This tale has transpired into the auspicious art event conceived, initiated, and organised by Riti Academy of Visual Arts. The first ever Thoh Shun International Art Camp was organised in 2005 with the participation of young artists from a few European and Asian countries. The Art Camp had given emphasis to the prospect of homegrown artists of the North Eastern region of India. In 2007 the Thoh Shun Art Exhibition of North East artists was held at Dhaka, Bangladesh with the support of the Indian High Commission in Dhaka, Art Club, Bangladesh, and the Greater Sylhet Indigenous People’s Forum. The Thohshun Art camps are held annually in Shillong at different levels depending upon the availability of resources.
The condition of visual arts in its varied disciplines has progressed by leaps and bounds through the ages. The advancement of technology has brought about tremendous changes in every activity including visual arts. The rapid growth and ultimate superiority of digital technology today, where graphic printing and photography have changed the course of aesthetic application and elevated art to a different genre of visual expression. Relatively, sculpture and design have undergone radical changes with the aid of digital technology, and along with painting and printmaking, there is an evolution of mixed media application and installation art that have developed with exceptional technical skill and splendid intellectual content. However, the liberal arts are another aspect that needs to assess the legitimacy of the expression and delivery. Liberal arts accommodated a wide spectrum of intellectual expressions usually with academic endorsement; it is multi-disciplinary, but most of the practitioners have the tendency to meddle in other areas outside their actual expertise. The notion of inclusivity is commendable, but the usual trend is that liberal arts advocate for the cause of the masses, even as certain standard norms are formulated to suit the core group in the institution and society. Among several indulgences, it may be observed that the fascination for the glamour of visual images, particularly cinema, has a rigorous impact and involvement of white collar artists with mediocre results promoted by the elite. Another ordinary outcome of liberal arts that asserted forced attention in public space is the social and political activism through the medium of artistic expression. Essentially, liberal arts could progress and flourish with emphasis on specific professional expertise, where every practitioner could utilise all the creativity involving diverse subjects and produce specific effects of personal specialization.
The expertise and technical delivery of any artistic expression is the domain of the individual artist, but the intellectual interpretation of the content should be able to communicate to a wide range of intelligence. When the academic articulation of certain art expression is confined to the intellectuals, it became a privileged area of communication; however, if the artistic expression is catering to a vast multitude of people in the society, it is a general product of the masses that the intellectuals also can digest and explore further academic deliberations. The films of Charlie Chaplin, certain realistic paintings, and classical music are some of the most appropriate examples of the description. On the contrary, ordinary people with little interest in the arts and information of the society could exercise their freedom and exploit their thoughts to stimulate a debate and discussion among the cross-section of the community. There are instances of highly educated persons with limited knowledge about contemporary art, while some ordinary novices could instantly relate with their original instinct about the visual content in any artistic expression. Therefore, it is not about the privilege of formal education, it is not about the community, it is not about the access to information about the world; it is about the inherent aptitude of an individual person irrespective of the surrounding environment. It can be gauged by the intellectual capacity of the urban children in comparison with their rural counterparts. Generally, the urban children are smarter than the rural children because of the availability of readymade information from the sophisticated city atmosphere; however, the rural children are accessible to limited information with a vast scope for curiosity and thereby generate an enormous amount of creativity, even as the knowledge of the nature is extensive as compared to the amount of information available in the urban atmosphere. Essentially, rural children are endowed with original, pure, and creative knowledge, while urban children are bombarded with extensive information from various facilities in the educational system and the accessibility to the civil amenities, where they lack originality, are vulnerable to contaminated, irrelevant and confusing knowledge systems imported from overseas.
In the art events held in the various institutions on different occasions in society, the usual images executed by the urban children are more than often internet images with elaborate application based on tutorials from various cyber platforms. However, the rural children are struggling with hands-on knowledge guided or taught by the teacher or guardian with insufficient expertise, thereby allowing more scope for independent exploration and imagination. Further, the educated urban parents are providing their children with expert art teacher, extravagant facilities with predetermined ideas and enslaved them according to their expectations; whereas the illiterate rural parents left their children at their own disposal with limited guidance from teachers and thereby availed more freedom in their individual exploration and expression. Therefore, it is important for children to have a balance of proper guidance in the right direction and independent exercise to nurture their creative impulse. The parents need not get excited with the performance of their children and it is not necessary to indulge in any additional information unless it is required by them or they ask for it. The teacher need not instruct the children about what to do, rather they should guide them how to do it. The basic techniques of handling the tools and medium and the foundation of certain ground rules is sufficient to let them explore and excel by their own genius. The most harmful formalities and popular activities in art are the competition. There should never be any contest on art expression for children, even as the adult could gauge the level of expertise and performance.
There will be a few happy and several sad children in the competition and thereby pampering the few and demoralised the entire community for generations. The mindset of children is required to prevail in the actual situation with enormous scope for discovery and guide or counsel them only if they indulge in negative output that might harm themselves and the surrounding environment. Art cannot be taught, while techniques are required to be imparted to them so that they can enhance the original creative expression that is intrinsic within their being. This is the law of nature that prevailed since time immemorial and is inherent in society through the ages.
Another aspect of artistic expression is the taste of the individual person or the community. The individual person will have a great variation of interest with the specific preference of personal taste. However, the community will have certain common interests that might differ from the other community within the same society. Therefore, the ancestral ethnic origin and the traditional religious background are the customary conventions that will influence taste within the community. This is the subjective element in the larger context of the society, even if it is objective within the community. The secular elements of art expression are available only in contemporary art, irrespective of any particular style and techniques applied by the artist. The ethnic image is almost static in form and content due to the traditional practices that are usually related to ceremonial and customary practices. However, the religious images are dynamic and change according to ethnic conventions. Nevertheless, the austere dominant culture will set some kind of the standard norm for the particular group of communities following the same religion. The occidental system of art expression influenced the Roman Catholic church and other Christian traditions throughout the world. The oriental system of art expression influenced Buddhism tradition in the Eastern world, except for the Pan-Indian Hindu Mythological art tradition and the Arabic Islamic art tradition. The African art tradition is another method, which is distinct from ethnicity. Within the dominant religion of any particular region, each ethnic race is having variations of style that are identical to their cultural tradition. In the Christian art tradition, Roman art is different from Byzantine art; in Buddhism, Chinese art is different from Japanese art; in the Hindu mythological art tradition, the Dravidian is different from the Aryan, and even among the Aryan the Madhubani of Bihar is different from the Bengal art, except for the Rajasthani miniature painting which is influenced by both the Hindu royal dynasty and the Islamic Mughal tradition. These are the broad base categories of the separate ethnic and religious identities of each art expression. Likewise, in the North Eastern region of India, the different Naga ethnic tribes have distinct art traditions, the Mizo art tradition, and the various tribes of Arunachal Pradesh, Tripura and Assam have diverse ethnic art traditions. Even the Garo ethnic art is different from the Khasi folk expression because along with the rest of the tribes in the region, they belong to the Tibeto Burman race. Interestingly, the Khasi folk tradition is bereft of any vibrant visual art expression. It is an oasis of the Monkhmer race surrounded by the Tibeto Burman races in the entire North Eastern Region of India.
