Exhibition open to the public by appointment: please contact admin@oitijjo.org
Tati Craft Hub, Republic, East India Dock, E14 2BE
Nearest Stations: East India DLR and Blackwall DLR

Monday 21st February 2022 saw OITIJ-JO Collective launch “AJKER_Oitijjo” exhibition.

AJKER_Oitijjo is an exhibition presented by Oitij-jo Collective at TATI Craft Hub, in East India Docks.

Ajker means “Today’s” in Bengali. AJKER_Oitijjo exhibition celebrates the work of 15 London based contemporary British-Bangladeshi art practitioners of today. AJKER_Oitijjo brings together these diverse contemporary artists. Works presented here ranges from film, photography, fine art, sculpture, textile and much more.

Artists:

ANIKA DEB @fhatdawuq / ANUSHA ALAMGIR @anushaalamgir / BRISHTY ALAM / FAWZIYAH RAHMAN @faw3iyah / JANNAT HUSSAIN @heebiejabi / LAISUL HOQUE @laisulhoque / LEILA JASSAL @_leilaiman / MOHAMMED ADEL @mohammedadel.art / NIHA MIAH / PUER DEORUM @puer_deorum / RAHEMUR RAHMAN @rahemurrahman / RUKIA ULLAH @rukiaullah / SHAMA KUN / SHUMAIYA KHAN @____shumii / ZUBAYR HOSSAIN @zubayrhossain

Private View on the 21st February was attended by uptown 100 people with live performances featuring:

OSHANTI AHMED @oshantiahmed, KASPAR THE SHAR @kaspartheshar, TARA LILY @taralilymood and SAMIA JESSIE AHMED @samiajessieahmed.

Food was served by the women from the TATI Canteen @tati.canteen

TATI Craft Hub is an OITIJ-JO Collective initiative set up to support British-Bangladeshi women & promote homemade Bangla food. Oitij-jo Collective has been training women to become proficient in the commercial catering sector.

Curated by Maher Anjum, Nodee Niranjana, Puer Deorum and Shama Kun with support from Republic London and the Trampery Foundation.

AJKER_Oitijjo will run from 21st February to Saturday 26th March 2022.

We express our gratitude to all our well-wishers for their support for Oitij-jo Collective’s work to date.

Oitij-jo Collective aims to present creative excellence and achievements of Bengla traditions in the arts and crafts, by all means to enrich and enhance their present perception to ensure and prosper their lively practice.

We would like to continue this discussion and look to you for suggestions on the way forward.

Contact:

Maher Anjum, co-founder / director / trustee
Mobile- +44 07932 944 506 / Email- info@oitijjo.org / www.oitijjo.org
Twitter: @oitijjo / Instagram: @oitij_jo / @tati.canteen / Facebook: @oitijjolondon

Photo credits: Enamul Hoque unless otherwise labelled.

PORTRAITS AND PROFILES OF ARTISTS AND THEIR WORK BEING EXHIBITED AT THE SHOW.

ANIKA DEB
Añjali

Anika Deb and Anju Deb
Anika Deb is a cross disciplinary artist and cultural worker. She is interested in creating spaces for gathering, exploring how culture and art can be represented and made accessible to different communities. She works with diy approaches to craft and making, often collaborating to create sculptures, installations, performances and events.

Anju Deb is the mother of Anika, born in Bangladesh and currently living in the UK. Although Anju is not a practicing artist, she often sews, makes food and hosts events with her local community to embrace heritage and culture.

Añjali or Anjuli is an offering and from where my mum gets her name from.

This installation was created by Anika and her mum Anju. Anika looks to explore the position of womxn in South Asian culture and the pressures womxn often face to uphold expectations. The seats represent different stages of womxnhood highlighting moments when womxn are given an opportunity to have a seat and not, exploring the labour womxn produce without much recognition. The kantha quilt was sewed by Anju when she was back in Bangladesh just before she moved to the UK after marriage.

ANUSHA ALAMGIR
Bubur Basha
Anusha Alamgir, is a multidisciplinary visual artist from Bangladesh, based in London. Her work investigates the on-going homogeneity of culture due to globalization, media and the internet. Primarily working with photography her images document the shifting faces of current culture. Her work aims to reclaim ownership of our lived experiences, through the documentation of the mundane.

Bubur Basha (Grandmother’s House) is a short documentary archiving my family history through memories associated with my grandmother’s home in Dhaka, Bangladesh. I’ve collected, documented and recorded videos of spaces, photographs, stories and drawings of the little brick house and the people that occupied it. As told by my mother and my cousin, their intergenerational stories unveil not only our family history but the national and uncovers the rapidly changing landscape of Dhaka city.

