An open studio titled ‘Impressions of Dhaka’, featuring outcomes of a recently held workshop, will be opened today at 6pm at Gyantapas Abdur Razzaq Bidyapeeth in Dhanmondi in the capital. This is a part of Bengal Foundation’s Artist Residency Programme with British sculptor Richard Crooks. The show will also feature creative processes along with the outcomes of Richard Crooks’ four-week research based residency in Dhaka.
Collaborating closely with renowned Bangladeshi artist Ashim Halder Sagor, Richard, has delivered a two-day workshop titled ‘Creative Interventions’ for young Bangladeshi artists in the last week. Using ceramic and sculptural processes, students have explored their own locations to select a suitable site that requires a sculptural ‘intervention’.  Adding glazes and other ceramic materials, their sculptures will be fired using a Raku technique live, during the opening of the show. Using ceramic casting techniques reminiscent of the concrete casting we see constantly in Dhaka, Richard has made his recent sculpture out of a variety of materials–clay, cement, plaster–inspired by different architectural styles that surround him. Some of these will be fired in the kiln yet some will be painted using thin layers of acrylic with pencil additions. The interesting finishing process can be witnessed at the opening of the “Impression of Dhaka”, along with some of his photographs, drawings a collage. The show will continue till March 24. Richard Crooks’ work adopts observations of the global architectural styles that are absorbed and reinvented within vernacular architecture. Research conducted during this residency will inform a new body of work that will be exhibited at his solo show ‘Transformations’ at Pound Arts Centre in Corsham, UK; an Arts Council funded gallery in September, 2017.
Bengal Foundation, as part of its pedagogical approach in contributing to the new media art, has opened its Artist Residency Programme with a promise to continue by featuring dynamic artists from home and abroad.

Where: Gyantapas Abdur Razzaq Bidyapeeth, Dhanmondi
When: Inauguration: 6pm, today