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In search of roots
TO look for one's culture and craft in the folk tradition of the land, they say, is to go in search of one's roots. To venture into the new, an artist's question for self-realisation must drive the person towards the source of local expression in order to determine the nature of appearance and manner of both the art as well as craft.
Recently, intellectuals in the country have taken a strong inclination toward folk-art and folkculture of Bangladesh. This recent development has arrived despite the abject negligence toward these spheres by mainstream society, and the unique streams of folk-art and craft running through the country were silenced, and in effect, being lost in the abyss of an unknown history.
In spite of the recent trend towards folk-art, it is yet to be revealed in its full glory. But, the hope remains in the details that have been extricated from the depths of local history and which will help us in gaining a deeper understanding of the subject.
Firstly, one would have to acknowledge that folk-art has long been degraded by the imposition of a colonial mindset and was widely belittled by certain sections of society as the art for the "uneducated and rural" masses. It was only after historical studies of local art did folk-art reveal its beauty and elegance to culture and art enthusiasts and triggered a protracted debate on the matter that has thinned out only recently.
In the thin end of the debate, however, there was a widespread consensus that only by the practice of folk-craft and folk-art could the path to Bangladeshi culture(s) be evinced.
In the past decades various artists, poets, writers, singers, playwrights, and art-historians have been influenced and inspired by folk-art. In turn, they have given birth to a vast archive of distinguished creations, and developed various contemporary art styles that have brought folk art and culture to the fore in a new light and a new magnitude.
Folk-culture came of a natural birth from the dense village
populous that have based their culture and art on their socioeconomic systems. The details of the daily lives of the village dwellers carry the moments to be captured in folk-culture. The folk-culture in this way have developed and been intertwined with the rituals of rural Bangladesh.
A number of the folk-crafts were created due to the daily needs of the villagers, but that does not take away from the art that drove their artists to invent and re-invent their respective arts.
The materials were borrowed from their surroundings, and crafted into the required utilities. However, the villagers, remained true to the value of aesthetics. Expressed in the myriad mediums ranging from the essentials of hay-roofs, mudwalls, pitchers, intricately designed jewellery, cane and bamboo craft, pots and dolls.
The expressions are dominated not by facile realisations of a distant artist, rather a simple natural and unique bond with the artist's surroundings. No rush to progress or re-invent a new medium, no obsession with complex techniques, no attempt to splash glamour over their work; rather carries a simple and earthy appeal.
The greatest prize to be found within folk-art and crafts, thus, is the extraordinary convergence of art and utility. Jute-braided holders or the decorated pots are simply the extensions of the earthy appeal.
The value of these products, nevertheless, can not be viewed detached from the village ways of life and its people. For, in folk-art lies the expression of greater dreams, lives and practice. It reflects sagas of happiness, sorrow, wishes and hopes, of human struggle and emancipation. These thousand year traditions in art carry in its depth histories of society and our lives.
Story: City Correspondent Photo: Syed Zakir Hossain