Transforming everyday materials
Students at the workshop
British artist Clare Mitten, who held an exhibition “Transformer” at the Bengal Gallery, making extraordinary works from everyday materials, said, “I worked with the Fine Arts students of the Dhaka University. The exhibition is about transformation and using everyday materials to build new structures, taking them out of contexts and letting them become something different. We can re-evaluate the items in a new way.
“In the first workshop students made three dimensional sketches and they made them quickly in a day. They then combined their works with those of other students to make new forms.
“In a second workshop a new group of students came in and their job was to respond to what the earlier set of students had made. They looked at the objects and used them as still life. Thus their drawing became like reinventing.”
“In the third workshop transformation continued and in the fourth workshop students were encouraged to undo what they had seen in front of them. Now what is seen in Bengal is a new transformation in the context of the gallery space. In order to bring them here we had to dismantle a lot of objects,” said Clare.
Taken out of context, familiar objects became unfamiliar, and we can re-evaluate them as something other than the function they were designed for. A cardboard box might suggest mini architecture, or a wrapper might provide a pattern or colour -- just as a painter might choose a palette and brush.
The students of the first workshop collected bottles and packaging, leaves, twigs, bamboos, string and wool, and from them, made new objects. Things were cut up, patched together, wrapped, balanced, suspended and decorated. Each student used the materials to make something different before working together to rearrange these new objects into temporary arrangements. They worked playfully to see what happened when something was turned upside down, or one object was placed next to another -- exploring connections between things, to make a collaborative installation from individually made components.
Clare said that it has been an absolute delight to work with the students of DU because they had such enthusiasm and openness to try new things and a real hunger to find out a new way of working. They came in everyday above and beyond the workshop timings. The exhibition is a tribute to their hard work. There is joyfulness and lightness in the work.
Clare has been in Dhaka for six weeks and she had been given a generous space at the Fine Arts Department. This exhibition is officially the result of four days of work. The drawings, pointed out Clare, depict exquisite draughtsmanship.
Clare graduated from the Royal College of Arts in 2006 and has a studio in London with some other artists. Her family find her work quite funny but they always follow what she does with great interest.
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