ALL PROJECTS Art Pro Samdani Artist-Led Initiatives Forum 2020 Artpro’s projects mobilise artists to work with less visible segments of society, often working to bridge expressions of urban and rural culture. Nakshi Katha: Interwoven Dialogues (2019–2020) exemplifies their collaborative process. This research-based project involved 4 Dhaka based artists and 24 Jamalpur based Nakshi Kantha embroiderers through storytelling workshops. In the Nakshi Kantha tradition, communities (primarily of women) share stories and pass time together embroidering closely linked linear stitches on found fabrics. Bangladesh once had 6 seasons which are depicted in its songs and folk culture, but climate change has reduced this number to 4 or 5 (depending on who you ask). Artpro engaged with the community in Jamalpur to share memories about these seasons, collaborating with the artisans to then stitch these on a saree that was divided into 6 individual panels. The depictions of Boishahk (Summer), the Rainy Season, Autumn, Winter, and Spring are joined by the ‘missing season’ of ‘Late Autumn’ created by the artisans during the first 2 days of DAS. Visitors share memories tied to this lost period of the year and these are memorialized in textile form through the expressions of the artisans.

ALL PROJECTS Geographies of Imagination 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 Geographies of Imagination is a growing research and exhibition project that manifests itself as a cartographic time-line, a performative process of un-mapping the geography of power and a space of discourse. The project is an attempt to rethink, reconfigure and pervert history-at-large and cartographic histories in particular. Each iteration of Geographies of Imagination assumes a different point of departure, situates itself within another real or fictional geography, and thus brings about differing bresearch processes and outcomes. For this rendition in Bangladesh, Geographies of Imagination had two vantage points. For its first point, it takes the partition of 85 million people throughout Bengal in 1905 implemented by the British Raj in an effort to ‘reorganise’ but ultimately to divide and rule, by cutting through the middle of the Bengali-speaking ‘nation’. Its second point is the Congo Conference hosted in Berlin in 1884, a moment in which fourteen Western ‘great powers’ partitioned the African continent amongst themselves for their geopolitical, exploitative economic and colonial agendas and fantasies, thereby re-imagining the cartography of the African continent irrespective of the peoples, cultures, and languages of Africans. This incomplete timeline winding across the South Plaza of DAS features significant socio-political and cultural movements that pre-defined identities and nationhood, as well as rebellions and revolts against colonial rule, such as those that forged forms of resistance that planted seeds for future emancipation across different geographies. This includes how the socio-political movements on the African continent informed resistance movements in Asia and vice-versa. One such example is the Indigo revolt (ca. 1859–1862), through which Bengali farmers organised against plantation owners who severely undercut the price of indigo, thereby forcing farmers to sell their products at a price far below their own cost of production. We trace lines that move across centuries and oceans, looking for instance at the Anlu revolt (1958–1961), brought forth by Kom women in western Cameroon against the British administrative interference in agriculture (which was a female domain) and the alleged plan by the ruling political party to sell Kom land to Nigerian Igbos. The rebellion, which was crucial for the victory of the democratic party at the time of independence from colonial rule, had at its core women stripping naked in front of men as a weapon of rebellion – a practice implemented by other groups like the Takembeng. We weave in connections between conferences and alliances that have strengthened positions of emancipation in contexts facing similar conditions of oppression. Novel forms of trans-national solidarity, from the first Pan-African conference held in London (in 1900), through the Baku Congress (1920), the Asian Relations Conference (1947), the Bandung Conference or African-Asian Conference in Indonesia (1955) and to the foundation of the Movement of the Non-Aligned that followed in Belgrade (1961–ongoing), among others. We pause on movements for independence and listen to fragments of charismatic political speeches bearing witness to new proposals and ideas with regards to justice, and sovereignty. But we also look at populistic and nationalistic speeches of more recent political leaders, at new border control monitoring systems, visa regulations, economic trades, and import and export of labour forces, that create and multiply invisible frontiers and partitions, and at how recent technological developments have facilitated novel forms of cartographic