BRISHTY ALAM
Steckerlfische, (German: a fish grilled on a stick)
b. 1988 in London, lives and works in Vienna/London. Has exhibited at Haus, Vienna (2021), Intersectional Commemoration Club Risograph Reader #1, Berlin (2021), WAF Galerie, Vienna (2020), Austrian Cultural Forum Warsaw (2019), Parallel Vienna Art Fair (2019), Center for Contemporary Arts Celje/Likovni Salon Gallery (2019), De Pimlico Project, London (2019), Foundation Vienna (2018) and Kunsthaus Hamburg (2017). Graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna in 2018 with a year at HFBK Hamburg.

‘My works broadly look at how things shape and are shaped. I am interested in the inevitable slippages that occur in attempts to copy, observe or move forms from one context to another, and the subsequent 'bit-off'-ness that is produced from such alienation and not-quite-fitting-in.’

'Steckerlfische' (2022) is part of a body of work that started in 2019 called 'MAAAAAAACH'. This is the call of fish vendors passing by the houses in Bangladesh. মাছ (maach) meaning ‘fish’.

FAWZIYAH RAHMAN
Forgotten Names

Rahman is a self-taught artist, based in her hometown London. She read BSc. Anatomy, Developmental & Human Biology (2015) and PG Dip. Nursing (2018), starting work in A&E three months before the Covid-19 pandemic. She continued to paint throughout lockdown around nursing as a means of processing trauma from the frontline.

Through surrealism and abstraction, Rahman’s paintings map out the intangible nature of human emotions, visually distilling feelings from experiences, carrying elements of healing, suffering, dreams and hope. She describes her process as “a personal debriefing - an introspective unravelling”.

‘Forgotten Names’ was created during the pandemic’s second wave when there was a sudden steep rise in Covid-19 cases - a result from the country opening up for the Christmas period. Rahman, like many healthcare workers, alternated weekly between day and night shifts. The painting was completed in its entirety immediately following two 12 hour shifts - claiming time usually reserved for sleeping and dreaming to visually process events, and giving rise to surreal, dream-like elements.

The title relates to the extreme rate of admissions to hospital and the pressures put on the healthcare staff by this. ’Forgotten names’ refer to the patients who had wristbands and labels attached to them and their blood vials before being sent off for investigation. Pre-pandemic this was a simple back up measure to avoid confusion between patients for life-dependent treatment, however, it became a vital machine-like operation performed by burnt out staff.

JANNAT HUSSAIN

Obstacles of Intimacy

Grace fills empty spaces, but it can only enter where there is a void to receive it, and it is grace itself which makes this void. The imagination is continually at work filling up all the fissures through which grace might pass’. Simone Weil – ‘Gravity and Grace

The obstacle of being intimate with oneself comes from moments where you feel outside of who you are. Where your essence is in transit and one of the stops is your perceived body. In order to feel whole, you must attempt to fit into this vessel. You must honour the obstacle. To caress, embrace and touch, is the attempt to understand the inner self.

Jannat Hussain is a London based interdisciplinary artist, currently studying an MA in Fine Art at Central Saint Martins. Her practice orientates the space between internal realities and outward expression, where her close observation of the self and interpersonal moments translates highly emotive responses. Her current concerns lie in unpacking different forms of intimacy, while exploring clay, sculpture, and performance art together. Jannat has previously made paintings, textile works and video works, resulting in a visceral manifestation of cross-cultural, spiritual, and socio-political considerations.

Portrait of Laisul by Enamul Hoque at the Ajker Exhibition in Tati Space. Laisul is wearing a khaki tone jacket, has long hair and a slight stubble and standing next to his installation. — Laisul Hoque by Enamul Hoque

LAISUL HOQUE

Salt and Sugar

This is a print rendition of the artist’s Salt and Sugar install. This print is edition number 2 and 3 of 10.

The print contains photos of salt and sugar. Attached with each print are different purchase receipts of salt and sugar from various global supermarket companies around the area of the artist’s London residence. Each print is unique as it is accompanied by a different receipt.

Laisul Hoque (1998) is a transdisciplinary image maker from Dhaka, Bangladesh.

His practice critiques the image, representation, and visual senses, drawing inspiration from the unconscious, everyday and mundane. Spanning from installs to sculptural works to participatory performances, his work explores experiencing images with bodies, incorporating all senses and not just the visual.

