November 2nd, 2018. The capital of Bangladesh, Dhaka, and its people were set to witness, “Inktober” being celebrated for the first time with so much excitement. The occasion was celebrated with the exhibition, “Inktober Bangladesh” arranged by a group of young and enthusiastic cartoonists hailing from the country who are better known as ‘Cartoon People.’ Renowned cartoonist of Bangladesh, Ahsan Habib, along with the famous painter, Biswajit Goswami, and the director of the Edward M. Kennedy (EMK) Center attended the event as special guests. With the opening ceremony and the cutting of the ribbon by Mr. Ahsan Habib, the exhibition was underway as the general people were about to be introduced to the work of many talented young individuals.
Chief guests cutting the makeshift ribbon to inaugurate the exhibition.
The specialty of this exhibition was that all the drawings were in black and white, done with ink, brushes and pens. This is to celebrate the worldwide phenomenon known as the “Inktober Challenge”, which was the main aim of this exhibition. The online challenge was first started by British comic book artist and cartoonist Jake Parker back in the year 2009. To have fun and at the same time improve one’s inking skills, Jake Parker made the challenge of drawing 31 ink drawings in 31 days throughout October. The challenge quickly became a trend among artists with the help of social media. Right now, it is treated as a festival among artists around the world. Aspiring artists from all over Bangladesh have also been participating in this festivity as each year, the number of people taking part is increasing at an astounding rate.
The original sketch book display was clearly the crowd favorite.
The crowd was very understanding and careful with the sketchbooks. What a great bunch!
Cartoon People has arranged this event with the submissions from Bangladeshi artists who have partaken in the challenge this year. With submissions taken in two halves, there are a total of 72 artists with 135 drawings featured in the exhibition. The exhibition also features 25 original sketchbooks used for the challenge. Two IPads are also stationed at the exhibition which are being used to display the scanned versions of more artworks.
The team hard at work with the curation of the whole exhibition!
Cartoon People held its weekly activity “sketchbook Saturday” at the exhibition as well.
The first day of the exhibition was filled with excited visitors. They were equally excited for both the sketchbooks and the artworks hung on the walls. Some of the visitors were also seen talking with their favorite artists and getting a selfie while they were at it. The exhibition also had live music and free snacks for all. The whole exhibition started with quite a bang with all this and more on the first day.
Few artworks from Inktober Bangladesh 2018
Other than Inktober Bangladesh-2018, similar exhibition “Inktober showdown” has been held this year and the year before by the Fine arts students of Dhaka University at the Fine Arts Building of DU. The exhibition was open for all, although only students of the Fine Arts Department of Dhaka University could submit their works to be displayed.
The “Inktober Showdown” exhibition at Charukola, Fine Arts Department of Dhaka University.
“Inktober Bangladesh” will be open till the 17th of November, every day from 3:00 pm to 8:00 pm at the EMK Center in Dhaka. There will also be a live figure drawing session on the 10th of November.
The participating artists on the first day
What is Cartoon People?
Cartoon People is a group of Bangladeshi cartoonists and visual storytellers which has been working on comics and animation since 2016. Cartoon People holds regular workshops and creates tutorial videos to improve the skills of young and enthusiastic artists as well as for its own members.
The executive committee and advisers of Cartoon People
Article by an actual writer(!) Faisal Bin Iqbal. Find his work in weekly supplement “The Shout” with the “The Daily Star”.