scarification and forced constructions of spaces and communities. In a time when in Cameroon the lines of citizenship are drawn upon remnants of colonial language structures between Anglophones and Francophones, in a time when the Citizen Amendment Act and national register of citizens want to make Indian Muslims foreigners in their own country, in a time when black Africans are kicked out of South Africa in several waves of xenophobic attacks, in a time when the Rohingyas are openly persecuted in Myanmar, we must reconsider the powers that make geography be. This iteration of Geographies of Imagination was developed through a wide range of interviews with academics and researchers from various disciplines, artists, curators, and researchers based predominantly in Dhaka in collaboration with the Samdani Art Foundation and Goethe Institut, Bangladesh. The timeline recurs with dates held in Bengali, Ethiopian and Gregorian calendars, to emphasise how the system of time itself is situated and subject to different representations and variations. The visualisation is the outcome of a close dialogue with the Dhaka based Jothashilpa collective, working with master cinema banner painter Ustad Mohammad Shoaib, artist and researcher Shawon Akand, and artists Sharmin Afroz Laboni and Alia Kamal. RESEARCH: Antonia Alampi, Bonaventure S.B. Ndikung, Olani Ewunnet and Shawon Akand. VISUALIZATION: Jothashilpa PRODUCTION MANAGEMENT: Hamayet Himu PAINTERS : Mohammad Shoaib, Didarul Dipu, S., M. Sumon, Abdur Rob, Mohammad Yusuf, Rafiqul Islam Shafikul, Md. Rahim Badir, Mohammad Iqbal, Mohammad Dulal, Aftab Alam, Mohammad Javed, Md. Selim Dhaka Art Summit 2020 "Seismic Movements" CURATOR: Diana Campbell Betancourt ASSISTANT CURATOR: Ruxmini Reckvana Q Choudhury RESEARCH ASSISTANCE: Eshan Kumer Maitra and Taiara Farhana Tareque Thanks to the many conversations had with Dhaka-based artists, researchers, historians, professors, and designers, including Sadya Mizan, Yasmin Jahan Nupur, Tayeba Begum Lipi, Mahbubur Rahman, Emran Sohel, Jewel A Rob and Sanjid Mahmud, Reetu Sattar, Mustafa Zaman, Rezaur Rahman, Tanzim Wahab, Kabir Ahmed Masum, Nurur Khan, Amena Khatun, Sanjoy Chakraborty, Shayer Gofur, Nazrul Islam, Wakilur Rahman, Shishir Bhattacharjee, Huraera Jabeen, Imtiaz Ahmed, Marina Tabassum, Parsa Sanjana Sajid and Sayeed Ferdous.

ALL PROJECTS Workshop and Presentation with Tori Wranes 7 - 8 April 2015 Leading Norwegian artist Tori Wranes, who has performed at the Sydney Biennial and Performa in New York, along with her assistant Gustav Gunvaldsen, conducted one day workshop with the 15 participant artists using 8 rikshaws. Tori and her group created a wonderful ballet riding rikshaws in the South Plaza of Shilpakala Academy. She also gave her artist presentation during the closing ceremony on 8th.

ALL PROJECTS Rehearsing The Witness: The Bhawal Court Case, A Talk By Zuleikha Chaudhari Pathshala South Asian Media Institute, Dhaka, 21 April 2017 The Bhawal court case was an extended pre-independence Indian court case that revolved around the identity of a sanyasi (or Hindu religious ascetic), claiming to be the second Kumar of Bhawal (the heir of one of the last large zamindari estates in Dhaka), who was presumed dead a decade earlier. The claim was contested by the British Court of Wards and by the widow of Ramendra Narayan Roy (the second Kumar of Bhawal) Bibhabati Devi. The case was in trial from 1930 – 1946. Over the course of sixteen years, the physical attributes, birthmarks, portraits and testimony were collated as forensic evidence to establish the claimant/sanyasi’s identity as being the Kumar. Hundreds of witnesses, including doctors, photographers, artists, prostitutes, peasants, revenue collectors, tenants, holy men, magistrates, handwriting experts, relatives and passers-‐by were deposed. The case went from the District Court in Dhaka to the High Court of Calcutta to the Privy Council in London, finally ending in 1946 with a victory for the plaintiff, who died a few days after the verdict. Rehearsing the Witness: The Bhawal Court Case uses this trial about a possible impostor to re-examine the enormous archive that the case produced, through performance as a means of problematising the notions of evidence, archive and identity. Both the domains of the law and theatre/acting frame larger questions that pertain to the production of truth and reality, assumptions of stable, consistent and believable identities and the construction of a credible narrative. The project explores the questions of law as performance, the role of performance in law and the performativity of legal truth-production. The talk at the Pathshala South Asian Media Institute described the three-day performance at the Dhaka Art Summit 2018 which drew a relationship between re-enactment, (crime-scene) reconstruction and retrial; the complex tension between forensic evidence, the act of speculation/imagination and truth-finding and truth-making. . Zuleikha Chaudhari is a theatre