not trv this at home by Smita Purakya stha

I was disappointed audiences at Cheragee-perhaps Jog's dependence on their own netvvorks kept the audience strictly Bengali, a big lapse in a region witnessing the slow-motion erasure of Adivasi identity by the
Cheragee show. Here also,

not to see' Adivasi

Bangladeshi state.

When the visual arts are considered an shokh, the appendage, luxury or of non-majority underrepresentation

communities becomes

even

more

pronounced. In fact, at an artist talk organised by the./og arfists, Roaja said per{ormance art gave him freedom because it allowed him to

work in raw, confrontational formats, with

minimal expenses. Jog Crrator Yuwaj (Zahed A. Chowdhury,
assoc. professor of painting at Charukala) talks

about the challenges of finding Adivasi artists.

Even a few years ago, Charukala Institute

would only see a rare Adivasi, and always from communities that had some family presence in Bandarban or Rangamati. Only in the last few years had he seen any student from the Bawm and Chakcommunities. Expanded Adivasi quotas in admissions . would create some level of positive affirmative

the dominant Chakma or

Marma

action, but

will our slow-moving

public

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Spicy Story by Shaela Sharmin

Reality by Satabdi Shome

universities take such a visionary step? When I asked Joydeb who the other young Adivasi artists were (the post-Kanak Chapa Chakma generation), he named Udoy Sonkor Chakma, Bimol Chakma, Vobesh Chakma, Bablu

Artists need to break the state's chokehold on our ways of seeing ourselves, :ind urgently
as well. Jbg hias not yet built a new paradigm, but Roaja's work is at least a visible marker.

Chakma, Doyal Mohan Chakma, Obonti Chakma and Jigmun Bom in Chittagong; and in Dhaka, Shapu Tripura and Milon Tripura. Much too short a list! In 2oo4, Dhali Al Mamoon built Water is innocent', the first large-scale installation work I have seen that mourned state aggression against Adivasis: the megadevelopment project of Kaptai Hydroelectric Dam (pop quiz: how much of our electricity is provided today by this dam that drowned hundreds of Adivasi villages?). In the years since, there has been very little work by Bengali or Adivasi artists on the continuino crisis in the Chittagong Hill Tracts.
10 NEW AGE
h.q:r'i;,

f I

nstallation and performance art is not included in the syllabi'of any Bangladeshi Charukala, and Chittagong is no exception. But the city's position in the periphery has
'Rajdhanite khub antorikota'r obhab (there

made it more open to experimentation.

is lack of sincerity in the

capital.)'

is

an

overused complaint, but somewhat true. At many Dhaka shows, we sense a loss of the sense of wonder. People are increasingly there not to lose themselves in a sensory experience, but to figure out 'the angles': 'Is this the new thing/ lVho is funding this?', 'What's in it for me?' Brains are on overdrive with little time for contemplation.

JUNE 29, 2Ot2

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3rd Law of Emotion bY RiPon Saha

e"pt"sted, for example, in the private dialect bo-nd among Chittagonians. Prof Nisar Hossain of Dhaka University describes Chittago;rg's self-contained character as' anchofikata'r tlan (the pull of regionalism), which allows fluid dialogue between generations. Rashid Chowdhury and ilIurtaza Basheer's shilpa andolon of the rg7os, transmitted to Faizul Azim Jacob, Alok Roy and AbuI Mansur, and then a half decade later to Dhali AI Mamoon, and finally to Cheragee Pahar today. The first MA in fine arts started in Chittagong, and a quiet lineage continues of theoretical practice alongside honing of craft. Chittagong is not a hinterland by any stretch of the imagination (hello, cargo supertankers!). But the art scene retains esiential breathing space' Experiments like

The port citY has its own chatacter,

Jog are part of a tradition of experimental art collectives- when asked about the link with Porap ara, \ was told about artists
being off the grid has helped the scene tiemendously; wh4tever has developed has been organic- comfortable' confidence without arrogance. The longer they can resist the siren call of Euro-American or tdiscovery' safari, the Dhaka curators or-r better the space can develop' Far from the
madding crowd.
crossing between the two organisations' But

photography and film (s;hdbak.org)' His photography was shown most recently at Dhaka Aft Summit 2O72, at Banglad*h Shilpakala Academy' This essay witl atso appear in a forthcoming
r3sue

Nabem Mohaiemen works in essav'

of DEPART aftiournal'
NFW ASE Xtra

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'Through art practice, the| are unfolding

thernselves'
Dhali Al Mamoon is a teacher at Institute

*$

of Fine Arts, Chittagong University, and a prolific interdisciplinary artist. He has

collaborated across mediums with artist Wakilur Rahman, Dhaka Theatef group and others. Most recently Dhali was, collaborating as an art director with Tareque Masud on the film 'Kagojer Ful',

priorto Masud's tragic death. l\aeem

Mohaiemen discussed with him past
tralectories and future possibilities for Chittagong artists
PHOTOS BY NAEEM MOHAIEMEN
How did you first become a part of Chittagong's art context? Not the choice to live here, but the path to becoming an artist - to work in this way, and across mediums, here in the port city. Chittagong had just started a new post graduate (MA) progra'm, the first in
Bangladesh, and this was something that drew me here. I entered Chittagong Art College in 1975, about two years after it was founded. A

big influence on all of us was Rashid

Chowdhury- as a founder of Chittagong art education and institutional practice. The second generation of modernists (after the Zainul & Shafiuddin group) such as Murtaza Baseer and Devdas Chakravarty also joined the University as teachers alongside Rashid Chowdhury. Abul Mansur, one of our best art historians, came here, which created an
environment of art pedagogr.

