Arts Acre is a village for the visual arts in Calcutta, where artists are able to devote themselves to their work and, at the same time, interact with the local community. The brainchild of its director, the artist and teacher Shuvaprasanna, it was opened in 1987 after two years planning and preparation.

The dream was that this would be a place where artists could work in a creative atmosphere away from the pressures of the art-business world. The original plot of land, near Dum Dum airport on the outskirts of Calcutta, was bought by Shuvaprasanna with some of his students. The finances to build the village were raised in various ways by friends, businessmen, actors, poets and musicians (including Ravi Shankar who gave a sitar recital to raise funds).

The complex includes residential cottages, workshops, gallery, auditorium, library and guest house, and is still being expanded. One can live and work here in a creative atmosphere where there is an interaction of ideas and different art forms including poetry and music. Visitors often come from abroad to work here.

This exhibition brought together work from several of the artists, including Tandra Chandra, Shyam Kanu, Siddhartha Sengupta, Somenath Maity, Munundra and Rupa Rajbongshi, and represented one of the first showings of work from Arts Acre outside of India.

Organised by London Art Trax.