ALL PROJECTS BACK Art Dhaka Art Summit 2020 Game Time – ‘Khela-Ramer Khel’ Project Coordinators: Adil Hasnat, Afsana Hasan Shejuti, Mahmuda Siddika, Sanjid Mahmud. BACK Art refers to the founders’ ‘backpack’ approach to the portability of art and ideas in public spaces. They are particularly interested in rural life and issues related to urbanisation, water systems and climate change. Various projects, including ‘Dhaka Live Art Biennale’ (‘D’LAB’), use performance to explore folklore and long-standing aesthetic forms, seeking ways to locate these within contemporary art practice. Game Time – ‘Khelaram Khel’ is a performative game labyrinth addressing the question ‘Are ghosts real?’and considering shared time and play. It was developed from BACK Art’s Native Myth rural residency project in which they collaborated with local children to create ghost characters used in games later on. Games are widely played in rural areas of Bangladesh by people of different ages. Danguli, Ekka-Dokka/Kut-kut, Saat Chara, Saap Ludo, Ha-Du-Du, Bou Chi and Dariya Banda are very old games in this region that are no-longer common in urban areas. The collective is interested in rewiring and reviving older ways of being together, using contemporary art practice as a vehicle for this. The audience enters a playing area with a design pattern created from children’s drawings to experience and engage with a series of customized games.

ALL PROJECTS ACTIONS. THE IMAGE OF THE WORLD CAN BE DIFFERENT KETTLE'S YARD, CAMBRIDGE | RANA BEGUM | FEBRUARY - APRIL 2018 The Samdani Art Foundation was pleased to support the production of British-Bangladeshi artist Rana Begum's work No. 764 Baskets (2017-18), included in Kettle's Yard exhibition, Actions. The image of the world can be different .

ALL PROJECTS A Beast, A God, And A Line Kunsthall Trondheim, Norway, 30 Nov 2019 - 8 Mar 2020 Dhaka Art Summit 2018 exhibition, A beast, a god, and a line travels to Kunsthall Trondheim in Norway for its fifth iteration, featuring many works commissioned by the Samdani Art Foundation as part of exhibition's the initial edition during DAS 2018. This exhibition was organised by the Samdani Art Foundation in collaboration with Para Site, Hong Kong and the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw. Image Courtesy: Aage A. Mikalsen/ Kunsthall Trondheim

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. Nadia Samdani CO-FOUNDER AND PRESIDENT Nadia Samdani MBE is the Co-Founder and President of the Samdani Art Foundation and Director of Dhaka Art Summit (DAS). In 2011, with husband Rajeeb Samdani, she established the Samdani Art Foundation to support the work of Bangladesh and South Asia’s contemporary artists and architects and increase their exposure. As part of this initiative, she founded DAS, which has since completed five successful editions under her leadership. She is a member of Tate’s South Asia Acquisitions Committee, Tate’s International Council and Alserkal Avenue’s Programming Committee, one of the founding members of The Harvard University Lakshmi Mittal South Asia Institute’s Arts Advisory Council and member of Asia Society’s Advisory Committee. In 2017, with her husband Rajeeb, she was the first South Asian arts patron to receive the prestigious Montblanc de la Culture Arts Patronage Award. She was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2022 Birthday Honours for services to global art philanthropy and supporting the arts in South Asia and the United Kingdom. She has also received the Knight of the Order of the Arts and Letters by the Cultural Ministry of France.A second-generation collector, she began her own collection at the age of 22. She collects both Bangladeshi and international art, reflecting her experience as both a proud Bangladeshi and a global citizen. She has written about collecting for Art Asia Pacific and Live Mint and has been a guest speaker at art fairs and institutions including the Royal Ontario Museum, Art Basel, Frieze and Harvard University among other institutions. Works from the Samdanis’ collection have been lent to institutions and festivals including: Kiran Nadar Musem of Art, New Delhi (2023); Hayward Gallery, London (2022); Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (2019); Para Site, Hong Kong (2018); Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw (2018); documenta 14, Kassel and Athens, (2017); Shanghai Biennale (2017); Office for Contemporary Art Norway, Olso (2016); Centre Pompidou, Paris (2015); Kunstsammlung Nordrhein, Düsseldorf (2015); Gwangju Biennale (2014); and Kochi-Muziris Biennale (2014). Rajeeb Samdani CO-FOUNDER AND TRUSTEE Rajeeb Samdani is a Co-Founder and Trustee of the Samdani Art Foundation, and Managing Director of Golden Harvest Group - one of the leading diversified conglomerates in Bangladesh. Together with his wife Nadia Samdani MBE, he established the biannual Dhaka Art Summit, and Srihatta- Samdani Art Centre and Sculpture Park. Rajeeb is also known for his modern and contemporary art collection. He is a founding member and Co-Chair of Tate’s South Asian Acquisitions Committee, a member of Tate’s International Council and Tate Advisory Board and Alserkal Avenue’s Programming Committee, a founding member of The Harvard University Lakshmi Mittal South Asia Institute’s Arts Advisory Council, Delfina Foundation’s Global Council member, a member of Art SG and a member of Art Basel Global Patrons Council. In 2017, with his wife Nadia, he was the first South Asian arts patron to receive the prestigious Montblanc de la Culture Arts Patronage Award. He has been a guest speaker at art fairs and institutions including the Royal Ontario Museum of Art, UC Berkeley, Harvard University and the Private Museums Summit. DAS 2012 Team Guest Curators Others CHAIRMAN Farooq Sobhan DHAKA ART SUMMIT, BANGLADESH Nadia Samdani MBE SAMDANI ART FOUNDATION, BANGLADESH Rajeeb Samdani DELFINA FOUNDATION, UK Aaron Cezar Organising Comittee Members

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. Nadia Samdani CO-FOUNDER AND PRESIDENT Nadia Samdani MBE is the Co-Founder and President of the Samdani Art Foundation and Director of Dhaka Art Summit (DAS). In 2011, with husband Rajeeb Samdani, she established the Samdani Art Foundation to support the work of Bangladesh and South Asia’s contemporary artists and architects and increase their exposure. As part of this initiative, she founded DAS, which has since completed five successful editions under her leadership. She is a member of Tate’s South Asia Acquisitions Committee, Tate’s International Council and Alserkal Avenue’s Programming Committee, one of the founding members of The Harvard University Lakshmi Mittal South Asia Institute’s Arts Advisory Council and member of Asia Society’s Advisory Committee. In 2017, with her husband Rajeeb, she was the first South Asian arts patron to receive the prestigious Montblanc de la Culture Arts Patronage Award. She was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2022 Birthday Honours for services to global art philanthropy and supporting the arts in South Asia and the United Kingdom. She has also received the Knight of the Order of the Arts and Letters by the Cultural Ministry of France.A second-generation collector, she began her own collection at the age of 22. She collects