Kazi Tahsin Agaz Apurbo’s Kata Kuti

A collage by Sabin Rahman, one of the participants. Photo: Monon muntaka

'Kata Kuti', a daylong collage workshop by Kazi Tahsin Agaz Apurbo, was held recently at Studio 6/6. It focused on modern-day collage making with, simple manual and digital tools and techniques.

A collage is a visual representation of an assembly of different forms, materials and sources, resulting into whole new structures. The waste materials or the unnecessary objects in our homes can easily be turned into art by utilising various collage techniques. Kata Kuti was an introduction to creating an assemblage of different forms of visuals, materials and collected objects.

Apurbo took a peek into the history and practices of collage making while the participants actively made different types of collages on their ideas. The participants were encouraged to express their own thoughts and ideas into objects of different dimensions. Mono print, digital collage and 3D collage were some of the techniques taught in the workshop.

Apurbo aims to teach people the skills and techniques he learned by experimenting on his own, as there are not enough creative art spaces in the country. The workshop was not just for the participants, as it was also a learning process for the artist himself. "They became immensely imaginative in their approaches as the workshop went on, going out of the studio to collect different objects at one point. The participants also experimented with digital and 3D collage-making, among other things. Their enthusiasm was incredible," explained Apurbo.

Apurbo is a journalist and a self-taught artist. He is the founder and curator of Ghartera – an ever emerging and transmuting platform for the arts. He also co-founded Bangladeshi Photographers (BP) in 2005 and is an Art Think South Asia fellow for 2019-2020.