Youth's take on nature at “Immensity” art exhibition

The culmination of an art residency project back in December last year, is the ongoing art exhibition titled “Brihotto” (Immensity) at the city’s Abinta Gallery of Fine Arts.

10 students from various academic backgrounds, but with a passion for art, were deliberately taken to a remote rural area in Lama, Bandarban for a 4-day residency camp, in order to develop their own artworks after coming in close contact with nature.

The exhibition was curated by eminent artist Bishwajit Goswami, also a teacher at the Department of Drawing and Painting, Faculty of Fine Art, Dhaka University. Bishwajit led them to further their ideas after returning to Dhaka, as part of a month-long open studio programme at the Abinta Gallery of Fine Arts. “The open studio was a time dedicated to practice, during which the participants transformed their ideas into specific individual works in different disciplines,” he said.

Bishwajit added that in Lama, they were able to connect with the essence of nature and develop their own versions of aesthetic concepts. A concept he had been thinking about for the past few years, this endeavour was his effort to bridge the gap between the academic theoretical structures of art, which students learn in classrooms, with practical application in the real world. “Getting grades enough is not important,” the artist stated, “but to be able to develop ideas after coming into contact with the real life context and being able to execute them was the purpose of Immensity.”