both Bangladeshi and international art, reflecting her experience as both a proud Bangladeshi and a global citizen. She has written about collecting for Art Asia Pacific and Live Mint and has been a guest speaker at art fairs and institutions including the Royal Ontario Museum, Art Basel, Frieze and Harvard University among other institutions. Works from the Samdanis’ collection have been lent to institutions and festivals including: Kiran Nadar Musem of Art, New Delhi (2023); Hayward Gallery, London (2022); Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (2019); Para Site, Hong Kong (2018); Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw (2018); documenta 14, Kassel and Athens, (2017); Shanghai Biennale (2017); Office for Contemporary Art Norway, Olso (2016); Centre Pompidou, Paris (2015); Kunstsammlung Nordrhein, Düsseldorf (2015); Gwangju Biennale (2014); and Kochi-Muziris Biennale (2014). Rajeeb Samdani CO-FOUNDER AND TRUSTEE Rajeeb Samdani is a Co-Founder and Trustee of the Samdani Art Foundation, and Managing Director of Golden Harvest Group - one of the leading diversified conglomerates in Bangladesh. Together with his wife Nadia Samdani MBE, he established the biannual Dhaka Art Summit, and Srihatta- Samdani Art Centre and Sculpture Park. Rajeeb is also known for his modern and contemporary art collection. He is a founding member and Co-Chair of Tate’s South Asian Acquisitions Committee, a member of Tate’s International Council and Tate Advisory Board and Alserkal Avenue’s Programming Committee, a founding member of The Harvard University Lakshmi Mittal South Asia Institute’s Arts Advisory Council, Delfina Foundation’s Global Council member, a member of Art SG and a member of Art Basel Global Patrons Council. In 2017, with his wife Nadia, he was the first South Asian arts patron to receive the prestigious Montblanc de la Culture Arts Patronage Award. He has been a guest speaker at art fairs and institutions including the Royal Ontario Museum of Art, UC Berkeley, Harvard University and the Private Museums Summit. Diana Campbell ARTISTIC DIRECTOR Diana Campbell is a Princeton educated American curator and writer working in South and Southeast Asia since 2010, primarily in India, Bangladesh, and the Philippines. She is committed to fostering a transnational art world, and her plural and long-range vision addresses the concerns of underrepresented regions and artists alongside the more established in manifold forums. Since 2013, she has served as the Founding Artistic Director of Dhaka-based Samdani Art Foundation, Bangladesh and Chief Curator of the Dhaka Art Summit, leading the last five editions of the platform with a global team of collaborators. Campbell has developed the Dhaka Art Summit into a leading research and exhibitions platform for art from South Asia, bringing together artists, architects, curators, and writers through a largely commission based model where new work and exhibitions are born in Bangladesh, adding a scholarly element to the platform through collaborations with the Getty Foundation, Asia Art Archive, Cornell University, Harvard University, RAW Material Company, Gudskul, and many other formal and grassroots educational initiatives around the world. Pacific Islands and Bangladesh are at the forefront of climate change; Campbell’s maternal family is indigenous CHamoru from the island of Guam, and her heritage inspires her curatorial practice and the development of DAS as a platform to amplify indigenous practices both in South Asia and internationally. In addition to her exhibition making and writing practice, Campbell is responsible for developing the Samdani Art Foundation collection and drives its international collaborations ahead of opening the foundation’s permanent home and community-based residency program at Srihatta, the Samdani Art Centre and Sculpture Park in Sylhet. Campbell’s practice specializes in building networks. She is part of the facilitation group of AFIELD, a global network of socially engaged initiatives, and leading the international development of EDI Global Forum, a global network of art education departments as an initiative of the Campania Region of Italy developed by the Fondazione Morra Greco in Naples that is convening over 150 global institutions to address needed change in art education. She is currently curating the 2023 edition of DesertX in the Coachella Valley opening in March 2023, linking the climatic challenges of droughts and floods across California and Bangladesh. Mohammad Sazzad Hossain HEAD OF ADMINISTRATION Mohammad Sazzad Hossain is the Head of Administration of the Samdani Art Foundation. Sazzad has worked for the Samdani Art Foundation since 2012 and has been a key member of the management team from the first edition of the Dhaka Art Summit, now moving into its 7th edition. He is responsible for the artistic production of DAS, along with the management of all the teams on site, as well as the production for Srihatta and its artistic program. From the outset, Sazzad has managed the production of major international artist’s projects, such as Rana Begum, Afrah Shafiq, Antony Gormley, Shilpa Gupta, Ramesh Mario Nithiyendran, Nilima Sheikh, Damian Ortega and Antonio Dias to name a few. He was one of the key members of the Srijan Abartan, a cross-disciplinary sustainable exhibition design research programme introduced in 2020. Sazzad Hossain completed his M.A. and B.A. from Stamford University Bangladesh majoring in English Literature. Emily Dolan Director of Operations and External Affairs Emily Dolan is the Director of Operations and External Affairs. She originally trained as a visual artist and since 2002 has worked in art institutions, including five years at The Fine Art Society, her primary focus being contemporary art. Since 2012 she has taken on production orientated roles in non-profit organisations and has coordinated exhibitions at the Hayward Gallery in London, The 55th Venice Biennale, Garage Centre of Contemporary Art and Culture, Moscow, and the Chalet Society, Paris. Ruxmini Reckvana Q Choudhury ASSISTANT CURATOR Ruxmini Choudhury is a curator, art writer, researcher, and bilingual translator based in Dhaka, Bangladesh. She has been working as the Assistant Curator of the Samdani Art Foundation since 2014. Among the many initiatives she has introduced and developed for Dhaka Art Summit are its art mediation program and the Samdani Artist Led Initiatives Forum, part of her ongoing interest in exploring ways to make art more approachable and interactive to the public. Her research has supported the growth of curatorial knowledge about Bangladesh through her collaborations assisting many international curators on shows in Dhaka such as Dhaka Art Summit, but also in Hong Kong, India, Austria, Norway, Dubai, among others. . She founded the 'Singularity Art Movement' in 2021, a platform which acknowledges social stigmas that impact gendered, social, political, religious, cultural, and racial oppression. This platform acts as a safe space for artists and non-artists to discuss and share these issues, which may or may not result in an exhibition. She completed her BFA in Art History from University of Dhaka in 2014 and previously interned at the Dhaka Art Center, a Dhaka based non-profit art centre. Her research on the