The artist believes experience makes an image that can never be replaced by representation. His work often involves an element of interaction that gives agency to the audience over the abstract.

Laisul is currently pursuing his MA in Contemporary Photography; Practices and Philosophies at Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London.

LEILA IMAN JASSAL

Heard

Leila Iman Jassal is a dance artist & choreographer based in London. Leila’s practice works predominately within contemporary dance & physical theatre. As a choreographer, she’s interested in creating conversational work - focusing on social and societal issues and specifically what makes us human. Leila actively works in interdisciplinary ways, connecting with artists who practice a medium outside of dance and particularly in settings where dance is not normally shown.

Heard (2021) is a solo work in progress exploring the feeling of being unfamiliar with things that make us. Heard particularly focuses on the notion of language and Leila’s own experiences of growing up and coming from Bengali & Punjabi communities but only being fluent in English herself. The choreography is stimulated by the audio accompaniment of voices and passing conversations In Bangla and the movement is it’s response.

MOHAMMED ADEL

Untitled

This painting is part of a project that draws on my family photo album as something that is personal and impersonal at the same time, not knowing many people in the images yet they exist in a personal space. The relationship is a result of me being born here while my parents weren't, placing me inbetween places. I combine imagery from my home, the rug and picture frames, with the image from the photo album, the empty picture frame has become a motif of something that is physically significant in taking up space, it has no content, drawing a parallel to my relationship to the album. I impose my own narrative onto the figures, giving them the role of guests in my house with me across them as a child. The female figure is awkward and I don't want to make eye contact so she is depicted with a sharp eye while she holds onto her child who is causing havoc, pant-less. The male is more relaxed beside her.

NIHA MIAH

"Verily, with hardship comes ease"

‘My piece is a a series of my graphic designs and illustrations which is used to depict the cyclical nature of hardship and ease. The world needs to be reminded that although times have been tough as of late, ease will always come as it always has in history.

PUER DEORUM

Wish Fulfilling Moth 1067231 {7}

The anthropoid and the pupae were struck by a peacock during a lightning storm ~ causing a mutation during metamorphosis.

Working with performance, costume, and sculpture/prop-making, with a curiosity in multidisciplines, narrating surreal paracosms with harmonious references to folk culture. Their work weaves together symbolic tropes from Western Classical painting with the mythologies of South Asia pre-partition, drawing inspiration also from the natural world.

Creating continuums, cycles of movement and visions, distorted mirrors of earthly patterns. Refracting, retracing, rekindling memories, blurred like the recounting of a lucid dream of which the narrative was dug up from the subconscious mind. Slow but ephemeral like the transition of the sun over the shore disappearing before we know it while we gaze out onto the horizon. An illusion; enticement - the moment we scramble to memorise the moments fire and water were contiguous, entrancing, colours swept over by the darkness, an aftermath of the waves swallowing a star, caressing then absorbing our environments like a crescendo that peaks like a mountain - enigmatic but constantly present, the possibility of a threat to stability (preconceptions) looming, but ever-present.

They approach art as an active mode of archiving contrived halcyons, utopian scenarios, contexts that cannot be contextualised, developing sequences of mysticism and fantastical ambience ~ parallel to feelings of eeriness and longing. Blending themes of love and romance within an Othered identity to create altered realities with familiar, yet accentuated tropes to grasp viewers into the unknown, where the orientalised transcend beyond (post)colonial perception.

RAHEMUR RAHMAN

Rahemur Rahman is a British Bangladeshi multi-disciplinary artist situated in the East End of London, internationally acclaimed for his work in decolonising craftsmanship through projects which work with young people to create a more inclusive and sustainable creative industry. Rahman uses materials and mediums familiar to his fashion background from Central Saint Martins, finding new innovative ways to reuse, recycle, and repurpose waste into new bodies of work which question identity, purpose, and queer identity. One of his garments will be on show at the upcoming exhibition, 'Fashion Masculinities' at the Victoria and Albert Museum, sponsored by Gucci, who have acquired the piece for their archive to document craft history from Bangladesh. His work was championed by the British Fashion Council who nominated him and the brand's work for the 'Changemakers Prize 2021' in the People category. Most recently, Rahman was a finalist for the Circular Design Challenge 2022 by the Fashion Design Council of India X Lakme Fashion Week supported by the United Nations Environment Programme.

Rahemur Rahman is the Creative Director behind 'My Home, My Bari,' an artistic anthropological study of British Bangladeshi history through research and youth engagement where young people graduate as collaborative artists alongside himself having worked on an immersive installation of storytelling. This project has been showcased at the Kobi Nazrul Centre in 2021, in Brick Lane, and will continue onto The Museum of the Home in June 2022.

