AGUN NIYE KHELA

Chaander Haat held an exhibition, from 8th to 13th May 2018, with their different takes on 'Agun niye Khela' curated by Sayantan Maitra, at the Academy of Fine Arts. On entering one comes across a room curiously draped in black interspersed with white paper conceptualizing their visuals of 'fire' or 'Agun', the Bengali synonym of it.

The work of Mallika Das Sutar where she had made a sculpture of threads and hair and plaster telling the story of a child's fantasy metamorphosing into the crude reality of the world of a woman.

Works of Raju Sarkar emanates coldness because of the use of the particular light and colour, nonetheless, a sensation of tenderness clings to it, depicting the artist's fear and expectation.

The work of Pintu Sikder points towards the futuristic human beings and its development, the merging of the machines and humans.

We come to face the work of Pradip Das constituting an animal, presumably a donkey, standing there facing an empty mixer. This work points towards the age of industrialization and labour crisis.

The work of Ayan Saha extending to the centre, a wall divided into three parts made up of coconut husk and cement. The work brings to mind the sinewy structure of wounded skin, the vibrancy of red fading out into the bluish-black wall.

Artist Tarun Dey's work a video installation depicting Theemithi, or fire walking. This is an ancient practice which involves devotees walking on burning embers to purify oneself.

Nirmal Mallick's work in the shape of a firefly intricately woven in bamboo and hay. The horizontal elongated form of his sculpture shows the passage of a person - from the birth till to the deathbed.

The exhibition finally ends with two works of Bhabatosh Sutar, used fire as a means of transformation.