The name “The Missing One” comes from Nirrudesher Kahani or The Story of The Missing One written by Jagadish Chandra Bose in 1896, which is regarded as one of the first tales of science or speculative fiction in Bengali. It was a tale of miracles; a cyclone quelled with physics, by pouring oil on water.
Bose was a pioneering inventor of instruments for wireless technology and the study of nature, and a crater on the moon was named after the research scientist himself. He was close to the Tagore family who was central to the intellectual world of what is called the Bengal Renaissance, generative for art, music and literature, narrates Nada Raza, curator of the session.
Gaganendranath Tagore painted a portrait of Bose that now hangs at the Bose Institute in Calcutta. “The Missing One” at the Dhaka Art Summit can, therefore, be called an amalgamation of arts and science.
The exhibition carries Shishir Bhattacharjee’s “Come and See the Game 1995,” a large canvas on which hybrid monsters appear in a nightmarish scene. Ronni Ahmmed, an eminent local artist, combines classic sci-fi memes with myth and folklore. One might travel through space and time while viewing his paintings and sculpture that hold components like the UFO (unidentified flying object), time machine and lord Hanuman. Through all of it, he creates what he calls a “parallel earth.”
A giant eye that became the centre of attraction on the first floor was actually a 360 degree view projected on a large convex surface. “Eye (1),” as its creator Zihan Karim names it, became popular as “the giant eye” among the spectators. The film installation begins with bucolic scenes of nature that gradually begin to grey into a charred landscape. It may hint towards an omnipotent, all-seeing witness to environmental destruction, or simply point to the inevitability of decay and the cycle of life.
Tejal Shah’s “Landfill Dance (Channel II) 2012” also triggered curiosity among the visitors. In this video, costumed dancers perform choreographed movements through a landfill, indicating a wider investigation into identity, sexuality, agency, the body and its relationship to the world. A number of visitors said they enjoyed the video as it could reflect messages alongside absurdity.
Distinguished visual artist Ronni Ahmmed's artworks at “the missing one” infused a touch of fiction in the air at Dhaka Art Summit. Two of his sculptures and nine paintings finely merges with the central theme of the section “science fiction.” The artist had been in the scene for the last 20 years and shares how he feels about art and its power to change the world.
For the Dhaka Art Summit, he has crafted art pieces keeping the concept of dream sequences, science fiction, and meta physics in mind. Two of his sculptures are called “time machine” and “Lord Hanuman carrying the sanjeevani mountain.” The artists shared that he mostly likes to work around the concept of spirituality.
He says that an artist's role in the society is to create beauty. When a society becomes rough in nature and its people become intolerant, it is the artists who reconnect people with beauty and tenderness. Artists try to rejuvenate the spirituality in people through different forms of art.
Ronni Ahmmed plans to make a huge painting on the “Mahabharat.” The artist likes the way his work helps him rediscover himself, his unknown sense of aesthetics. His works usually do not go according to any plan. He says: “That is the fun part; when I plan something and my subconscious mind brings out something completely different and new. Every time I create art, I become surprised to find a new self within me.”