GIVING the names and brief backgrounds of the students, Thierry-Ford said, "Ellen has a fine arts background and is a painter, Tito too has a Fine Arts background, Riaz (a sculptor) and Lipi too have Fine Arts qualification, Shumon has a background in Chemistry, Zafar and Liton have Archaeological backgrounds, Shimul has a background in Botany."

Talking about what the workshop focused on, Thierry-Fords said, "Firstly, it involved an understanding and appreciation of art, which doesn't narrow it down to the artist as anybody can have or learn the appreciation. Secondly, there is conservation, which is becoming more and more a scientific discipline in terms of more and more analysis and techniques used to clean and processes you use as well as research. Thirdly, there is an aspect which has a connection with maybe manual crafts in terms of manual dexterity. This also involves patience. It's good to have a mix of students who can help each other in such workshop.

"The students were given photocopied texts to study at home," Olivier-Ford said, when asked to elaborate on the lectures, "We had three weeks of lectures; in the morning we tended to have ones that were theoretic. We were trying to cover as many topics as we could, relating to conservation and also aimed at the collection at the Shilpakala Academy. This was so that they will feel confident enough to do some basic conservation first-aid treatment on the collection until we return. We hope to return next year before June. More lectures have followed in the afternoon, after the brief break."

Asked to explain the aim of the workshop, Thierry-Ford said, "Four of the eight students who have worked here will gain further training overseas, which will hopefully be a Masters Conservation course for two to three years."

Giving his impression of his first trip to Dhaka, Thierry-Ford, "I am very impressed with the richness of art here and enthusiasm of the arts circle. I have been to the National Museum and met the important artists in the evening: it has been quite a hectic schedule but it has been very fruitful. Dhaka obviously has a different climate from where we are coming from, which is the other extreme; you are here to do a job: you live it out, and you obviously have to get used to things. It's a challenge as well as an experience which has been a fantastic one.

Subir Chowdhury, Director Fine Arts, Shilpakala Academy, talking about the need of the workshop said," I realized only too well the need for conservation and preservation of art pieces for our own collection. In the old building, where our classes were sometimes held and art pieces were stored, there were no proper facilities

for storing the paintings or other objets d' art . Again, we had no scientific knowledge for the necessary preservation or restoration. Consequently a lot of our art works have been attacked by fungus. Also, on the frame layer a lot of dirt and impact of seeping water and heat had accumulated. Yet again, some of the paints have flaked and chipped off. Consequently, this is a desperate measure for treating the ignored objets d' art we have in Shilpakala Academy and other arts centres, elsewhere in Bangladesh.

"We had requested the Norwegian Embassy when a Counselor from Norway had visited us in 1999. They accepted our proposal for aid in a positive manner. We had to ask their assistance formally and finally we had two Norwegian experts in 2000 from NICO (Norwegian Institute of Cultural Heritage and Research). The experts studied our art collection at Shilpakala Academy and on the basis of their report this workshop had been carried out."

The talk with Thierry-Ford and Chowdhury was mind-expanding indeed.