The City of Joy stays forever etched in a person’s mind with its unique attributes, be it the famous yellow taxis or the grand Victoria Memorial, or the iconic trams that criss-cross the city on iron tramways, wheels rumbling and bells ringing. It is with
Handcrafted dolls have been part of Bengal's handicraft heritage since ancient times. From Mojilpur dolls in the Joynogor-Mojilpur area to Kanthalia clay dolls from Murshidabad district, to Galar Putul from the district of Purba Medinipur, the sheer variety of dolls bears witness to a glorious
‘Que sera, sera/ Whatever will be, will be… A couple of days ago I was scrawling my Facebook account when suddenly my attention was transfixed on a post. It was an exquisite ‘alpana’ (colourful motifs, sacred art or painting done with hands and paint on auspicious
They wove the best cotton saris of India since decades, but their slow looms did not help them compete with modern mechanized looms that are capable of churning out products in a short time. So, weavers of Nadia’s Santipur and Phulia were largely losing on
What, exactly, is an ‘art fair’? Artspace magazine defines it thus: “On the most basic level, an art fair is a trade show - i.e. a place for people in the art business, from dealers and art advisors to collectors and curators, to kibbutz and
The fashion industry is one of the most polluting industries in the world, with annual production amounting to 400 billion square meters of textiles, leading to cutting room floor waste of 60 billion square meters. With terms like ‘fast-fashion’, and mass production fuelling the craze,
The recent passing of Narayan Debnath, one of Bengal’s most iconic graphic illustrators, has perhaps revived several questions relating to Bengali cartoons and comic strips, and the differences and similarities between the two. In that context, the recent Cartoon Mela organised in Kolkata from December
Matryoshka fish, inspired by Russian Matryoshka dolls A beautiful sunset, brilliantly coloured birds, pouring rain, undersea miracles. All part of nature, all designed to evoke wonder. But what do we really see when we witness these marvels? Do we truly appreciate their elemental nature? Or is
She is just 21-year-old. But Srotoswini Sinha is already making ripples with her artwork on climate change. She has been featured with her artwork in a set of cards created for 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference held in Glasgow recently. GB spoke exclusively to
As rivers of the world go, the Bhagirathi-Hooghly has never really attained the iconic status accorded to the Indus, or Nile, or Amazon, or Ganges, or even the Mississippi. And yet, this vital arm of the Ganges has been no less critical in the shaping