crafts of Kushtia, Jhenaidah and Magura districts of Bangladesh has been published in Setouchi Catalogue: Bangladesh Crafts, 2014. She is also an alumna of Kennedy-Lugar Youth Exchange and Study (YES) programme and was previously involved in many social service and youth empowerment activities. Eve Lemesle PRODUCER Eve Lemesle is an arts producer based between Europe and South-Asia. She started the arts management agency called ‘What About Art’ in Mumbai in 2010. She has produced many exhibitions and consulted internationally for the Venice Biennale, Qatar Museums, Shanghai Biennale, Dhaka Art Summit, Kochi Biennale, the Asia Now art fair at La Monnaie de Paris, Soho House collection amongst others. She is currently a consultant with Reliance for the upcoming JIO World Centre in Mumbai. She is also a researcher at the Institute of Public Art at the University of Shanghai. Eve has been installing some of the most prestigious private and corporate art collections in South-Asia. Khan Md. Mobinul Haque Engineer Emma Sumner HEAD OF PUBLICATIONS Emma Sumner is the Head of Publications, Samdani Art Foundation and Dhaka Art Summit, and an independent writer, researcher and lecturer. Originally trained as a visual artist, in 2010 Emma was awarded an Arts and Humanities Research Council Studentship to study Art History and Curating. During her study and since graduating Emma has worked with numerous institutions and independent platforms, including Tate Liverpool, National Museums Liverpool and the Liverpool Biennale, she has lectured at Liverpool John Moores University, The University of Salford and Wirral Metropolitan and contributes regularly to numerous international platforms including, Art Agenda, Monopol Magazin and e-flux Conversations. Nawreen Ahmed COMMUNICATIONS MANAGER Nawreen Ahmed is working as Communications Manager for Samdani Art Foundation. She has worked as Junior Operations Officer for ME SOLshare Limited and taught Strategic Management and Business English while she worked as a Lecturer for BiMS. She has completed her BBA from Heriot Watt University and MBA from Eastern University DAS 2018 Team Guest Curators Lena Eriksson ART MEDIATION ADVISORS Inviting multidisciplinary collaborations Lena Eriksson’s work encompasses various approaches and genres including performance, drawing, installation, video and organising projects. She was an editorial board member of the web art journal Neulandmagazine (www.neuland-mag.net), and coorganiser of Kasko (www.kasko.ch) and a co-founder of lodypop (a projectspace for power without pressure and performance without panic). She gained her BA Painting from Ecole cantonale d’art du Valais in Sierre and her MA in Teaching and Art in Public Sphere from the University of Applied Sciences and Arts in Lucerne, where she is currently a Lecturer. Rachel Mader ART MEDIATION ADVISORS Rachel Mader is an art researcher. Since 2012 she has directed the competence centre Art, Design & Public Spheres, at the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Art. Between 2009 and 2014, she headed up the project Organising Contemporary Arts: Artistic Practice and Cultural Policy in Postwar Britain. Between 2002 and 2009 she was research assistant in the field of arts research (at the Institute of Contemporary Arts Research at the Zurich University of the Arts), and in Art History (Bern and Zurich). Besides that she has been engaged as an art critic, curator and organiser of multiple events, including artists talks and transdisciplinary conferences. Her publications, talks and research cover the topics of artistic research, art in public spheres, art and ambivalence, political and community arts, feminist approaches in art and science, art mediation, cultural politics and institutional studies. Others CHAIRMAN Farooq Sobhan CO-CHAIR Aktari Mumtaz GOETHE INSTITUT BANGLADESH Philip Kuppers ALLIANCE FRANCAISE DE DHAKA, BANGLADESH Bruno Plasse Kendall Robbins BANGLADESH SHILPAKALA ACADEMY Liaquat Ali Lucky BANGLADESH NATIONAL MUSEUM Faizul Latif Chowdhury GREY ADVERTISING BANGLADESH Gousul Alam Shaon BANGLADESH MINISTRY OF CULTURAL AFFAIRS Abdul Mannan Ilias COLLECTOR Maya Barolo-Rizvi AUSTRALIAN HIGH COMMISSION-BANGLADESH H. E. Julia Niblett DHAKA ART SUMMIT, BANGLADESH Nadia Samdani MBE SAMDANI ART FOUNDATION, BANGLADESH Rajeeb Samdani Organising Comittee Members

The Samdani Art Award, Bangladesh's premier art award, has created an internationally recognised platform to showcase the work of young Bangladeshi Artists to an audience of international arts professionals. Since it was founded in 2012, the Samdani Art Award has steadily developed into an internationally recognised platform, highlighting the most innovative work being produced by young Bangladeshi artists. Created to honour one talented emerging Bangladeshi artist, the award does not issue the winner with a monetary prize, and instead funds them to undertake an all-expenses paid, six-week residency at the Delfina Foundation in London: a career-defining moment for the artist to further their professional development. The award’s latest winner, Mizanur Rahman Chowdhury, travelled to London earlier this year in July to undertake his residency. Providing him with the time and space to revisit old ideas, and explore new, while expanding his networks. I caught up with Chowdhury while he was in residence to discuss his ongoing practice and how winning the award has impacted his career to date. Samdani Art Award 2023 INTERVIEW: KHALED HASAN Emma Sumner: You initially studied printmaking, how did your practice evolve to become what it is today? Mizanur Rahman Chowdhury: It is very interesting for me to talk about this shift. When I studied printmaking at Faculty of Fine Art, University of Dhaka. I tried to embrace the fact that many of the printing processes I learnt were all steeped in tradition, but no matter what I tried, I never felt that the process fitted with what I wanted to achieve and communicate within my practice. While I was studying, I tried to experiment with mixing and matching various print making techniques and introducing found photography into my lithograph prints, although it was prohibited in our academy at that time, so in parallel to my studies, I continued my own experimental art practice. ES: So, printmaking did not allow you to communicate what you wanted to get across to your audience? Did this change at all after you graduated and had more freedom with the way you were able to work? MRC: Even after graduating I was never really convinced that printmaking would give me the tools to communicate what I wanted through my practice. The sensibility of printmaking was a way to develop my ideas, but the outcome always became something else, like a form of assemblage, or an installation. During my study, I became interested in the moving image—especially the genres of psychedelic and experimental film—and wanted to explore them in my practice. Later, after graduation, I also began to experiment with performance, photography, collage, object sculpture and video installation. These multiple approaches helped steer my practice into the direction it has taken today. ES: Do you still make prints now? MRC: I love woodcarving, and I did begin working in this way during my graduation but my lifestyle doesn’t allow me to