Bengal Foundation’s involvement in several of the arts viz. music, literature, theatre and visual art has allowed it to channel its efforts in different directions. The attempt to energise the local arts circuit and to warrant global exposure for Bangladeshi writers, singers, painters, and stage-artists, has been realised to a large extent by showcasing Bangladesh’s cultural wealth in local and international platforms. One of the ways this has been achieved is through organising art camps and workshops with local and international participation. Bengal’s long-term involvement with music and theatre has created the opportunity to host many workshops singly, or in collaboration with other agencies.

In the last decade Bengal Foundation organised 16 art camps. These events bring together artists of different genres and give them the opportunity to explore a diverse range of techniques, ideas and modes of expression. Some events were large scale, such as the Asian Art Camp, bringing together 77 artists from 17 countries, and others smaller and more focused, involving fewer artists. The ideas and topics have ranged from exploration of the use of natural dyes and indigenous pigments to the techniques of printmaking and sculpture. Locations have moved from local to international, as with the Wide World of Colour which was held in Florence in 2005. Each event presents local artists with a unique opportunity to earn exposure and to exchange thoughts and ideas with co-practitioners. The outcome of an art camp is usually a rich crop of innovative artwork that finds its place in the Bengal Foundation Art Repository. The repository forms the backbone of the Bengal Foundation Collection which will be housed at the Bengal Museum of Contemporary Art, scheduled to open in Savar, Dhaka, in 2013.

The Parampara workshop has been a significant endeavour in terms of delivering music to the public. The five year session has been instrumental in raising awareness about the role of classical music and establishing faith in rigorous training. A series of small scale workshops were organised for Bengal Bikash talents in 2006 to boost their style of performance and stage presentation.

The numerous workshops, seminars and talks that have been organised between 2002 and 2007 under the banner of the Theater Development Project (Natya Unnayan Prakalpa), in collaboration with Bangladesh Group Theatre Federation, continue to strengthen and sustain the country’s theatre movement.

These and other endeavours form the essence of Bengal Foundation’s attempt to portray and document the richness and diversity of our many splendoured artistic wealth.

Participated by 52 artists from Bangladesh and West Bengal, India
One of the most significant art camps in the country, the event, held at Mr. Abul Khair’s residence, was inaugurated by National Professor Abdur Razzaq.
Participants-
West Bengal, India: Paritosh Sen, Amitabh Banerjee, Bijan Chowdhury, Shyamal Dutta Ray, Sanat Kar, Lalu Prasad Shaw, Amal Ghosh, Jogen Chowdhury, Sunil Das, Niranjan Pradhan, Shipra Bhattacharya, Wasim Kapoor, Dipali Bhattacharya, Aditya Basak, Ashok Bhowmik, Bimal Kundu, Shuvaprasanna, Paresh Maity, Alka Mathur and art critics Manasij Majumder, Swapan Mullick, Ratnattama Sengupta and Soumitra Das.
Bangladesh: Safiuddin Ahmed, Mohammad Kibria, Aminul Islam, Abdur Razzaque, Murtaja Baseer, Kazi Abdul Baset, Nitun Kundu, Abu Taher, Samarjit Roy Chowdhury, Hashem Khan, Rafiqun Nabi, Mahmudul Haque, Syed Abdullah Khalid, Hamiduzzaman Khan, Abdus Shakoor Shah, Abdus Satter, Mahbubul Amin, Abul Barq Alvi, Kazi Ghiyasuddin, KM A Qayyum, Mansoor Ul Karim, Chandrashekhar Dey, Nazlee Laila Mansur, Farida Zaman, Mohammad Eunus, Jamal Ahmed, Nasreen Begum, Ranjit Das, Rokeya Sultana, Dilara Begum Jolly, Sheikh Afzal, Shishir Bhattacharjee, Nisar Hossain and art critic Prof. Abul Mansur.
To mark the occasion Bengal Foundation produced a 25 min documentary titled Through the Other Window (directed by Parvez Chowdhury), and a book titled Contemporary Works of Bengali Artists