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Water is Innocent by Dhali Al Mamoon

Then came the post-197r generationMonsurul Karim, Hashi Chakraborty, Alok Ray, Chandra Shekhat Dey, Nazlee Laila Mansur, IGM Qayyum* who all came as students to Chiltagong, and then became art teachers in the two institutes (gollege & university). Dhaka:Chittagong collaboration
was also there as an influence. Shomoy group

Jolly and myself were rnembers from

Chittagong.

came about in the early 8os

in Dhaka. Most

members were from Dhaka, but Dilara Begum

Sometimes becoming an aftist requires a psychic break. A break with family, rules, expectations,'tradition'- but you have talked about a different interaction, especially with your father. Yes, going farther back, my father. was really my introduction tothe ar:ts. He worked in the

ffitrffi

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railway department and was posted to Kolkata, so that exposed him a lot. He is the first person to tell me about Zunrt;J Abedin, Picasso...all that. My father was very open in his thinking, and he was qrmpathetic to left
politics. So I was lucky in that way. I see now with my students that ideas about 'culture'can sometimes bring rules about what should or should not be done. For example, there used to be a popular perception about

earlier history. That is why my installation

looked at
tt-re

at Chittagong, many Bengali settlers were hostile to the project. Some people also suggested I install the show at Rangamati. I responded: no, I need to show it to Bengalis; they need to understand their role in this process. I think people are unnerved by work about subaltern

When the project was installed

dam project.

protikreeti (idols), that Muslims should not make them. But sorne of these strictures
cannot be simplified to religion; they are more complex. Our society really emphasises wor\ job and career. And when you are outside this track, especially for women, no one wants to
accept it.

communities, and anv intersection with security discourse. You could see that in the
fact that no one wanted to preserve the project
as a perrnanent installation.

The arc of Chittagong's art scene seems to track the foundational history. You graduated just as the arts program was

A typical art student should be driven by dreams. But when they enter into third or fourth year of studies, fears about their future start consuming them. And our education system also inserts a lot of fear into students. And of course, there is session jam. All of this
creates pressure, to become practical.

getting stafted. What were the emerging trends in the first decades? You have talked about the theoretical discourse influencing the work in various ways.
It was not in a profound way, but cornpared to Dhaka I felt more of an investigative ethos, Dhaka seemed to carry morg of the signs of a colonial education. We had an attitude of analysing our context, our ways of living and being, and that came into the work. Abul Mansur had Golam Sheikh as his teacher in India * so a post-colonial art historical glance

Let's turn for a moment to one of your older works,'Opap Biddho Jql (Water is Innocent)'. By my reckoning, this was the first significant aft installation to talk about the crisis of Bengali racial hegemony in Chittagong Hill Tracts. came through him to Chittagong art How did this work come about in the education. Chittagong context? It isn't just the training, the context You know, I first started traveling in the hills produces different work. Look, Chittagong has in the rg8os, and I could see fear and distrust a significant Buddhist, Hindu and even a small in the eyes of the Pahans (indigenous hill - Christian community. There was also a people) wherever I went. As a Bengali, they significant Bihari community, for the railway feared me. This experience is what first and other reasons, but after r97r they could pushed me to research the history. It's a not last. And then there is Chittagong Hill terrible crime that Bengali nationalism has Tracts. So we have a much larger non-majority
been forced on them. This is unacceptable. We

fought in tgTt for our own identity- now how can we be wiping out the identity of another people? So in my research, I started looking backward into the deeper roots of the crisis.

Beyond Bangladesh, you can explore the British colonial roots of the practice of ousting Adivasis from their land. Forced Bengalification is part of the problem, but it goes back much further. Kaptai dam sits at a locus of
14 NEW AGE

community, which has a uniqrte impact on the art scene. Chittagong is also on the periphery of the main markets of commerce within the visual arts. The pressure to make artwork for sale was less acutely felt here. So it produces different types ofwork, free ofthese pressures. Look at Alok Ray, Nazlee Laila Mansur, KAM Qayyum, Hashi Chal<raborty, etc. l,ook at the surface and imagery in some of their

Htr*

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paintings- from application of color, to the finishing process. The character of color and
even a willingness to go to an extreme place in

colour tones. Dhaka can engender

preoccupied notion to be a professional artist, so work can risk becoming only a product. In Chittagong, I feel there is more of a process, not a focus on the finish.

Nazlee Laila's work has a hallucinatory character even... but is it an aftistic statement, a manifesto, or produced simply by the freedom of not having to worry about sales?
Many of these arLists, such as Nazlee Laila and

were from the

Monsurul Karim were influenced by Rashid Chowdhury. If you look at the relationship between colours in Rashid, you"li see the primary relationship coming through via these other artists. This is not literal, but there is a linkage of some kind. Alok Ruy, KAM Qayyum, Chandra Shekhar Dey, Monsurul Karim, and others

first

generation that

spanned the war and graduated in the mid

7os. These were artists who were old enough to have witnessed the turmoil of war. The rg8os was our batch. Niloofar
Chaman, Sanjib Dutta, Osman Pasha, and others were the next group. Tasaddak Husain Dulu, Zahid Ali - this generation was next. Then there were the Shantarqn and Poraparo art collectives - which were

very different And linked to

newer

practices, especially performance and

installation. And now, Jog art collective is an. even newer phenomenon - this is now what I call the post-Porapcra generation. The scene is definitely conscious of being different from Dhaka. Working in Chittagong is a key part of their identity.

It seems free, so far, of a ceftain selfconsciousness.

Absolutely. This thing that Jog did at Cheragee Pahar is not seHconscious, they are just joyfrrl

and'free finding a place express themselves. This is a key aspect of the creative cycle. Through art practice, they are unfolding

to

themselves.

'F