Rahemur Rahman has participated in London Fashion Week Mens Autumn/Winter 2019, International Fashion Showcase 2019, London Fashion Week Spring/Summer 2019, Fashion Revolution Week 2019/2020/2021/2022, Fashion Open Studio 2019/2020/2021/2022, Haramacy 2021, Showcase With A Difference 2022. The artist's work is supported by; British Council, British Fashion Council, British Bangladeshi Fashion Council, The Trampery, University of the Arts London, Poplar Harca.

RUKIA ULLAH

Journey

Rukia is a British Bangladeshi artist, teacher and mother, graduating from the London College of Communications (UAL). For many years her speciality has been in print and pattern design - along with the years challenges and exploration has led her to explore a new textile form -weaving. With the pandemic at its worse, she escaped and found tranquillity in weaving.

Textiles influences all areas of her work, whether it's screen printing to photography to weaving; this course has helped her immensely to explore the culture she inherits and influenced by its culture and society and the ever apparent disconnect between Bangladesh and its people in England.

The piece 'Journey' is a tapestry influenced by her annually journey between Dhaka and Sylhet. A ride to evaluate and take in the goodness that Bangladesh has to offer. The agricultural land that we ignore and escape. Miles and miles of rice fields and the beauty of the land. The textures of the fringes are the fields that make up the map of Bangladesh. It's a reminder to us, city dwellers, to stop and take in the beauty of Bangladesh.

SHAMA KUN

Reviving Waste
Purpose; Globally we are dumping 13 million tons of textile waste per year in our planet, 95% of which could be reused or recycled OR even before producing more waste we can explore what we already have. From this conscious common responsibility I have adopted the ancient craft of KAHN-TAA Stitching, a Bangladeshi craft heritage of layering old saree or clothing stitching together to create one of a kind pieces and the purpose is to rethink fashion from it's current models of economic growth rather celebrate the power of artisans, to communities and true practice of cultural sustainability.

Shama Kun is a London/Bangladesh based ethical and sustainable fashion designer with BA(hons) in Fashion and Clothing from University for the creative Arts. Shama Kun focuses on keeping indigenous Bangladeshi textile knowledge alive while providing culturally inspired modern wear for present days.

Empowering women artisan in the context of contemporary fashion, researching artisanal techniques and intuitive methods to regain the human aspect in design, highlighting Bangladeshi traditional handcarts developed in-house, through artisanal techniques and carefully chosen materials that would otherwise be considered as waste. Her brand ‘People before profit” has the aspiration to push sustainable methos and craftmanship to develop a creative practice to able to face the global challenges of our time.

SHUMAIYA KHAN

Labour of Love, Furniture of my Soul Parts 1 & 2

Shumaiya Khan specialises in contemporary abstract expressionism. Her practice explores juxtapositions around emotive behaviours in the sphere of; what it means to be feminine & fierce, coercion & control, love - romantic & platonic, and the fragility & restless motions of life.

After studying Design at Goldsmiths UoL, Shumaiya worked in the luxury goods, wellbeing, and apparel industries before resuming her painting and poetry practice in April 2020. She co-owns 701 Studio, which uses a multidimensional and interdisciplinary approach in critical thinking through its creative services.'

‘The Labour of Love series draws attention to obsessive thought, detail and action towards life’s desires. Tempering the sense of urgency, fragmenting thought for succession and the willingness to complete. But more importantly to triumph, rise and achievement in causes close to the heart.'

ZUBAYR HOSSAIN

Abar Kobe Ashba?

This photo series and auditory experience are from a visit to Bangladesh after a 5 year gap.

The lapse in time breathed itself into actual dissonance and distance from my once understanding of this place. Occupying space with a consented lack of privacy is a luxury. I searched for solitude and comfort in real estate, in places of worship without its religiosity and deep nostalgia in a time and space I never occupied in the physical world.

Zubayr Hossain is a filmmaker of Bangladeshi heritage, brought up in the United Arab Emirates. Now based in London having studied Film at the University of Arts London with a keen interest in archiving time and lived space. He works with the medium of analogue moving image, still image and sound design and these mediums allow him to document the physical realities of spaces that are often hard to capture. As a storyteller he is deeply fascinated by the stories in the fabric of urban spaces and their occupants across all social class and would

When at most comfort or depressed, find him listening to Rabindro Sangeet, reading history and watching Ray’s films.

Oitij-Jo Collective

Vacancies

Network

Archive

DONATE