Comic Conclave 2023: The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Gandhinagar is going to organise a two day comic conclave from January 21 to 22, 2023 where some curated and curated images from Satyajit Ray’s original sketchbook will be showcased.
The exhibition is free and open for everyone. Whosoever wishes to attend the exhibition can register themselves at the official website of art.iitgn.ac.in/comicconclave2023 till January 21. The exhibition will remain open from 4 pm to 8 pm on both days.
The exhibition will give a chance to know the unseen phases of Stayajit Ray’s life with the support of his son filmmaker Sandeep Ray and Comics Scholar, and Associate Professor of University of Calcutta, Pinaki De.
The exhibition is the part of the main comics exhibition of the event ‘An Exhibition of Low Art’. The images suggested for the event will give an opportunity to know the unknown phase of Ray’s life and demonstrate his approach to the sequential graphic narrative and how it complemented his cinematic language.
It is well known that Satyajit Ray was a comic fan and his personal collection of comics is now archived at his home. Despite his ongoing interest in sequential graphic narratives, as evidenced by numerous interviews over the years, there is some evidence of his active engagement with the form.
The one and only published evidence comes from four comic strips that he created for the covers of Sandesh Magazine. However, if we look deeper into his notebooks and sketchbooks, we can see him experimenting with visual form. In fact, in the 1950s, he presented ‘Pather Panchali’ and ‘Ravishankar’ (a film that never materialized) as a sequential visual script.
Apart from this, the exhibition will feature comics by Orjit Sen, Sarnath Banerjee, Amruta Patil, Nikhil Gulati, Longform Collective, and artworks and artefacts on Indian Traditional storytelling by students of National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad (mentored by Gayatri Menon). Prof Argha Manna, Artist-in-Residence at IIT Gandhinagar, curated the exhibition.
A series of interactions with graphic novelists, artists, filmmakers, and academic scholars including Orijit Sen, Amruta Patil, Sarnath Banerjee, Nikhil Gulati, Pinaki De, Debkumar Mitra, and Gayatri Menon have been scheduled for the two day conclave.