practice like this anymore. Its partly for this reason, and the limitations of the media itself, which have moved my practice in a very different directioN. ES: Your practice today is interdisciplinary and embraces installation and many other media. How do you decide what media you want to work with? Do you keep objects of interest to you in stock that you feel you might use later, or you source everything after you have devised an idea for a project? MRC: My work has always been sensitive to the time and space in which I create it so my processes are never fixed and I allow my intuition to guide me when developing new works. I usually find an object which forms the basis of an idea which I then begin to ‘open-up’ through my working processes to explore its core subject in greater depth I only ever select objects that appeal to me, a process which is very subjective as the same object might not appeal to others in the same way it does to me, making the process very much about my connection to the objects I work with. ES: Where do you go to source your materials? Is there anywhere particular where you feel more inspired? MRC: I find my materials in all sorts of places but generally I never go looking for things as I tend to just come across things as I go about my daily tasks, making most of the objects I source ephemeral. For one of my more recent projects I collected a lot of boxes over the period of Ramadan. The boxes contained oranges which had been imported from Egypt, but I was drawn in by the striking logo on the front of the box. Ramadan was the only time that the boxes had been in stock in my local market. As I was already familiar with the store owners, I took the time to talk to them and gained a lot of information about how the boxes had come from Egypt to Bangladesh, making me question the ideas of globalisation and international trade and how these matters might affect the everyday person. This formed the foundation for a new work which I am still developing the work in my studio now. ES: So the conversations that you have with other people as you develop your ideas are also a key part of your working process? MRC: In my project The Soul Who Fails to Fly into the Space (2017), which I exhibited during the Dhaka Art Summit, the chairs on which the television was placed were rented from a local company in Dhaka. The man who owned the company was very open and welcoming towards me, and he was very excited to be playing a small part in my project. But when he showed the chairs to me, every chair had a very shiny sticker of his company logo placed prominently in the centre of the back rest, which wasn’t part of how I’d originally envisaged the work. I thought about it all night but slowly realised that I couldn’t remove the logos, as the interactions between us had helped us to build a relationship of respect, a love that had an impact on my decision making and led to me keeping the logos as they were and allowing in the unexpected. In the end, the logo fitted magically on that installation. All the interactions and discussions that I have with the people I meet during my working process are very important to me and often influence my work in positive ways. The curator, Simon Castets also played an important role while installing the works as we discussed at length about how my work could respond to the space to create a more meditative and playful exhibit. ES: Since arriving in London for your residency at the Delfina Foundation have you started work on any new projects? or is there anything that you are working on now? MRC: I lived in London previously back in 2014 when my wife was undertaking her MA. During that time, I was struck by how many road signs there were and I began taking photos of the streets. I had began working on a project called Land, and now I am back in London for this residency, I have had a chance to restart and develop the ideas I was working on further. While I have been here, I visited the National History Museum and I saw that they had analysed Bangladesh by looking at the structure of our land, particularly our rivers, and the types of our soil. What interested me most about this display, was seeing how Bangladesh is divided by a tectonic plate that goes through the centre of the country which means that my native land could, at some point in the future, be shifted by nature dispelling the concept of land that we conventionally perceive through mapping. Overall, I am more interested in the land inside us, our spirituality and how this connects us to the cosmos and defines who we are and which land we ultimately belong to. SAF: After you have finished your residency at Delfina Foundation and return to Dhaka, what’s next for you? Do you have any upcoming exhibitions or are you planning to work on any new projects? MRC: It’s a big question, currently I’m a little overwhelmed by the spotlight of winning the Samdani Art Award and having many curators and fellow artists wanting to meet me, but it has been a great opportunity to develop my network which I know will be helpful in moving forward with my career. I am very thankful to Samdani Art Foundation and Delfina Foundation for establishing such a valuable platform for young artist in Bangladeshi artists. While I have been here, I’ve had the time and space to open up new critical perspectives on my practice and developed my approach to research and new projects. After developing them further in Dhaka, I am hopeful to show them in exhibitions soon. Since it was founded in 2012, the Samdani Art Award has steadily developed into an internationally recognised platform, highlighting the most innovative work being produced by young Bangladeshi artists. Created to honour one talented emerging Bangladeshi artist, the award does not issue the winner with a monetary prize, and instead funds them to undertake an all-expenses paid, six-week residency at the Delfina Foundation in London: a career-defining moment for the artist to further their professional development. The award’s latest winner, Mizanur Rahman Chowdhury, travelled to London earlier this year in July to undertake his residency. Providing him with the time and space to revisit old ideas, and explore new, while expanding his networks. I caught up with Chowdhury while he was in residence to discuss his ongoing practice and how winning the award has impacted his career to date. Samdani Art Award 2012 INTERVIEW: MIZANUR RAHMAN CHOWDHURY Emma Sumner: You initially studied printmaking, how did your practice evolve to become what it is today? Mizanur Rahman Chowdhury: It is very interesting for me to talk about this shift. When I studied printmaking at Faculty of Fine Art, University of Dhaka. I tried to embrace the fact that many of the printing processes I learnt were all steeped in tradition, but no matter what I tried, I never felt that the process fitted with what I wanted to achieve and communicate within my practice. While I was studying, I tried to experiment with mixing and matching various print making techniques and introducing found photography into my lithograph prints, although it was prohibited in our academy at that time, so in parallel to my studies, I continued my own experimental art practice. ES: So, printmaking did not allow you to communicate what you wanted to