Facilities

Serampore College Association for Art and Design
(SCAAD).

Serampore College Association for Art and Design (SCAAD) is an endeavour that has been initiated in collaboration with IQAC of Serampore College on 22.09.2017. The founder members of the association consist of a group of college staff of Serampore College who share a common interest in art and design activities. This group and other staff and students of the college have felt for long a need to have an initiative inside the college campus which would promote and encourage creative and academic activities relating to art and design amongst the students, staff and well wishers of Serampore College. The association focuses on creating an awareness amongst the students regarding the unique cultural manifestations that has been in the form of art and design, from past to the present. Rather than indulging only into a pure academic pursuit the association would also rekindle the hidden talents and interests among the students by involving them in a collective enterprise consisting of the actual practitioners and the enthusiasts of this fascinating world of art and design. Such collective enterprise would involve not only the conventional methods, techniques and materials but also unconventional ones that are generally beyond the reach of a typical “art class”. This is expected to be an excellent opportunity for the students to practice different art techniques as the members  of the association would be able to experiment with various materials and techniques involved in drawing, painting, collage making, sculpture, clay modelling, wall art, mural, mixed media, digital designing of art works, handcrafts etc, in a personalized, open and exploratory manner.  The association would organise activities for all levels of interests and abilities. Although persons having prior experience in art and design activities are welcome to become members of SCAAD, it is not necessary for the members to have any prior experience in art and design. An insatiable thirst for getting involved into art and design activities is the only eligibility to be a member of the association.  Anyone of Serampore College can join at any time and the association generally meets after college hours on a regular basis to hold meetings.

Joint Conveners
Dr Dipankar Ghosh  (Department Of Physics)
Mr Prabir Kumar Das (Department of Physiology)
Teaching Members
Dr. Bhaskar Chaudhury (Department Of Bengali)
Dr. Anadi Roy Chowdhury (Department of Physiology)
Dr. Sanjay Sarkar (Department Of Zoology)
Prof. Ranita  Roy (Department Of Mathematics)

ARE YOU INTO ART & DESIGN?

Do you like painting? Sketching? Drawing? Designing of apparels?  Embroidery?  Or, do you just spend time creating doodles on your notebook pages? Are you into digital designing? Do you feel the presence of something in you that shoots to a high whenever you see  some exciting graphic in printed or other media? Does it ever occur to you, why Picasso, Doris Salcedo the walls of the Ajanta caves and the air around Kalabhavan  at  Shantiniketan on  one  hand and your chic earrings,  sleek smart phone, cute tea cup and the Bauhaus on the other are  all under the  enormous shade  of  the small phrase “art and design”.

We are here to learn and have fun! 

Contact the joint convenors and the present members to become a member of S   C   A   A   D

SCAAD is back with ART ATTACK 2.00


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ART ATTACK 2.00 [The Two Day Webinar on VIEWING ART]

Organised by: SCAAD in collaboration with  IQAC(Serampore College)

 Date: 11th and 12th December,2021 Time:6p.m-8p.m 

Mode of the event: Online via Google Meet

Day 1:

Right after the formal inauguration by the respected Vice Principal of Serampore College,Dr Bidyut Banerjee, Art Attack 2.00 started its journey, riding the vehicle of art itself. The journey had been accelerated with the visual montage by a SCAAD member Abiskar Das and a soulful inaugural song by another member Rupsa Chatterjee. Following the words of Dr. Dipankar Ghosh, the event went on.

Dr. Soumik Nandy Majumder, the renowned art historian and speaker of day 1, took us in the process of viewing or solving ‘Riddles of Modern Art’, especially of Western art. Firstly he proclaimed ‘Art Attack’ as an epithet and an extremely welcomed term rather ‘attack’ as a violence. He said, “Art has been attacked over thousands of years in the sense of a particular art style or a particular art convention…one convention gets attacked and a new trend or norm takes a new entry.” He added, “The term is needed for us to understand its implications when we are looking at Modern art.” Mysteries of modern art not only attack each other but also attack us, the viewers. These mysteries challenge the viewers, who find themselves pretty perplexed under this challenge. It is because Modern art i.e. ‘Stylistic Diversity’ is not very easily recognisable. It is affected, though not in a negative sense, with various kinds of style, thoughts, concepts or mediums of material. The main problem is not how modern art appears to be but how we should look at them. According to Dr. Majumdar, looking is adventurous and must be experimental as modern art is full of riddles and experiments. It contains thoughts, sometimes individual and most of the times shared thoughts of contemporary socio-political reflections along with all that, it is also visionary of things ahead of time. The understanding normally varies from person to person but one thing, that is perception, always dominates observation.

Modern art, as Dr. Majumdar observes, is often ridiculed with comments like “Anybody can do it” or “The art which is not easy to understand is equal to modern art”. He feels, such comments originate because the viewers fail to respond to the challenges.

