Basic Information

Participant：Six graduate students of oil painting
Location: Dhaka, Bangladesh
Period: November 24-29, 2017

Archievements

The project participants usually produce works inspired by different themes such as garbage, environmental issues, human interaction, or extrasensory perceptions evoked at abandoned buildings. For this reason, although they stayed in the same city of Dhaka, they were differently feeling and getting information about Bangladesh. Local people seemed to hold different views toward various human, environmental or social issues, compared to those held by Japanese, American, or European people, which made the students to conduct research in detail. Also, they had a number of opportunities to chat with local people over breakfast and dinner, which may probably be a Bangladeshi custom, allowing them to naturally exchange opinions with local people.

The students had known that a gallery on the campus of University of Dhaka (DU) had been booked for their exhibition. Because their studio encourages students to work on installations, they not only brought works from Tokyo for the exhibition but some of them also implemented a “work- in progress” project that was to be completed thorough interaction with local people. During the project, they asked local visitors to the exhibition to draw pictures on plain tote bags, which would be taken back to Japan for use, with the themes of exchange with Japanese participants and the relationship of Tokyo and Dhaka. The direction “please draw a picture” was translated into Bengali by a local university staff member. Furthermore, a student went out of the exhibition space to produce a performative work, where posters were put up all over the city of Dhaka.
They were engaged in activities that became possible only by travelling overseas; the project didn’t finish only by visiting the site and exhibiting works. The students prepared before the actual trip, researched local circumstances, involved local people, and continued working even after coming back home to use the experience for their next works.

Furthermore, all the participants made presentations in English on their own works. While many of them had experienced studying or staying in countries in North America, Europe, or Oceania, none had ever visited a country in South Asia.

Dhaka, which had faced a major terrorist attack involving Japanese nationals in the previous year, is usually a difficult place for us to visit on our own but the project was safely carried out with substantial support from DU including the provision of guard by local police officers.

In the very country that is not easy to visit, the participants felt the fundamental difference of the condition of being human between in Bangladesh and Japan, let alone the cultural difference. Indeed, the project allowed them to have a valuable experience of feeling the difference of culture firsthand, where experience was prioritized over knowledge.