get across to your audience? Did this change at all after you graduated and had more freedom with the way you were able to work? MRC: Even after graduating I was never really convinced that printmaking would give me the tools to communicate what I wanted through my practice. The sensibility of printmaking was a way to develop my ideas, but the outcome always became something else, like a form of assemblage, or an installation. During my study, I became interested in the moving image—especially the genres of psychedelic and experimental film—and wanted to explore them in my practice. Later, after graduation, I also began to experiment with performance, photography, collage, object sculpture and video installation. These multiple approaches helped steer my practice into the direction it has taken today. ES: Do you still make prints now? MRC: I love woodcarving, and I did begin working in this way during my graduation but my lifestyle doesn’t allow me to practice like this anymore. Its partly for this reason, and the limitations of the media itself, which have moved my practice in a very different directioN. ES: Your practice today is interdisciplinary and embraces installation and many other media. How do you decide what media you want to work with? Do you keep objects of interest to you in stock that you feel you might use later, or you source everything after you have devised an idea for a project? MRC: My work has always been sensitive to the time and space in which I create it so my processes are never fixed and I allow my intuition to guide me when developing new works. I usually find an object which forms the basis of an idea which I then begin to ‘open-up’ through my working processes to explore its core subject in greater depth I only ever select objects that appeal to me, a process which is very subjective as the same object might not appeal to others in the same way it does to me, making the process very much about my connection to the objects I work with. ES: Where do you go to source your materials? Is there anywhere particular where you feel more inspired? MRC: I find my materials in all sorts of places but generally I never go looking for things as I tend to just come across things as I go about my daily tasks, making most of the objects I source ephemeral. For one of my more recent projects I collected a lot of boxes over the period of Ramadan. The boxes contained oranges which had been imported from Egypt, but I was drawn in by the striking logo on the front of the box. Ramadan was the only time that the boxes had been in stock in my local market. As I was already familiar with the store owners, I took the time to talk to them and gained a lot of information about how the boxes had come from Egypt to Bangladesh, making me question the ideas of globalisation and international trade and how these matters might affect the everyday person. This formed the foundation for a new work which I am still developing the work in my studio now. ES: So the conversations that you have with other people as you develop your ideas are also a key part of your working process? MRC: In my project The Soul Who Fails to Fly into the Space (2017), which I exhibited during the Dhaka Art Summit, the chairs on which the television was placed were rented from a local company in Dhaka. The man who owned the company was very open and welcoming towards me, and he was very excited to be playing a small part in my project. But when he showed the chairs to me, every chair had a very shiny sticker of his company logo placed prominently in the centre of the back rest, which wasn’t part of how I’d originally envisaged the work. I thought about it all night but slowly realised that I couldn’t remove the logos, as the interactions between us had helped us to build a relationship of respect, a love that had an impact on my decision making and led to me keeping the logos as they were and allowing in the unexpected. In the end, the logo fitted magically on that installation. All the interactions and discussions that I have with the people I meet during my working process are very important to me and often influence my work in positive ways. The curator, Simon Castets also played an important role while installing the works as we discussed at length about how my work could respond to the space to create a more meditative and playful exhibit. ES: Since arriving in London for your residency at the Delfina Foundation have you started work on any new projects? or is there anything that you are working on now? MRC: I lived in London previously back in 2014 when my wife was undertaking her MA. During that time, I was struck by how many road signs there were and I began taking photos of the streets. I had began working on a project called Land, and now I am back in London for this residency, I have had a chance to restart and develop the ideas I was working on further. While I have been here, I visited the National History Museum and I saw that they had analysed Bangladesh by looking at the structure of our land, particularly our rivers, and the types of our soil. What interested me most about this display, was seeing how Bangladesh is divided by a tectonic plate that goes through the centre of the country which means that my native land could, at some point in the future, be shifted by nature dispelling the concept of land that we conventionally perceive through mapping. Overall, I am more interested in the land inside us, our spirituality and how this connects us to the cosmos and defines who we are and which land we ultimately belong to. SAF: After you have finished your residency at Delfina Foundation and return to Dhaka, what’s next for you? Do you have any upcoming exhibitions or are you planning to work on any new projects? MRC: It’s a big question, currently I’m a little overwhelmed by the spotlight of winning the Samdani Art Award and having many curators and fellow artists wanting to meet me, but it has been a great opportunity to develop my network which I know will be helpful in moving forward with my career. I am very thankful to Samdani Art Foundation and Delfina Foundation for establishing such a valuable platform for young artist in Bangladeshi artists. While I have been here, I’ve had the time and space to open up new critical perspectives on my practice and developed my approach to research and new projects. After developing them further in Dhaka, I am hopeful to show them in exhibitions soon.

ALL PROJECTS 'Introduction to Council'- A Presentation by Sandra Terdjman and Grégory Castéra The Samdani Residence, and Alliance Francaise De Dhaka, 21 - 22 March 2015 On 21st March 2015, Sandra Terdjman and Grégory Castéra presented Council to the Samdani Seminars participant artists in an informal gathering at Samdani Space, Golpo. On 22nd March, Introduction to Council was held at the Alliance Française de Dhaka. Council explores modes of composition through the arts, scholarly and scientific research, and civil society in order to propose new representations of social issues. The three schemes (inquiries, productions, fellows) bring together networks of concerned artists, researchers, citizens, and institutions.

ALL PROJECTS Fabric(ated) Fractures Concrete, Alserkal Avenue, Dubai 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 .

