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Inspired by the geological reading of the word ‘summit’ as the top of a mountain, Seismic Movements: Dhaka Art Summit 2020 (DAS 2020) considers the various ruptures that have realigned and continue to shift the face of our spinning planet. Seismic movements do not adhere to statist or nationalist frameworks. They join and split apart tectonics of multiple scales and layers; their epicentres don’t privilege historical imperial centres over the so-called peripheries; they can slowly accumulate or violently erupt in an instant.

The Dhaka Art Summit (DAS) is an international, non-commercial research and exhibition platform for art and architecture related to South Asia. With a core focus on Bangladesh, DAS re-examines how we think about these forms of art in both a regional and an international context.

DAS 2020 is a cumulative festival building on the ideas we have been pondering since our first edition in 2012. Like in music, this Summit is arranged into both improvised and organised movements that can be experienced separately, but the complete work requires all of the diverse sounds and rhythms resounding within it to be considered together. It is a sum of many parts that reinforce each other and expand with unplanned trajectories and connections resulting from the energy and vision of our many collaborators and partners.

 

DAS 2020 touches upon geological movements, colonial movements, independence movements, social movements and feminist futures, spatial movements, the conditions that move us to act and the power that comes with moving collectively. We do not just consider forms of artistic production, but also forms of institutional production that enable artistic practices and pedagogies, generating new vocabularies of social organisation and building better ways to create and live together. What do the stirrings of a movement feel like and how do we learn from the experience of living through one?

In the words of Sara Ahmed, a movement requires us to be moved. What might happen when ideas move from inside the exhibition to the larger reality outside? We designed DAS 2020 with this in mind, maintaining a porous barrier between the ‘inside’ and the ‘outside’ of the venue.

 

DAS 2020 is about shaking up our understanding of the present and the past, creating opportunities to come together and make and write (art) history from new perspectives, trying to give a voice to the people who are not in the most dominant positions to be heard.

 

We reach a summit through a journey that pushes our mental and physical limits. We experience ourselves and the world with fresh eyes as obscured vantage points become visible and we feel ourselves grow small as we climb towards the top of a mountain. Could it also be that the mountain, in turn, sees us change in scale as we approach its zenith?

Diana Campbell, Chief Curator Dhaka Art Summit

Artistic Director, Samdani Art Foundation

with Ruxmini Reckvana Q Choudhury and Teresa Albor

Exhibitions & Programmes

Seismic Movements is the fourth chapter under the Artistic Direction of Chief Curator Diana Campbell and is complemented by a series of exhibitions

DAS is a continually unfolding story imagined by hundreds of contributors, and this edition included over 400 artists, architects, art collectives, speakers and writers.

Moving Image Rituals for Temporal
Deprogramming: Videos, Films and Talks Programme

DAS 2020

Curated by the Otolith Group (Anjalika Sagar and Kodwo Eshun)

Roots

DAS 2020

Curated by Bishwajit Goswami. Research assisted by Sumon Wahed
This exhibition was made possible through the initiative and dynamic
energy of Brihatta

Geographies of Imagination

DAS 2020

Envisioned by SAVVY Contemporary with Antonia Alampi,
Bonaventure S.B. Ndikung, and Olani Ewunnet with Jothashilpa in
association with the Goethe Institut, Bangladesh and Samdani Art Foundation

On Muzharul Islam: Surfacing Intention

DAS 2020

Co-Curated by Diana Campbell with Sean Anderson and Nurur Khan and Assistant Curator Ruxmini Reckvana Q Choudhury

Spatial Movements

DAS 2020

Curated by Diana Campbell

Collective Movements

DAS 2020

Nobody Told Me There Would be Days Like These

DAS 2020

Curated by Mustafa Zaman
Assistant Curator: Ruxmini Reckvana Q Choudhury

The Collective Body

DAS 2020

Curated by Diana Campbell and Kathryn Weir. Assistant curator: Kehkasha Sabah. Supported by Adam Ondak, Lucia Zubalova, Ruxmini Reckvana Q Choudhury, Teresa Albor

Colonial Movements

DAS 2020

Geological Movements

DAS 2020

Independence Movements

DAS 2020

Social Movements and Feminist Futures

DAS 2020

Curated by Diana Campbell

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