Shillong, March 12: Riti Academy of Visual Arts was formed with the objective to nurture, sustain and propagate the genuine understanding of aesthetics with emphasis on indigenous conceptualization and attitude towards the arts and literature.
In relevance to the situation and time the people of the region have undergone through various phases of history and the situation has taken shape by the forces of influence from other dominant culture.
Therefore, it is important to uphold traditional knowledge as a resource of imagination, creativity and excellence of indigenous impulses which coheres with contemporary creative expression and artistic vision. This mission and movement is the avowed task of Riti Academy to create positive energies and opportunities in cultural theorization and praxis.
Since its inception in 1991 Riti Academy of Visual Arts has traversed a long way in providing congenial space for the art fraternity to meaningfully work and realise its potential and vision. There are a myriad of issues to address, a slew of ideas to engage with, and numerous activities to conceive and prosecute for the welfare of the fraternity.
Riti Academy hold the responsibility to initiate, facilitate and motivate a positive approach towards achieving a goal for the cause of promotion, conservation and appreciation of folk and traditional art genres and forms. We are equally committed to keep pace with the contemporary discourse of art and cultural practices.
Some of the significant highlights are: Thoh Shun International Art Camp was organised in 2005 with local including few European and Asian artists. 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, and the Greater Sylhet Indigenous People’s Forum.
In the search for further prospects in the art field, many local artists find themselves askance, searching for meaning, purpose, and thought material to articulate themselves through their creative intuition and impulse. Driven by the compulsion to channelize these young seekers, the “Thwet” Art Camp literally means ‘Quest’ was the direct outcome.
The Thoh Shun and Thwet Art camps have generated a platform for exposition of the art that originated from the region. Riti Academy of Visual Arts started the MAD Gallery in the heart of the city and within a short span of time it has helped to throw colour, created an impact and caters to the taste of the people.
Even as MAD is an abbreviation for Make-A-Difference, it has an in-built and integrated idea of a taste, which in the Khasi language is MAD; liberal and free-wheeling interpretation and usage may ascribe a certain lunacy, a classically held belief of “a touch of the gods’ to the gallery – that would also be appreciably tolerated! This metaphor is an apt name for a confluence, an ensemble, a matrix of creativity brought together through a conflation of passion and art.
The other commendable engagements are the filmmaking with nominations at few international festivals; theater with representation at the International Indigenous Theatre Festival Dhaka 2015; Celebration of Bamboo Culture of North East India 2016 supported by Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts, New Delhi; CMS Vatavaran Environment and Wild Life Film Festival 2010 and the institution of the Crystal Gayle Memorial Award since 2018 for Excellence in Arts and Literature.
The recipients of the Crystal Gayle Memorial Award are, Skhemlang Hynñiewta- 2018, Dr. Debraj Debbarman- 2019, Mario Pathaw- 2020.