The Samdani Art Award, Bangladesh's premier art award, has created an internationally recognised platform to showcase the work of young Bangladeshi Artists to an audience of international arts professionals. Since it was founded in 2012, the Samdani Art Award has steadily developed into an internationally recognised platform, highlighting the most innovative work being produced by young Bangladeshi artists. Created to honour one talented emerging Bangladeshi artist, the award does not issue the winner with a monetary prize, and instead funds them to undertake an all-expenses paid, six-week residency at the Delfina Foundation in London: a career-defining moment for the artist to further their professional development. Khaled Hasan was the winner of the 1st Samdani Art Award in 2012, along with Musrat Reazi. Samdani Art Award 2012 INTERVIEW: KHALED HASAN Emma Sumner: You initially studied printmaking, how did your practice evolve to become what it is today? Mizanur Rahman Chowdhury: It is very interesting for me to talk about this shift. When I studied printmaking at Faculty of Fine Art, University of Dhaka. I tried to embrace the fact that many of the printing processes I learnt were all steeped in tradition, but no matter what I tried, I never felt that the process fitted with what I wanted to achieve and communicate within my practice. While I was studying, I tried to experiment with mixing and matching various print making techniques and introducing found photography into my lithograph prints, although it was prohibited in our academy at that time, so in parallel to my studies, I continued my own experimental art practice. ES: So, printmaking did not allow you to communicate what you wanted to get across to your audience? Did this change at all after you graduated and had more freedom with the way you were able to work? MRC: Even after graduating I was never really convinced that printmaking would give me the tools to communicate what I wanted through my practice. The sensibility of printmaking was a way to develop my ideas, but the outcome always became something else, like a form of assemblage, or an installation. During my study, I became interested in the moving image—especially the genres of psychedelic and experimental film—and wanted to explore them in my practice. Later, after graduation, I also began to experiment with performance, photography, collage, object sculpture and video installation. These multiple approaches helped steer my practice into the direction it has taken today. ES: Do you still make prints now? MRC: I love woodcarving, and I did begin working in this way during my graduation but my lifestyle doesn’t allow me to practice like this anymore. Its partly for this reason, and the limitations of the media itself, which have moved my practice in a very different directioN. ES: Your practice today is interdisciplinary and embraces installation and many other media. How do you decide what media you want to work with? Do you keep objects of interest to you in stock that you feel you might use later, or you source everything after you have devised an idea for a project? MRC: My work has always been sensitive to the time and space in which I create it so my processes are never fixed and I allow my intuition to guide me when developing new works. I usually find an object which forms the basis of an idea which I then begin to ‘open-up’ through my working processes to explore its core subject in greater depth I only ever select objects that appeal to me, a process which is very subjective as the same object might not appeal to others in the same way it does to me, making the process very much about my connection to the objects I work with. ES: Where do you go to source your materials? Is there anywhere particular where you feel more inspired? MRC: I find my materials in all sorts of places but generally I never go looking for things as I tend to just come across things as I go about my daily tasks, making most of the objects I source ephemeral. For one of my more recent projects I collected a lot of boxes over the period of Ramadan. The boxes contained oranges which had been imported from Egypt, but I was drawn in by the striking logo on the front of the box. Ramadan was the only time that the boxes had been in stock in my local market. As I was already familiar with the store owners, I took the time to talk to them and gained a lot of information about how the boxes had come from Egypt to Bangladesh, making me question the ideas of globalisation and international trade and how these matters might affect the everyday person. This formed the foundation for a new work which I am still developing the work in my studio now. ES: So the conversations that you have with other people as you develop your ideas are also a key part of your working process? MRC: In my project The Soul Who Fails to Fly into the Space (2017), which I exhibited during the Dhaka Art Summit, the chairs on which the television was placed were rented from a local company in Dhaka. The man who owned the company was very open and welcoming towards me, and he was very excited to be playing a small part in my project. But when he showed the chairs to me, every chair had a very shiny sticker of his company logo placed prominently in the centre of the back rest, which wasn’t part of how I’d originally envisaged the work. I thought about it all night but slowly realised that I couldn’t remove the logos, as the interactions between us had helped us to build a relationship of respect, a love that had an impact on my decision making and led to me keeping the logos as they were and allowing in the unexpected. In the end, the logo fitted magically on that installation. All the interactions and discussions that I have with the people I meet during my working process are very important to me and often influence my work in positive ways. The curator, Simon Castets also played an important role while installing the works as we discussed at length about how my work could respond to the space to create a more meditative and playful exhibit. ES: Since arriving in London for your residency at the Delfina Foundation have you started work on any new projects? or is there anything that you are working on now? MRC: I lived in London previously back in 2014 when my wife was undertaking her MA. During that time, I was struck by how many road signs there were and I began taking photos of the streets. I had began working on a project called Land, and now I am back in London for this residency, I have had a chance to restart and develop the ideas I was working on further. While I have been here, I visited the National History Museum and I saw that they had analysed Bangladesh by looking at the structure of our land, particularly our rivers, and the types of our soil. What interested me most about this display, was seeing how Bangladesh is divided by a tectonic plate that goes through the centre of the country which means that my native land could, at some point in the future, be shifted by nature dispelling the concept of land that we conventionally perceive through mapping. Overall, I am more interested in the land inside us, our spirituality and how this connects us to the cosmos and defines who we are and which land we ultimately belong to. SAF: After you have finished your residency at Delfina Foundation and return to Dhaka, what’s next for you? Do you have any upcoming exhibitions or are you planning to work on any new projects? MRC: It’s a big question, currently I’m a little overwhelmed by the spotlight of winning the Samdani Art Award and having many curators and fellow artists wanting to meet me, but it has been a great opportunity to develop my network which I know will be helpful in moving forward with my career. I am very thankful to Samdani Art Foundation and Delfina Foundation for establishing such a valuable platform for young artist in Bangladeshi artists. While I have been here, I’ve had the time and space to open up new critical perspectives on my practice and developed my approach to research and new projects. After developing them further in Dhaka, I am hopeful to show them in exhibitions soon. SAF: You describe photography as a force that gives you a deeper understanding of human beings and life in general. Could you explain how photography has changed your understanding of life and the way you experience it? KH: I find it very difficult to explain exactly what I mean by this as it is something that is related to the practicalities of my everyday life. As a tool, photography has made it simpler for me to share my daily experiences, and gives me a very positive outlook on what is happening around me. For example, if you see a leaf that has dropped into a pool of water, it is a very normal scenario, but when I see it, I try to find the beauty by capturing the best visualisation