director and lighting designer. Her current research uses archival documents (texts and photographs) to develop theatrical performances as a way of thinking about the relationship between production of memory and the role of the archive and how this pertains to the retrieval and reliving of an event. The constructed narratives within the works looked at the relationship between personal lived experience and memories and larger historical events and narratives. These works use a combination of reportage, portraiture, documentary and fiction - the editing, re-interpretation and re-positioning of speculative ideas, opinions, beliefs and anecdotes towards the production of new narratives is central to these investigations about the relationship between history and theatre. Her ongoing research considers the structures and codes of performance as well the function and processes of the actor as reality and truth production. It investigates the tension between looking or watching and doing or acting. Her current projects include three court trials – The Bhawal Court Case (1930-46), The Trial of Bahadurshah Zafar (1858) and the India National Army Trials (1945-46) within the framework of law as performance; the role of performance in law and the performativity of legal truth-production. Her works have been shown at performance festivals, galleries and exhibitions in United States, Germany, France, Belgium, Vienna, South Africa, South Korea, China, Japan, The Netherlands, Pakistan and India.

ALL PROJECTS Independence Movements Curated by Diana Campbell The shared energy fueling movements and building constellations of solidarities across time and diverse geographies defies shallow geopolitical definitions that carve up the world. Artists played a major role in spreading the deep yearning for independence in what is now Bangladesh, as well as elsewhere in the global majority world. Creative individuals with conviction were willing to stake their position and shift the course of history by galvanising people around their work which became the images, words, and songs to rally resistance and transform mere individuals into a collective force to be reckoned with. The artists in this movement chronicle the spirit of resistance and struggle for freedom, shifting from euphoria to disillusionment and back again. Independence is a spirit that needs to be kept alive and moved and nurtured across generations. Antonio Dias b. 1944, Campina Grande, Paraíba; d. 2018, Rio de Janeiro Trama , 1968/1977 Portfolio with 10 woodcuts on hand-made Nepali paper. Courtesy of Alexandre Roesler Do It Yourself: Freedom Territory, 1968/2020 adhesive strip and lettering on floor Courtesy of Collection Daros-Latinamerica and the Estate of Antonio Dias The Illustration of Art/Tool & Work , 1977 Red clay on hand-made Nepalese paper Courtesy of Geyze Diniz Collection Untitled , 1981 Handmade paper, cellulose with clay, iron oxide and soot. Courtesy of Samdani Art Foundation Demarcando Terretorios , 1982 Iron oxide, graphite, metalic pigments on Nepalese paper Working in the Furnace, 1986 Mixed media on nepalese paper The Last Houses of the man , 1987 Iron oxide and metalic pigment on Nepalese paper. Courtesy of Galeria Nara Roesler Research supported by Instituto InclusArtiz Antonio Dias’s many transnational experiences coloured his conceptual art practice. Supported by a Brazilian patron, he travelled to Nepal in 1976 ‘to buy paper for an edition.’ He soon discovered that the kind of paper he imagined could not be purchased in a store. Over an intense period of five months in 1976–77, living near the Tibetan border with Nepali artisans, Dias adapted their paper-making process by mixing in plant fibres and materials such as tea, earth, ash and curry. This presentation includes the installation Do it Yourself: Freedom Territory, whose words and motifs appear in Trama – the edition that brought him to Nepal. The Illustration of Art/Tool & Work, also from 1977, marks a shift in his practice. His process became less about the ‘illustration of art’ (a series from 1971–1978) and more about the physicality and the making of art. This work is a rare example where Dias and his Nepali collaborator’s hands both appear in the work, depicted as equals surrounded by the red Nepali clay they coexisted on. Dias returned to these papers to create works for at least a decade, layering further life experience into these remarkable collaborative surfaces that carry traces of experimentation, invention, and reinvention. Dias was one of the leading figures of 20th-century Brazilian art, working across various media to question the meaning of art and its systems. He left Brazil in 1966 and arrived in Paris in time to participate in the May 1968 protests. Because of his political involvement he was forced to move again; he settled in Milan, where he became the only Latin American member of the Arte Povera movement, and spent his career working across Brazil, Italy, and Germany. Bouchra Khalili b. 