17 Dec THE LETTER FORM THE ROBBERS- চিঠি দিয়ে ডাকাতের আগমন

A site-responsive installation by artist Sara Hossain and Nitol with cooperation of Kazi Shaharia during the second Episode of Uronto residential art exchange program in Kishoreganj, BD.

URONTO launched the second episode at Nikli village of Kishoreganj District, Bangladesh. Other than the water life, the village area also has few old structures which includes jamindar houses, Old British factories, monuments, temples, mosques etc. Once upon a time, in these areas, famous Birla company had a large scale Jute business and the local businessmen working with them became wealthy over the time. Influenced by the British people, those businessmen would built large palaces for living to maintain a social reputation.

Some of those old houses/palaces are abandoned already and some soon will be. These old structures and the water matter altogether create a unique and mysterious subject to explore and work with in various ways in Kishoreganj. In the Second project Uronto worked with three significant architectural structures in Nikli – Pal Bari, Doyal Kuthir and Gobindopur Akhra. The second Spot -Dayal Kuthir was built around 100 years before, and the decoration was done later in around Bengali 1340 year. This house was full of myth beliefs and stories. Decorated with ceramics work and the hanging balconies are amazingly beautiful. This hosue was built by Gorachad Shah. The local pilot school in Nikli is named after Gorachad Shah as well and his next generations are still teaching in the school.

Doyal Kuthir was full of myth beliefs and stories. Gorachad Shah’s Grandson, Sanjit Shah lives in this house with his brothers now. He shared a story of his childhood which explains how in the past in the villages, robbers used to send letter announcing their arrival and demands. He also shared about how these robbers used to dress with red cloths rapped around their body and use to come in small groups of two or three to collect demanded wealth from their family. Artists were fascinated with the story, that they wanted to recreate the robbers with red cloths in the house to re-create that story and convey the narrative to others in the area in the present time.

Such kind of stories can be only heard as myths but this area actually had that happening in the past. It reminds of the saying that whatever stories are in the air has happened somewhere somehow.

Artist made two figures as per described by Sanjit Shah. The area is so rural that it was almost impossible to find any material for the work so artist could only gather some hay and rope and bamboo to make the structure of human and rapped it with red plastic instead of red cloth as it was raining heavy during the work period. They placed one of the figure on roof top and one was installed standing at the front door downstairs. According to the story, if two robbers came then one would wait downstairs and one would go up and collect the sack of wealth and then leave . A metaphoric envelope of letter was also installed near the front door to present all important element of the story.

Episode two of the programme accommodated young students form Fine Art Institute of Dhaka University, Sara, Nitol, Zerin, Kahirul, Arif, Sultan, Robi were few among them. They came from different departments like Painting, sculpture, printmaking.