Then Dr. Majumdar presented some works of modern art. The first one presented was Pablo Picasso’s ‘Weeping Woman'(1937), where evidently a feminine figure is perceptible but the riddle is to be discovered. Picasso never lacked the skill of portraying the figurative naturalistically with extreme precision yet he chose the apparently complicated path of modern art for expression. ‘The Accordionist’ by Pablo Picasso, ‘The Scream’ by Edvard Munch and a few paintings by Jackson Pollock were presented one by one, the content of which, once again, were harder to understand at a glance. We understood why modern art often faces recognition crisis. Realistic art, as the speaker emphasized, utilized the ‘tactile value’ of things as this approach is provocative for the viewers to feel the scenario and objects. We realized how Picasso played with perceptions in his sculpture, ‘Bull’s Head’, by assembling different parts of a bicycle. We found how representation of figures are subjective and not necessarily photographic.

The interactive session took place via chat box, Q&A section and/or audio-video means. Most of our confusions regarding comparisons, significance of concepts in abstract art or recognition of art were sorted out by the respected speaker. The events of the first day went well, and apart from some minor techinical problems encountered during presentation initially, the day one of webinar was hugely successful with a great number of active participants. 

Day 2:

Day 2 also started with the visual montage of Abiskar Das, performance by Rupsa Chatterjee and with an additional performance, recitation of Protyay Roy. On that day, we got another honourable speaker, renowned artist Mr. Asutosh Bhattacharjee who is also an architectural designer. Following the introductory words by Dr. Dipankar Ghosh, Jt. Convenor, SCAAD, the technical session of the webinar was initiated.

It was all about ‘A Journey of an Artist’. With the humble confessions of not being a deliberate speaker, Mr.Bhattacharjee started revisiting his life of art with us. At first he showed a work of 1993 and told us that the works done prior to this and after graduating from art college in 1988, were not considerable, from a wider perspective, in setting course of his journey as an artist. He went through American Abstract Expressionism. Abstract art is like cooking imageries of various circumstances in mind and expressionism is like serving those abstract thoughts while reviewing entities. Mr. Bhattacharjee was influenced by Western painters or American Expressionists like Jackson Pollock as he considered him capable of creating images through various approaches. As not all of his works can be presented in one webinar, he chose only some of his works, which according to him, demarcated different phases of his art life and transitions in between them. He believes that an artist of any field must try to break through his or her own mannerisms in order to be dynamic. He also did the same as he started from abstract expressions with geometric clutches and eventually broke that pattern, as was evident in a work of his that included scattered boxes and heads when he was somehow disturbed with subject matter. The cubism impact appeared being static thereafter. Upto 2000, the mannerisms diluted and went on. An art on everydayness took place around the year 2000 where artist is shown as looking at the mirror beside own painting on the wall. The painting of a man with operated eye had its own story. Mr.Bhattacharjee once came across such a person at Park Street, Kolkata. The operated man was someone alone in the crowd, uncared. The portrayal of this man in his painting showed how an artist may get deeply involved in situations dealing with humanity. He shared other mannerisms as well. His anthropological approaches in portraying curtains covering or slightly revealing the visual field in some of his paintings were surely one of them. His vibrant portrayals which combines religious themes to ridicule society was commendable. The paintings like ‘Power Game’ or ‘No Man’s Land’ are metaphorical and according to him they have received good response. He shared a specific experience he had with ‘No Man’s Land’ on display in an exhibition. A man had approached the artist to convey that he could identify himself through that particular painting. Mr. Bhattacharjee, on a later stage, was focusing more on highly detailed and large paintings with deep socio-political connotations. Though it is almost impossible to observe the details via online webinar but the concepts and metaphors of using lotus or papaya and seeds were perceptible through our own consciousness. The picture including Goddess Kali was satirical to society and the picture including a man’s head stuck in a box was reflecting ignorant yet cruel nature of human entertainment and many more.

The interactive session was all good and rich with knowledge. As an artist, he said that art can be a way of expressing ups and downs of one’s mind and this aspect of art is perhaps more important than recognition or anything else.

Abantika Roy, another member of SCAAD presented an English song to mark the end of the day’s programme.

The two day webinar ended with thanks giving by Mr. Prabir Das, Jt. Convenor, SCAAD. He  thanked and credited all the members who were actively involved. Particularly, Dr. Amit Chattopadhyay for conducting the first day’s programme and Dr.Anadi Roy Chowdhury for taking care of the technical matters were thanked along with the guest speakers.

The journey seemed short but active participation by a large number, about 120 on day one and 80 on day two were evidence enough that it inspired the curious minds to dive into the infinites of art.

— A report on ART ATTACK 2.00 by Debashree Das (1st Semester, English Department, Serampore College) a member of SCAAD.

The following are the YouTube links of ART ATTACK 2.00: The Two Day Webinar on Viewing Art.

Day 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4zcYYAOaUc

Day 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zo9ZUdoPQjM

     If you like the programme please subscribe our YouTube channel.


