The art camp at ITC, The Sonar. Picture by Rashbehari Das

The setting was perfect for an early winter picnic. Only this picnic had a theme — art. The Eden Pavilion of ITC, The Sonar, Calcutta, was washed in pale sunshine. Scattered across the lawn were tables covered with canvases in various stages of completion.

The five-day art camp that ended on Tuesday, brought together 14 budding artists of Calcutta. It was a joint effort by ITC and Doel Sen of Anubhav Kolkata, organised to help the Development Action Society, an NGO that works with underprivileged women and children.

“Part of the proceeds from the sale of these paintings will go to Development Action Society,” said Sen.

Children from the NGO were present, too. “ITC stands for luxury, but luxury is not necessarily about opulence. It is about a collection of experiences and this was one great experience. ITC is rooted in the local culture and we wanted to give a platform to local artists,” said Ranvir Bhandari, the area manager, east, and general manager, ITC, The Sonar, Calcutta.

There was the usual run of celebs. US consul-general in Calcutta Beth A. Payne inaugurated the camp, actor Victor Banerjee was in attendance and guests in tussars and designer kurtas chatted about the commercialisation of art and how it can and should be used for a cause.

How did the artists fare? “You have five days to produce something,” laughed Keshav Roy, one of the artists. But he admitted that there is less freedom when participating in such a programme. The circumstances are different. “I usually paint nudes. But such paintings may not suit this occasion, so I am sticking to crows, horses and bulls.” From rickshaws in black, to impressions of a lady and popular animal sketches, most canvases bore more than a resemblance to popular works of known artists like Shuvaprasanna and Sunil Das.

There’s another difference too, said Roy. “Usually we work in controlled lighting. It is a little difficult to work in open daylight. But it was a good experience.” Whatever the rein on artistic freedom, perhaps camps are the right way to be noticed.

Tune in

At Jadavpur University, the Children’s Day celebrations this year were on a different wavelength. The university’s School of Media Communication & Culture, with Unicef, trained a group of underprivileged children to conduct a radio programme, right from picking the topics to be discussed to finally going on air.

The programme will be aired on 90.8 MHz Radio JU, the university’s community radio station. “When we asked the kids, they immediately suggested subjects like education for children and child labour,” said Nilanjana Gupta, the director of JU’s media school, which runs the radio station.

“The kids are also learning to make such topics more listener-friendly,” said Lori Calvo, the Unicef state representative for Bengal. You can tune into 90.8 MHz Radio JU within a radius of 10 km from the university campus. The children’s programme will be aired every Sunday at 5pm.

Poulomi Banerjee and Malini Banerjee