of it through my camera. If anything, photography has taught me to see that every flower must grow through the dirt before it blooms. However, if I am talking about how photography has changed my life as a human being, I would go as far as expressing that it is the best thing that has happened to me. When I was working on projects documenting a home for the old-aged, or with acid victims or valiant women, every single person I met during my documentation process taught me something, which, at the beginning of each project, was a something I did not expect. Just listening to the hardships that each person had endured made me a stronger person. This might sound a little far-fetched, but if you have not experienced something like this personally, it would be difficult for you to understand exactly what I experienced during each of these projects. SAF: Your early work concentrated on telling the narratives of your native country, Bangladesh. Since moving to the USA, how have your new surroundings changed the way you work? KH: When I lived in Bangladesh, I was travelling all the time to different countries for my work, so I don’t feel that my move to the USA has changed the way I work as a photographer or the way I document my subjects. My passion for the work I make remains that same wherever I go, and the concepts I choose to work with are a bit like my shadows: they follow me wherever my work takes me. Although life in the USA is very different to Bangladesh, I maintain my own unique way of working which will not change because I am living in a new place: although I am trying to cut back on my travel to allow myself time to concentrating on improving my skills to add value to my career. SAF: Seeing yourself as not just a photographer but also as a socially responsible person, how do you ensure the work you make also has a positive contribution to the communities you document? KH: When I first started working as a photographer, it was a priority for me that the work I did would contribute to the communities I worked with, but I also knew that by working as a photographer and documenting other people’s experiences, I would be able to experience the lives of others in a way that most other people are never able to. The contribution I can make to other people’s lives through my work might be very minimal but I believe that every little bit of effort made contributes to a greater change. I feel grateful that I am able to make the work I do, and that the images I create make other people think more deeply about what they can do to help change society for the greater good. SAF: During your career has there been a community or subject that you have documented which has had a real impact on you as both a photographer and a socially responsible person, and if so, why? KH: All of the work I make stays close to my heart, and each and every image I shoot has its own individual impact. However, documenting residents in an old-aged home made me realise how cruel many people are to their parents and as someone who is very family orientated, it was difficult for me to accept the situation that many of the residents had been left to live with. If anything, the experience made me more responsible towards my own mother and the rest of my family. Although the old-aged home was a fairly depressing environment which could understandable make anyone feel very low, my time there increased my motivation to work harder as a photographer and help raise the residents’ voices through my camera. SAF: Can you tell us about the projects you are currently working on and what we can expect to see next? KH: I am currently working on a project titled ‘Living Odd’ through which I am documenting both the past and present situations of Bangladeshi non-residents and immigrants living in the USA. I want the series to capture the truth behind the mental trauma and various difficulties that many migrants go through to survive in unfamiliar surrounds while documenting the cultural gaps between different races in America. My other ongoing project is focused on women and aims to help visualise the many different characters o women—their appearance, uprising, depressions, beauty, aggression, loneliness, fear, revolution, frustration, and more—and is a project I am excited to see come to fruition. As my documentation of the women I am working with grows, I can see how the project will be one of great strength. Since it was founded in 2012, the Samdani Art Award has steadily developed into an internationally recognised platform, highlighting the most innovative work being produced by young Bangladeshi artists. Created to honour one talented emerging Bangladeshi artist, the award does not issue the winner with a monetary prize, and instead funds them to undertake an all-expenses paid, six-week residency at the Delfina Foundation in London: a career-defining moment for the artist to further their professional development. The award’s latest winner, Mizanur Rahman Chowdhury, travelled to London earlier this year in July to undertake his residency. Providing him with the time and space to revisit old ideas, and explore new, while expanding his networks. I caught up with Chowdhury while he was in residence to discuss his ongoing practice and how winning the award has impacted his career to date. Samdani Art Award 2012 INTERVIEW: MIZANUR RAHMAN CHOWDHURY

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. Nadia Samdani CO-FOUNDER AND PRESIDENT Nadia Samdani MBE is the Co-Founder and President of the Samdani Art Foundation and Director of Dhaka Art Summit (DAS). In 2011, with husband Rajeeb Samdani, she established the Samdani Art Foundation to support the work of Bangladesh and South Asia’s contemporary artists and architects and increase their exposure. As part of this initiative, she founded DAS, which has since completed five successful editions under her leadership. She is a member of Tate’s South Asia Acquisitions Committee, Tate’s International Council and Alserkal Avenue’s Programming Committee, one of the founding members of The Harvard University Lakshmi Mittal South Asia Institute’s Arts Advisory Council and member of Asia Society’s Advisory Committee. In 2017, with her husband Rajeeb, she was the first South Asian arts patron to receive the prestigious Montblanc de la Culture Arts Patronage Award. She was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2022 Birthday Honours for services to global art philanthropy and supporting the arts in South Asia and the United Kingdom. She has also received the Knight of the Order of the Arts and Letters by the Cultural Ministry of France.A second-generation collector, she began her own collection at the age of 22. She collects both Bangladeshi and international art, reflecting her experience as both a proud Bangladeshi and a global citizen. She has written about collecting for Art Asia Pacific and Live Mint and has been a guest speaker at art fairs and institutions including the Royal Ontario Museum, Art Basel, Frieze and Harvard University among other institutions. Works from the Samdanis’ collection have been lent to institutions and festivals including: Kiran Nadar Musem of Art, New Delhi (2023); Hayward Gallery, London (2022); Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (2019); Para Site, Hong Kong (2018); Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw (2018); documenta 14, Kassel and Athens, (2017); Shanghai Biennale (2017); Office for Contemporary Art Norway, Olso (2016); Centre Pompidou, Paris (2015); Kunstsammlung Nordrhein, Düsseldorf (2015); Gwangju Biennale (2014); and Kochi-Muziris Biennale (2014). Rajeeb Samdani CO-FOUNDER AND TRUSTEE Rajeeb Samdani is a Co-Founder and Trustee of the Samdani Art Foundation, and Managing Director of Golden Harvest Group - one of the leading diversified conglomerates in Bangladesh. Together with his wife Nadia Samdani MBE, he established the biannual Dhaka Art Summit, and Srihatta- Samdani Art Centre and Sculpture Park. Rajeeb is also known for his modern and contemporary art collection. He is a founding member and Co-Chair of Tate’s South Asian Acquisitions Committee, a member of Tate’s International Council and Tate Advisory Board and Alserkal Avenue’s Programming Committee, a founding member of The Harvard University Lakshmi Mittal South Asia Institute’s Arts Advisory Council, Delfina Foundation’s Global Council member, a member of Art SG and a member of Art Basel Global Patrons Council. In 2017, with his wife Nadia, he was the first South Asian arts patron to receive the prestigious Montblanc de la Culture Arts Patronage Award. He has been a guest speaker at art fairs and institutions including the Royal Ontario Museum of Art, UC Berkeley, Harvard University and the Private Museums Summit. Diana Campbell ARTISTIC DIRECTOR Diana Campbell is a Princeton educated American curator