Still Landing

Made a brief and unplanned presentation this week to the Art & Design Foundation students at City College of some of the films of craftspeople working in both Bangladesh and Gujarat. The films prompted some debate about the economics of crafts and lots of questions and subsequent talk about the nature of craft and design in theses countries. Both staff and students were really interested and there was a silence and stillness in the room as they watched. It was great to see them learning and engaged in what they were seeing, to share what I had experienced as part of the fellowship and get responses to what I had produced. - (they even applauded at the end a lovely surprise!).
Since returning I have been brought back into the reality of juggling work, teaching, being a father and a husband whilst grabbing snippets to reflect on the amazing experience I have had. The time and space to think, look, observe, record and just absorb has been wonderfully refreshing and personally shifting. I have flashbacks - vivid scenes of places I visited on the fellowship, some stills and some moving images. I want to get into the thirty + DVD's of data - images and films - to start filtering, re-experiencing, contextualising and responding creatively to what I have seen. At the moment I'm struggling to find the space to do this. Since returning I have been very fortunate to be proposed and offered new projects and possibilities which are exciting developments of the MSSP fellowship and new ventures - work must go on and deadlines must be met, money earnt.
I've started to 'Backfill" the blog, adding images, text and films on the days I hadn't covered ( resizing the photos and selecting through them was taking lots of time whilst away and I thought it better to be out looking rather than sitting in front of a computer). I'm sorting through the imagery, the books and papers as well as the collections of objects I brought / sent back from both Bangladesh and Gujarat, picking out things. The flashbacks and thoughts I have, get noted down in my sketchbook and  we've cooked and eaten food I experienced on my travels. All aspects of filtering and evaluating what may have the potential for further development.
I have enjoyed the photography, - it became a new tool, something I hadn't used much in my work and I have been looking at other photographers and there work in a very different way, even looking at possible routes of study in the subject. I started to explore the weaving the bamboo baskets and fans. The metal baskets and textiles are displayed in my studio space and around the house, helping me make connections and promting ideas and memories. I tried cutting fine strips of steel to use to weave a basket and explore how the metal basket from Bangladesh was made - just to try to reproduce it - to understand how the material might work. Unfortunately the guillotine couldn't cope with such fine strips and they buckled and bent. I need to explore other ways of getting thin strips of metal cut without them folding or twisting.... laser/ water-jet cutting? rolling wire?

I decided to use some of the raw cotton paper from the Ghandi Ashram factory to undertake some tests in weaving too. decided to laser cut the strips out, and spent some time testing out different widths and settings on the laser - whilst they were cutting the patterns looked like the rows of rice drying at the rice mills in Bangladesh.
Off to the Harley next week to meet up with the rest of the project team and the artists who have come over to the UK.

Shrimongol to Dhaka

After visiting Lawachara National Park we returned to the cottage, collected our bags and headed for the station to return to Dhaka, enroute we went via some more of the villages.

The ice cream man was there, with a painted aluminium coolbox fitted to his bike.

On the platform someone had a wonderful bag/ basket made from packaging, layered together like papier mache.

As we headed back to Dhaka much of the land we passed through had once been forest, areas have been cleared both for their timber and for tea and rice production.

We paused at stations along the way where boys sold water and snacks to the people on the trains. At some of the stations children jumped onto the trains to collect the plastic bottles and other items for recycling, leaving before the train departed.

Slowly the daylight faded and the light from villages and shops along the route caught my attention. In the outskirts of Dhaka, people shopped near to the level crossings. The shanti's close to the railway line were lit up.

See parts of the journey here: Pani. Tea & Rice. Clearing. Pause. Light. Lights.

Gone Country

I made a journey outside of Dahka today to see examples of some other metalworking I had come across in my research.r

Its good to get out of the noise and busy-ness of the city. The place I was heading to was a very small 'hamlet' some 11/4hrs bus + 3/4hr auto rickshaw + 1/2 hr cycle rickshaw + 3/4 hrs walk away from Dhaka.

The journey included walking across some scary bridges and through wonderful landscapes.

People were working in the paddy fields, the pace of life seemed completely different (although no less harsh).

The space, the sky, the greenery, the lack of fumes and dust and the relative quietness made you unclench your shoulders and breathe deeply, even my ears began to relax.

Along the way men and women were attending their fields of rice, planting out and watering using baskets and ropes.

Watch them working here: Watering paddy fields.

I liked the visual pattern of the rice against the sheet of water and the reflection of the sky. the raised lines of earth that divided the fields forming tracks and paths.

I think I felt at ease as the East Anglian landscape in the UK has similar features; flat, angular fields divided by raised banks.

We walked through a village and several smaller hamlets, the walkways between homesteads are raised so that people can still move easily during the floods.

The Houses too are built on manmade mounds of earth in an attempt to protect them and the residents from the rains. Each dry season families dig clay and re-deposit it on the mound to raise the height or increase the size of their plot in an attempt to protect their property from the waters which fill Bangladesh each wet season. The ice melt and rain water run off from the Himalayas, brought to Bangladesh by large rivers including the Ganges, combine with the tropical storms which blow in up the Bay of Bengal and mean that the water levels rise considerably. Bangladesh floods.

Everywhere there were boats and indicators of life surrounded by water, It made me wonder what it must be like to live here during the monsoon and the floods. I guessed that the sunken boats hadn't been abandoned, they'd been left in the water so that the timbers didn't dry out and shrink, so that when needed in the wet season all the joints would be water-tight.
Materials and crops were stored and drying along the way. These are stacks of jute.
A rice harvest, drying in the sun.

Hay and goat pats. The pats are used as fuel for cooking.

Pats drying on a special rack

Rice Patterns

After visiting the metal casters I went for a walk around Dhamrai, partly trying to find the school that Shawon had gone to film in and to catch up with him, partly to explore and see what life was like for people living outside of Dhaka. I walked past a rice mill and stopped to spend some time watching and recording the process of drying the rice.

Watch: Drying Rice 06

I had visited and observed a small mill on the 15th whilst visiting the brick fields and had enjoyed the activity and movement of the work.

Watch:Drying Rice 01

Then I had seen just a small part of the process of drying the rice, so this was a chance to see a bit more.

Drying the rice can take up to three days to complete. The men and women were constantly moving, it was like a performance; colaborative working which had a wonderful sound and rhythm to it; a welcome relief from the visual and audible mayhem of Dhaka.

Watch:Drying Rice 05

During the course of the day the rice is spread out over a large area of smooth concrete, the women regularly walk through the rice kicking it over to encourage the drying process and making wonderful patterns and marks.

It is pulled into small banks, spread out again, walked through, pulled into banks spread out, constantly turning the rice over to allow the rice to dry. The banks make wonderful patterns ridges and troughs like ploughed fields.

At the end of the day the rice is pulled into much larger banks and then covered with cloth to protect it over night.

Watch: Drying Rice 04

Watch: Drying Rice 02

Watch: Drying Rice 07

The circle of red chilies drying in the sun was beautiful against the blue grey of the concrete and the pink/ buff of the rice.

Watch: Drying Rice 03

The images and films are from visits to both of the Mills on the 15th and on the 17th.

Watch: Drying Rice 08.

After wards we made our way back to Dhaka, saw cow pats drying by the side of the road again making interesting patterns. They are used as fuel to cook with.

In Dhaka we went to meet Shawon Akand and the enthusiastic and committed staff at CRAC; The Centre for Research on Art and Culture.