AN INDO-SWEDISH affair is now brewing.   KoIkata's leading integrated art house Emami Chisel Art and the city's Aakriti Art Gallery have joined hands with Sweden's Vasa Konsthal and Gallery Scandi¬navia in Gothenburg to unveil an Indian    cultural fest in Gothen¬burg     and     a Swedish festival in Kolkata. The city of Gothen¬burg and culture ministry of Swe¬den are chief pa¬trons of this proj¬ect in dose collaboration with the Swedish Em¬bassy in India.

"During     the last GenNext ex¬hibition at Aakriti in October 2009, Oscar Aschan, a representative of the Swedish cul¬ture ministry, was in Kolkata.   He had learnt about our   show   and dropped   by   to view it. Appar¬ently impressed with our event, Mr Aschan expressed his keen¬ness to have a cultural exchange programme between our two cities, Gothenburg and Kolkata. He was also eager to tie up with us on this score," Vikram Bachhawat, director of Aakriti and Emami Chisel, told ET.

According to him, Mr Aschan again visited Kolkata in January this year with a Swedish delega¬tion comprising Gothenburg's deputy mayor Elisabet Rothenberg and head of Gothenburg Art Hall Vasa, Hakan Lindblom. Mr Aschan, himself, headed cultural events in Gothenburg and the western region under the Swedish culture ministry.

"Among other features of the fest in Sweden, we agreed to field an exhibition of contemporary artists at Gothenburg in August 2010. The agreement was signed subsequently.  Ms Rothenberg had also spoken to the then may¬or of the Kolkata Municipal Cor¬poration (KMC) Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharjee. He was equally interested and excited about this planned exchange programme. She felt Sweden had lots to learn from Kolkata and that the city's residents were extremely percep¬tible about cultural happenings'. She was also eager to trig¬ger     regular cultural    ex-changes    be¬tween Kolkata and the City of Gothenburg," said Mr Bachhawat.

To begin with, the fest in Gothenburg has kicked off with a fashion show involv¬ing designers Wendell Ro-dricks, Neelan-jana Ghosh and Rahul Mishra. Well-known choreographer Prasad Bidappa was present there to lend
that edge to the show. Mr Aschan said he wanted classical Indian, Euro-Indian and contemporary Indian style designs and "the de¬signers fit the bill perfectly".

From August 10, an Indian contemporary art exhibition will be staged in Gothenburg. "It will be the biggest Indian contempo¬rary art show ever to crystallise in Gothenburg.

There will be 20 artists and 50 works. At the same time, a major exhibit of Swedish artists will open at Aakriti Art Gallery and Emami Chisel Art in December 2010. This will signal a new be¬ginning between the two cities, Gothenburg and Kolkata, thr¬ough private initiative," info¬rmed Mr Bachhawat. In step, a retrospective of Swedish World Cinema master Ingmar Bergman will open in Kolkata in Decem¬ber 2010.