BEACONS A Multidimensional Art Exhibition

Icarus is a non-profit venture of youths striving to provide a platform for young talents in art, illustration and animation, with a primary focus on anime and manga. Before Beacons, Icarus had organised an anime movie festival in June, 2013. Icarus is currently working on a manga magazine, which will be a compilation of manga, comics, sketch, art, illustrations, fan-arts, stories etc from young artists and writers.
Beacons was an art exhibit and cultural program organized jointly by Icarus and Audity Art School for Children. It was a 4 day event held at Charukola's Zainul Gallery number 2, from the 21st of March to the 24th.
The exhibit consisted of primarily two categories. One is children's art, exhibited by Audity Art School, and the rest were anime/manga-based fan art which were mostly by Icarus.
The event celebrated otaku culture in Bangladesh with a large number of fan art, performances of Japanese pop songs, and dialogues on the anime culture in general. The four day event comprised of the art exhibit, on-the-spot art competitions, on-the-spot sketches by We Draw Stuff, tutorials on illustrations, unplugged concerts, movie screening and a showcasing of Bangladeshi manga and graphics novels.
Day 1 started with an inauguration of the art exhibit. Special guests for the occasion were the Dean of the Institute of Fine Arts, Professor Barak Alvi and renowned cartoonist Ahsan Habib. After a welcome speech by the special guests, there was a brief introduction of Icarus, along with a presentation on manga and anime. In the evening, the musical performances started. The first song was instantly recognizable as the intro music for the anime, FMA: Brotherhood. It was followed by various anime theme songs, such as that of Death Note. We Draw Stuff was there to do on-site sketches. Day 2 kicked off with a movie screening in the morning. The rest of the day was dedicated to the exhibit, which was open from 1PM onwards. Day 3 had We Draw Stuff return, as well as video tutorials on manga/anime by Bangladeshi artists. Day 4 featured an art competition. Ahsan Habib was one of the judges. The prize-giving ceremony took place in the evening, followed by the closing ceremony.
The art exhibit was decent. There were various fan arts of manga, anime and even comic books. There was even one of Walter White from Breaking Bad, oddly enough. Although the sketches were really good, the one complaint you could have about it was that there were very few original compositions in the exhibit. The children's arts were pretty interesting too, though there were a few that looked like the parents maybe helped out a little here and there.
The turnout was decent, with quite a few non-anime fans there interested in what was happening, like you would expect at Charukala. It was the first exhibit that featured fan art based on anime and comics in Bangladesh. We hope it won't be the last either. My personal suggestion to Icarus would be to partner up with the other anime groups in the country and organize the biggest animecon in the sub-continent.
The event is sponsored by Southasia Group, Rangpur Dairy and Food Products Ltd, Niaz Traders and M/S Continental Traders.