and writer working in South and Southeast Asia since 2010, primarily in India, Bangladesh, and the Philippines. She is committed to fostering a transnational art world, and her plural and long-range vision addresses the concerns of underrepresented regions and artists alongside the more established in manifold forums. Since 2013, she has served as the Founding Artistic Director of Dhaka-based Samdani Art Foundation, Bangladesh and Chief Curator of the Dhaka Art Summit, leading the last five editions of the platform with a global team of collaborators. Campbell has developed the Dhaka Art Summit into a leading research and exhibitions platform for art from South Asia, bringing together artists, architects, curators, and writers through a largely commission based model where new work and exhibitions are born in Bangladesh, adding a scholarly element to the platform through collaborations with the Getty Foundation, Asia Art Archive, Cornell University, Harvard University, RAW Material Company, Gudskul, and many other formal and grassroots educational initiatives around the world. Pacific Islands and Bangladesh are at the forefront of climate change; Campbell’s maternal family is indigenous CHamoru from the island of Guam, and her heritage inspires her curatorial practice and the development of DAS as a platform to amplify indigenous practices both in South Asia and internationally. In addition to her exhibition making and writing practice, Campbell is responsible for developing the Samdani Art Foundation collection and drives its international collaborations ahead of opening the foundation’s permanent home and community-based residency program at Srihatta, the Samdani Art Centre and Sculpture Park in Sylhet. Campbell’s practice specializes in building networks. She is part of the facilitation group of AFIELD, a global network of socially engaged initiatives, and leading the international development of EDI Global Forum, a global network of art education departments as an initiative of the Campania Region of Italy developed by the Fondazione Morra Greco in Naples that is convening over 150 global institutions to address needed change in art education. She is currently curating the 2023 edition of DesertX in the Coachella Valley opening in March 2023, linking the climatic challenges of droughts and floods across California and Bangladesh. Mohammad Sazzad Hossain HEAD OF ADMINISTRATION Mohammad Sazzad Hossain is the Head of Administration of the Samdani Art Foundation. Sazzad has worked for the Samdani Art Foundation since 2012 and has been a key member of the management team from the first edition of the Dhaka Art Summit, now moving into its 7th edition. He is responsible for the artistic production of DAS, along with the management of all the teams on site, as well as the production for Srihatta and its artistic program. From the outset, Sazzad has managed the production of major international artist’s projects, such as Rana Begum, Afrah Shafiq, Antony Gormley, Shilpa Gupta, Ramesh Mario Nithiyendran, Nilima Sheikh, Damian Ortega and Antonio Dias to name a few. He was one of the key members of the Srijan Abartan, a cross-disciplinary sustainable exhibition design research programme introduced in 2020. Sazzad Hossain completed his M.A. and B.A. from Stamford University Bangladesh majoring in English Literature. DAS 2014 Team Guest Curators Others CHAIRMAN Farooq Sobhan DHAKA ART SUMMIT, BANGLADESH Nadia Samdani MBE SAMDANI ART FOUNDATION, BANGLADESH Rajeeb Samdani Organising Comittee Members

ALL PROJECTS A Utopian Stage Curated by Vali Mahlouji The Festival of Arts, Shiraz-Persepolis was an arts and performance festival held in Iran every summer between 1967-77, in and around the city of Shiraz and the ancient ruins of Persepolis. Taking place during a time of radical shifts in global narratives and power dynamics – at the height of the Cold War, and in the wake of rapid decolonisation – the festival facilitated a unique and transformative crucible of artistic possibility: simultaneously apart from, and in response to, its time. The festival introduced artists and expressions from the Global South into international cultural discourse on an unprecedented scale, radically dismantling the dominant hierarchies. After Iran, the most highly represented region was South Asia, re-invigorating strong but dormant cultural ties with countries like India, Bangladesh and Afghanistan which has been severed through colonial rule. In the immediate aftermath of decolonisation, Shiraz-Persepolis would shift the cultural centre of gravity towards the re-emerging ‘other’ – consciously attempting to bypass the hierarchies and conventions of the European cultural terrain. Domestically, the festival also opened up a transgressively liberal space within a politically restrictive Iran, after the CIA-organised coup d’état of 1953. In 1977, the Festival of Arts, Shiraz-Persepolis was declared decadent by religious decree, and since the Iranian revolution of 1979, materials associated with the festival have been removed from public access: the materials in this exhibited during DAS 2018 remaining officially banned in Iran. A Utopian Stage unearthed archival materials, audio recordings and film footage to articulate and appraise the implications of this decade-long episode in the 20th century’s artistic narrative. In doing so, this exhibition shed light on the aspirations and contradictions of a contentious historical moment, and addressed the notion of a collective, hyper-modernist, arena of experimentation that remains a high watermark of modernist ambition. thrust open the heavens and start anew - Festival of Arts, Shiraz-Persepolis Excavated Archives Archaeology of the Final Decade (AOTFD) has unearthed archival materials, audio recordings and film footage, which documents the revolutionary spirit of the Festival, and was displayed for the first time in Asia during the Dhaka Art Summit 2018. AOTFD considers the Festival’s landscape to be one of the most revolutionary multi-disciplinary artistic crucibles of any commissioning platform witnessed around the world - its cultural perspectives being one of the major unresolved artistic enigmas of late modernism. A Utopian Stage revealed a kaleidoscopic range of performances in music, drama and dance presented and commissioned by the Festival, with a focus on Asian and African contributions, alongside the significant presence of the international avant-garde. Through these materials, A Utopian Stage aimed to articulate and appraise the implications of this decade-long episode in the 20th century’s artistic narrative, addressing the notion of a universalist arena of modernist aspiration and experimentation. below the levels where differences appear - Performance Programme During the Dhaka Art Summit 2018, below the levels… drew upon the music, theatre, dance and politics that informed the utopian aspirations and contradictions of the original festival, with contributions by Hassan Khan, Goshka Macuga with Vali Mahlouji, Silas Riener (Merce Cunningham Trust), Reetu Sattar, Yasmin Jahan Nupur with Santal performers and Lalon Baul singers. For full details of below the levels... programme and performers, click here. to be free is to lose sight of the shore - Film Programme Throughout the Dhaka Art Summit 2018, Archaeology of the Final Decade curated an eclectic selection of films, which echoed and reflected the themes at the heart of A Utopian Stage , both aesthetically and politically, from the revolutionary to the existential. The programme conflated artist and feature films, video documentations of live performances and historical documentaries to realise an ambivalent, universal stage where impulses could flourish. Invited artists and filmmakers included Reza Abdoh, Larry Achiampong and David Blandy, Ashish Avikunthak, Shezad Dawood, Rose English, Rose Finn-Kelcey, William Greaves, Isaac Julien, Mikhail Kalatozov, Lindsay Kemp, William Klein, Lala Rukh, Goshka Macuga, Simon Moretti, Sergei Parajanov, Gillo Pontecorvo, Ousmane Sembène, Shuji Terayama, and Stan VanDerBeek, among others. beyond the bounds on the other side - A Timeline In Zone 1 of A Utopian Stage , a fragmented history of the 20th century was conjured through the ambitions and contradictions of countless utopian universalist episodes and ideals: transcendental internationalisms, radical liberations, emancipating solidarities. By the middle of the last century, the demise of the old European empires revealed a new horizon of opportunities and encounters for people and cultures across the world. This timeline served as an evocation of the constantly evolving dreams and possibilities that emerged and dissolved during the period.

Partners The Samdani Art Foundation is proud to have partnered with the following organisations and institutions on its various initiatives.