A tale of the hunter and hunted

Alliance Française de Dhaka (AFD) organised a solo art exhibition titled “Rooted in Soil” by Kamruzzaman Shadhin at its La Galerie and Galerie Zoom. The inaugural ceremony of the exhibition was held on October 14.

Asaduzzaman Noor, Cultural Affairs Minister, graced the occasion as chief guest. Sophie Aubert, Ambassador of France to Bangladesh, attended the programme as the guest of honour. Faruque Hassan, managing director, Giant Group and Mustafa Zaman, artist, critic and editor of Depart attended the opening ceremony as special guests. M. Bruno Plasse, Director, AFD, delivered welcome address at the event.

Kamruzzaman Shadhin has displayed an installation of 15,000 rats made of burnt clay, an installation of 500 arrows accompanied with video, and around five paintings employing clay collected from the Santhal village in his first solo show.

This art project started earlier this year while Shadhin was working in a Santhal village called Molanipara in Thakurgaon, Bangladesh. The Santhals are an indigenous minority community living around the north-western region of Bangladesh.

The artist has experienced the gradual changes in their lifestyles, how they gradually shifted their hunter-gatherer lifestyle to a modern agrarian one. Their surrounding environment has also changed with hybrid crops and excessive use of insecticides and pesticides driving away foxes, owls, eagles and many other animals. The rats that the Santhals used to hunt before have increased excessively in numbers and invaded their earthen houses.

As a part of the project, Shadhin has created thousands of rats made of clay with the help of the community. The rats symbolise human beings and their greed, out to destroy everything in nature in the name of development. This presentation included a series of Shadhin's works whose main inspiration came from the intricate relationship between nature and human beings on earth.

 Shadhin is a visual artist born and based in Bangladesh working in the mediums of installation, video and performance art. His work mostly focuses on environmental and social issues. His art projects are often created through public participation and are exhibited in public spaces where the main audiences are the general public and surrounding communities. He is the founder of Gidree Bawlee Foundation of Arts – a non-profit organisation working to create scope for cultural and artistic exchange between artists and communities through collaborative approaches. Shadhin is also a founding member of “Chhobir Haat”.

The exhibition, opening from Monday to Thursday from 3pm to 9pm and from Friday to Saturday from 9am to12 noon and from 5pm to 8pm, will conclude on October 29.