Participants of the River Link Festival at the Millennium Park Extension. Picture by Pradip Sanyal

The Hooghly here, the Thames there and a bond of history that runs deep. River Link Festival, part of the River Links Project of British Council, came to the city shores on November 23. Ian McCartney, UK minister for trade, investment and foreign affairs, inaugurated the festival at the new Millennium Park Extension.

Students of eight city schools participated in the event. Each institution, partnered by a school in the UK, worked on a theme related to the river. The students explored the themes using a variety of art forms.

Anchal Gupta, a Class VIII student of Birla High School, said: “We used the Madhubani art form to depict the history of the river.”

The 16 colourful panels created by the students of the Calcutta and London schools were the main attraction of the festival. “The link is the river — we have the Hooghly, they have the Thames,” explained director of British Council Sujata Sen.

Each panel had a story to tell. While the theme of trade inspired a collage depicting different occupations, the panel on water and environment had colourful figures done Warli style.

While Shakila did her trademark collages and the Midnapore patuas their narrative scroll painting, Madrasah Saifiyah Barhania Education Institute adopted the Mughal miniature form to narrate their theme on boats and bridges. The Assembly of God Church, Park Street, on the other hand, chose Bengal’s very own terracotta to illustrate their theme on the people associated with the Hooghly.

British Council chose the themes, the schools chose the styles. Art trainers from British Council helped students of each school to get the style right. There were also the art teachers of the respective schools to help them with the project.

A workshop was held with the participants in their individual schools. “We did the paintings patua style during the workshop,” said Anushka Pratihar, a Class V student of DPS Megacity. The Midnapore patuas had come down to train the students.

Teachers from a few city schools went to London for a one-to-one interaction with art teachers and students working on the Thames theme. “Schools from Chongqing City, China, participated in the river project and their art was displayed at the London Mayor’s Festival along the Thames. But we could not get them on time here,” said Sen.