The evolution of performance art in Bangladesh was presented through an audio-visual display on Wednesday at the art magazine
Depart’s office in Manipuri Para in the capital.
Freelance artist Palash Bhattacharjee, who is also an assistant graphic designer of the magazine, historicised the evolution of
performance art in Bangladesh.His slides paid tribute to renowned artists like Kalidas Karmakar, Mahbubur Rahman, Saleh Mahmood and Moniruzzaman Shipu for their incursions into the less trodden niche of performance art. These artists, along with established names like Dilara Begum Jolly, Nilufar Chaman and others, have paved the way for artists’ collectives liked Porapara and Santaran, and appropriated the vibrant medium to experiment with ever new artistic expressions.
Bhattacharjee also lamented the fact that performance art is yet to be acknowledged as a genre in its own right due to its very indeterminacy as a market-ready form, nonetheless, due as well to the misguided perception on the part of the practitioners who sometimes unwittingly overlap its unique attributes with that of theatre performance.
The event began with a welcome speech by Mustafa Zaman, editor of Depart followed by a speech by the Finis artist JP Kaljonen. Kaljonen stressed on the potency of the art form to catalyze a ‘wake up call’ to rouse the complicit populace from an enervating slumber induced by what he called the ‘liberalist capital system’, said a press release.
From the conversation of the evening, one can but surmise that performance art is gaining traction with artists from both home and abroad, who, disillusioned by the politics of capital economy, are turning ever more seriously towards performance art for agitating new ways of perceiving and reforming the society which is our habitat. The programme was organised as part of the Depart on the ongoing programme of promoting performance art in Bangladesh.
-With New Age input
