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Pioneering bamboo sculpture

11 March 2005, 18:00 PM
LIFESTYLE
By Ershad Kamol
11 March 2005, 18:00 PM
Ra Kajal's bamboo sculpture installed at an exhibition at the British Council Dhaka
Artist Ruhlu Amin Kajol, known as Ra Kajol, along with his teammates have successfully introduced a new trend in sculpture. They are using bamboo as the medium for sculpture, which until now had never been used before globally. Their new project has attracted interest in many countries such as Denmark and others. In 2004, these young sculptors exhibited their bamboo project at British Council Auditorium, Dhaka. Now Ra Kajol, who lives in Denmark, has come up with a new project-- a puppet show with veteran cultural personality Mostafa Monwar.

Kajol says, "I have been working with Monwar since 1978 when I was a student at Institute of Fine Art (IFA). Now, we are arranging a puppet show at the Experimental Theatre Stage at Shilpakala Academy to commemorate the birth anniversary of Danish fairy tale writer Hans Christian Anderson, which will be celebrated in many countries of the world.

As the programme co-ordinator of the project, Monwar is adapting Hans' fairytales and will create some figures of some popular characters of Hans' stories. Moreover, commenting on the use of bamboo in sculptures, Kajol says, "I saw a few IFA students-- Saidul H Juise, Shakhawat Hossain and Saleh Mahmud-- make wonderful replicated animal figures in the Baishakhi festival. They used bamboo for the replicas and covered those with paper, foam or other material. That is how I got the idea of making sculptures with bamboo. Then I went to Denmark and discussed my ideas with Swallows, a Danish NGO, in 1993. The idea was totally new for the Danish. They also became interested and launched a new project. During the last 10 years we gradually developed our skill in the field. Now, splinted-bamboo made sculpture is quite popular in Denmark. I import bamboo from Bangladesh to make sculptures in Denmark."

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Did he study sculpture in IFA? "No, I was an art student. I have continued painting. However, I believe that like Monwar an artist should work in various media. That is why I follow in his footsteps."

"I am learning the technique of making sculptures out of sand-stone in the Czech Republic, which at present is not being done in Bangladesh," Kajol adds.

Kajol thinks that by promoting bamboo-made sculpture he will be able to create a new dimension in the art world.