1975, Casablanca; lives and works in Berlin and Oslo The Constellations, Fig. 2, Fig. 4, Fig. 6, Fig. 8 , 2011 Four individual silkscreen prints Courtesy of the artist and mor Charpentier. Presented with support from ifa | Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen Bouchra Khalili translates the illegal transnational journeys of individuals into utopian midnight-blue maps, where solidarities between people make visible the waiting, setbacks, force, and compromise found in the condition of statelessness. In her words: ‘constellations are by essence reference points located in spaces where landmarks do not exist: the sky and the sea. As maps, they were used for centuries by sailors looking upward to locate themselves below… Constellations are also visual translations of narratives: many of them are based on mythology. Translating these forced illegal journeys into constellations of stars also aims to challenge normative geography in favour of a ‘human geography’” – based on micro-narratives and singular lives. The limits between the sky and the sea blur, eventually suggesting an alternative form of orientation: the landmarks are [no longer] boundaries as established by nation-states, but the path of singular lives, from where the world can be seen. As alternative maps of the world, The Constellations suggests a counter-geography, of singular gestures of resistance against arbitrary boundaries.” Working with film, video, installation, photography, and prints, Khalili’s practice articulates language, subjectivity, orality, and geographical explorations. With her work, Khalili investigates strategies and discourses of resistance as elaborated, developed, and narrated by individuals – often members of political minorities. Kapwani Kiwanga b. 1978, Hamilton, Canada; lives and works in Paris The Secretary’s Suite , 2016 Mixed Media Installation, UN Photo Courtesy Teddy Chen Courtesy of the artist and Tanja Wagner. Presented with support from the Canada Council for the Arts The Secretary’s Suite is an installation that investigates the complexities of gift economies. Presented within a viewing environment inspired by the 1961 office of the United Nations Secretary-General, Kapwani Kiwanga’s single-channel video examines the history and tradition of gifted items within the United Nations’ art collection. Countries that are members of the UN, including Bangladesh, often donate works of art and objects of cultural value which go on display in public spaces, the Secretary General’s office, or are stored away from private view. This work raises questions about how gifts can impact power dynamics in relationships and with differing cultural significance across the course of history. Kiwanga’s work traces the pervasive impact of power asymmetries by placing historical narratives in dialogue with contemporary realities, the archive, and tomorrow’s possibilities. Her work is research-driven, instigated by marginalised or forgotten histories, and articulated across a range of materials and media including sculpture, installation, photography, video, and performance. Maryam Jafri b. 1972, Karachi; lives and works in Copenhagen and New York Independence Day 1934–1975, 2009–ongoing Sixty+ black and white archival inkjet prints Courtesy of the artist Maryam Jafri’s Independence Day 1934–1975 features over 60 archival photos culled from more than 30 archives of the first Independence Day ceremonies of various Asian, Middle Eastern, and African nations. The swearing-in of a new leadership, the signing of relevant documents, the VIP parade, the stadium salute, the first address to the new nation – all are supervised and orchestrated by the departing colonial power. The photographic material is strikingly similar despite disparate geographical and temporal origins, revealing a political model exported from Europe and in the process of being cloned throughout the world. Although a great deal of research has been done on both the colonial and the postcolonial eras, this project aims to introduce a third, surprisingly neglected element into the debate – that 24-hour twilight period in between, when a territory transforms into a nation-state. Jafri works with video, sculpture, photography, and performance, which act as a support for her research-based, conceptual practice. Her works address and question the cultural and visual representations of history, politics, and economics, such as the politics of food production and consumption, the highly coded performance rituals of nascent nation-states, and cultural memory and copyright law. Murtaja Baseer b. 1932, Dacca; Lives and works in Dhaka Untitled (Dinosaur Drawings) , 1971/2020 Archival Newspapers and Mural by young artists Courtesy of the artist How does a living artist share his historically important work with his people when the person keeping it for decades is not willing to sharea it publicly in exhibitions or publications? Murtaja Baseer created a powerful series of drawings between 1971 and 1972 in Dhaka