Exhibition featuring Durga Puja festival opens in London

London : A special exhibition celebrating Bengali culture and the annual Durga Puja festivities in West Bengal has opened at the National Theatre here as part of the Totally Thames Festival 2018.

"Bengal's Durga" is an exhibition which provides a rare insight into the outpouring of creativity, artistic innovation and cultural celebration of Bengal's traditions, a British Council release said.

The 16 exhibition panels, with photographs by Manjit Singh Hoonjan, have been curated by Ali Pretty of Kinetika and Kamalika Bose. The panels will be on display till September 30.

This exhibition is linked to the visit of an empowered delegation from West Bengal to cities in the UK and the Republic of Ireland, seeking specific contacts and business meetings on festivals, community and employability-linked arts and crafts, creative industries with links to sustainable tourism.

The West Bengal delegation comprises Minister of State for Sports and Youth Services Laxmi Ratan Shukla, and Atri Bhattacharya, IAS, Principal Secretary of Tourism.

The delegation is in the UK till September 9, the release said.

This visit is on the back of an MoU which the British Council had signed in India with the Government of West Bengal on July 6.

The exhibition has been put together by the Department of Tourism, Government of West Bengal in collaboration with the British Council, as part of its 70-year anniversary celebrations in India.

Debanjan Chakrabarti, Director East and Northeast India, British Council, said the exhibition is a legacy programme arising out of the Silk River project by Kinetika, one of the flagship programmes of UK-India Year of Culture in 2017.

The exhibition showcases the creativity and culture of Bengal's river communities, said Chakrabarti.