Alserkal Avenue collaborated with the Samdani Art Foundation on Fabric(ated) Fractures, an exhibition at Concrete, Dubai in March 2019. Fabric(ated) Fractures provided a platform to amplify the voices of artists from Bangladesh and South and Southeast Asia, and built on the exhibition There Once was a Village Here held at Dhaka Art Summit 2018. Curated by Samdani Art Foundation Artistic Director Diana Campbell Betancourt, this exhibition also introduced new works from artists with a connection to Bangladesh.

Fabric(ated) Fractures considers contexts that anthropologist Jason Cons describes as ‘sensitive spaces’–spaces that challenge ideas of nation, state, and territory where cultures exist that do not fit

the image that the state has for itself. Sensitive spaces are often razed, with their people forced to

succumb to the state and submit to the domination of majority forces. However, the social fabric of

these spaces often remains intact, a testament to human fortitude, even if its people are dislocated

and their dwellings levelled. Regional lenses, including overarching headers such as ‘South Asia’ or ‘MENASA’ tend to filter out the many traces of difference found on a local level, and this exhibition aims to weave a more complex picture of the vibrant and diverse threads that comprise a yet-to-be crystalised identity in the wounded border areas related to Bangladesh; areas that cannot be defined with a single overarching regional framing device.

Selected artists are:

Ashfika Rahman

Ayesha Jatoi

Debasish Shom

Gauri Gill and Rajesh Vangad

Hitman Gurung

Jakkai Siributr

Joydeb Roaja

Kamruzzaman Shadhin

Kanak Chanpa Chakma

Munem Wasif

Pablo Bartholomew

Rashid Choudhury

Reetu Sattar

Shilpa Gupta

To know more about the exhibition, please download the catalogue from here.