PAST ACTIVITIES

ART ATTACK 1.00 : the Art Initiative of Serampore College

The rich heritage of Serampore College has made it inseparable from the society and culture of Bengal and the Bengali people.  But it is not only history that makes Serampore College unique. Achievements of its present students and alumni in numerous fields have made Serampore College a well known academic institution in India and abroad. Behind such achievements lie the uncompromising dedication of the teachers teaching and non-teaching staff and the authority of Serampore College. Apart from its regular academic activities the college has always provided special support for the holistic development of its students. Perhaps that is the reason that the college can boast of several initiatives of clubs and associations. While some of these are meant to make the students aware of the Law, of the rich folk lore fabric of the land, some such initiatives are dedicated towards cinema, drama, photography and music. One such association is the Serampore College Association for Art and Design (SCAAD). A glance at the manifesto of SCAAD at the college website reveals that apart from making the students and ex-students aware about the vast subject of art and design this association also has plans to provide the interested and the initiated a hands on experience of several fields of art and design. In order to achieve this goal of hands on training, on the 6th and 7th of February 2020 a two day workshop ART ATTACK 1.00 was organized by SCAAD. Keeping to the spirit of Serampore College, SCAAD kept this workshop open for the local community as well. This two day workshop was focused on “Art, Design and Illustration” and had participants not only from the student and ex-student community but also from the friends and the well wishers of the institution.

Art Attack 1.00 had an air of difference from the beginning. The first half of the first day the workshop had a session of “still life study” where the participants chose a particular prop from several and made a still life study of the same in their medium of choice. In the second half the session “A4 and Ballpoint” let the participants unfurl their imagination by means of two pieces of A4 paper and a ballpoint pen.  The resulted art work were evidence enough of the hidden talents in and around the institution and how they craved proper nurturing.

The second day program was not atypical either! The first half of the day was marked by an engaging lecture by the renowned artist, illustrator and art historian, Sri Debasish Deb. He emphasized on the unsung achievements of the illustrators of the land who embellished for a period 100 years, the Bengali literature. That the audience were overwhelmed and deeply influenced by the lecture was evident at the spot from the enthusiastic interaction they had with the speaker. Probably for some, the enthusiasm was a little more than a mere curiosity and this was revealed in another event in which SCAAD participated actively, later. The second session was an exciting one where the participants illustrated on very short stories. Sri Debasish Deb supervised the whole session and with quick on spot demonstrative illustrations he guided the participants on how to achieve the edge in illustration.

 

Past Activities

Champions at the Academic  Exhibition 2020: The SCAAD Team

Since childhood we all are fond of the books which are full of illustrations. As a kid I never liked to read the books without any pictures in them, but never have I ever bothered about the name   behind those drawings (except few famous ones). After so many years, now, I got acquainted with those names beacuse of the initiation taken by SCAAD.In a workshop organised by SCAAD and others the renowned illustrator Debasish Deb was invited and in his lecture (100 years of illustrating bengali literature) I came to know about some efficient illustrators whose illustrations (few of them) were known to me but not the name behind them. So for the academic exhibition of our college the theme of our (SCAAD’s) exhibition was, 100 years of illustrating Bengali literature. We collected and showed works of 15 eminent illustrators viz. 1. Upendra Kishore Roychowdhury, 2. Rabindranath Tagore, 3. Sukumar Ray, 4. Nandalal Bose, 5. Jatindra kumar Sen, 6. Pratul Chandra Bandopadhyay, 7.Shailo Chakraborty, 8. Narayan Debnath 9.Ahibhushan Malik, 10. Sudhir Moitra, 11. Samir Sarkar, 12. Bimal Das, 13. Satyajit Ray, 14. Debasish Deb and 15. Krishnendu Chaki. It was quite hard to learn about all of them in a week, but that was the time we got for preparing for the exhibition. Debasish Deb’s lecture was like an ultimate guide to us, and the other guide was our professor Dr. Dipankar Ghosh, without his help we couldn’t have moved an inch. He prepared us as much as possible in this short span of time, we tried to incorporate as much as we could, as for the setting up of the display space at the academic exhibition and other preparations, our other professors Sri Prabir Kr. Das and Dr. Sanjay Sarkar helped us a lot and our exhibition was quite a success, we tried to put light on the names behind the illustrations in Bengali literature of this 100 years span, and we could do that to some extent. People travelled through their memory lanes for those nostalgic illustrations from their childhood or youth. As the fruit of our effort we achieved 1st prize in both demonstration and exhibit category from cell/club/unit and that was a great moment for us and our personal achievement was little enlightenment in this topic which lead us to check the name of the illustrator in any book we see with beautiful illustrations.

After our exhibition, prize distribution, celebration and all we are currently have assigned with the projects of illustrating few stories, verses, poems etc in the style of any illustrator of our choice from these 15 illustrator we have worked on and also doing live sketches of different locations around us. SCAAD is looking forward to organise more of such events that will interest people with interest in arts and crafts.

— a report by Debolina Basu, a SCAAD member (Ex-student of M Sc. in Zoology)