cheragi art show 7
The Cheragi Art Show has run for seven years and was created by Jog Art Space to open a space for questions, mystery and dialogue between the public and artists, and between artists from Chittagong and beyond. The space is curated through a collaborative process of team discussion, there is no interpretation of the works on site, and all artists are present to discuss the work with the public. In December 2019, over 1500 people were estimated to have visited the show.
Cheragi Art Show 7 was curated by Jog Art Space members Shohrab Jahan (Exaggeration), Zihan Karim (Unidentified flying objects), and performance artist Joydep Roajda (Live screaming), alongside artists from Mansul, Pora Para and Chittagong University Fine Art Institute. The show included work from:
Razib Datta, Raihan Ahmed Rafi, Nusrat Shaown, Jewel Chakma, Semina Israt, Aritra Arka, Archisman DasSultan Ahmed, Rakibuk Hasan, Anindya, Kauser Haider, Samsul Alam Helal, Sharad Das, Jim Joel, Emilie Flower, Ruth Kelly, Nazir Udin Mahmud Liton, Syed Md Shohrab Jahhan, Zihan Karim, Jewel Chakma, Nusrat Shaown, Fahim Hasin SahanAbir Shome, Abu Naser Robii, Hasna Hena Porosh, Joydep Roaja, Jublee Dewan, Mehran Achter Shumi, S M Reyad, Shubho O Saha, Screekanta Acharjee, Umme Habiba Ramia, Yuvraj Zahed Ali Chowdhury (Yuvraj)
Emilie Flower and Ruth Kelly participated as artists and recorded the process and reflexions on the process with Duniya Khandokher from Action Aid Bangladesh, working alongside festival artists including Zahed Ali Chowdhury (Yuvraj), Shaela Sharmin, and painter and multimedia artist Sharad Das from the Chittagong Fine Arts Institute.
“In my learning process, I always seek out environments which encourage collective learning and sharing, through chaos and unstable conditions and putting myself into troubled conditions and replanting ideas to solve problems and learn. I don’t like to create an ideal space for learning. It’s better for me if different people with different ideas from different disciplines, gather together to develop ideas and break ideas by sharing their knowledge from their own ideas. Or a space where people come to be confused. ”
We Shouldn’t Underestimate the People
Interview with Shaela Sharmin, founding member of Jog Art Space and Professor at the Chittagong Fine Arts Institute
It’s like a sky, an open sky for me where I can be whatever I want to be. That’s why I do the street shows, that’s why I really want to do public shows, so that people actually can taste it, people actually feel, will feel. People who are really bounded by so many things, so many problems here, at least they can feel something; that there is something that does not have any boundaries—you become whatever you want, you can do whatever you want to—from within your soul. I want to give people those feelings, transfer those feelings to them.
We shouldn’t underestimate the people. There are lots of viewers, who can see so transparently, and they can see the ambiguity and the dishonesty of the artist so clearly. And they ask questions like a… sharp knife you know cutting you into… pieces, several pieces. What you are trying to tell, your painting, your work doesn’t say that, it says just the opposite. We faced—not in the cubic spaces, but in the street—we faced lots of questions like that. They ask lots of questions, they view so critically: what is this, why is the organisation so organic, why are the arrangements not good… They criticise everything. And also in the newspapers. We faced lots of criticism, which we really like. We really like it; we want people to criticise us. That’s what I think the street show is all about.
Interview with Emilie Flower, transcribed and edited by Ruth Kelly
Chittagong, December 2019
After Cheragi
by Ruth Kelly
The tug and the tumble
Of all we were born to
And all of the choices we make.
Feet sink into the wet clay
At the edge of the river.
Distant lights glitter.
This far out, birds are still singing.
Your hand reaches out
And sets Mars spinning
And shifting in colour against
The deepening blue of the day.
The tide turns and swells.
Light up the old cinema hall:
The show is about to play.