and in Paris, depicting the Pakistani military as prehistoric figures towering with physical might over Bengali people. The work violently alludes to the wartime atrocities of famine and rape as well as the colonial efforts to subjugate the Bengali language. The magazine ‘The Express’ where the particular work was edited by Zahir Raihan. Zahir Raihan was a writer, novelist and filmmaker, most notable for his documentary ‘Genocide’ on the killing of citizens by the Pakistani Army on 14 December 1971. Baseer first began these dinosaur drawings for mass dissemination in East Pakistani newspapers. Now 88 years old, the artist is working with archival material and a younger generation of artists to reimagine this series of work as a mural for all to see at the entrance of DAS, emblazoning it in public memory. Murtaja Baseer is known for his ‘abstract-realist’ paintings reflecting his daily experience of Bengal. In 1967, he started ‘Wall’ series, his first step towards abstraction, which depicted the entropy and layers of textures and colours on the walls of old Dhaka, a reflection on the society under the dictatorship of Ayub Khan (1958–1969). He actively participated in the Language Movement of 1952 and pre-liberation war demonstrations. He was sent to jail throughout the East Pakistani period for his leftist political views and later left for Paris. He demonstrated his solidarity with the Liberation Movement through his work by changing the spelling of his name from Murtaza Bashir to Murtaja Baseer, adjusting the letters to suit the Bengali language. Baseer is also a writer, poet, numismatist, and acted as an academic at the University of Chittagong until 1998. Pratchaya Phinthong b. 1974, Ubon Ratchathani; lives and works in Bangkok Waiting for Hilsa , 2019 Photographs, Book, Election Ink, Gill Net Commissioned and Produced by Samdani Art Foundation for DAS 2020. Courtesy of the artist, Samdani Art Foundation, BANGKOK CITYCITY GALLERY, and gb agency. Produced with additional support from BANGKOK CITYCITY GALLERY Installation activated by a discussion at 2pm on 8 February Stories of the Hilsa fish and its migration across salty and sweet waters have been inscribed in South Asian culture for centuries as they historically swam from the Bay of Bengal up the Padma river and into the Ganges. In 1975 the Farakka Barrage (dam) was completed on the Indian side of the Bangladesh–India border, disrupting this migration. Pratchaya Phinthong draws a mental map of this cross-border conflictual reality, combining photos taken at the Farakka Barrage, reconstructed images, books, and objects – taking into consideration geopolitics, science, spirituality, and human relationships. Using Bangladesh’s ‘national fish,’ the artist metaphorically examines nation-state powers, but also presents to us an example of water as a source of life and the ability of sensations such as taste to transcend ideas relating to national identity. Phinthong creates situations without predetermined forms that rely on an element of viewer participation with the aim of creating a shared experience. He addresses financial fluctuations, media alarmism, and the global labour market, commonly employing them as metaphors for human behaviour. Interested in creating dialogue, he often juxtaposes different social, economic, or geographical systems. Rashid Talukder b. 1939, Pargana; d. 2011, Dhaka. Arms drill by women members of the Chatro Union (students union), 1st March, 1971, 1971/2020 . Photograph, Inkjet Print Outraged artists hold placards bearing the Bangla letters Sha Dhi Na Ta (independence) protesting the postponement of the opening of the National Assembly by President Yahya Khan, Dhaka, 1st March, 1971, 1971/2020, Photograph, Inkjet Print A sea of people move towards Ramna Racecourse, now Suhrawardy Udyan, to attend the historic speech of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Dhaka, 7th March, 1971, 1971/2020 Photograph, Inkjet Print. Courtesy of Drik Picture Gallery Fed up with being oppressed linguistically, economically, and culturally under the rule of West Pakistan (1947–1971), masses of people in what is now Bangladesh rallied in support of an independent sovereign country. People coming from all walks of life engaged in protests finally leading to the liberation war. This bloody war was catalysed when West Pakistan refused to hand over power to Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in 1971, despite his having received the majority of the democratic votes in the general election of Pakistan. Rashid Talukder dedicated himself to capturing the mass revolution of the East Pakistani people and their fight to maintain freedom as a newly independent nation. His images of empowered female activists, artists (including Murtaja Baseer whose drawings of resistance and independence are installed near this work) and students who participated in the making of Bangladesh greet visitors at the entrance of DAS, grounding us in the history of public assembly in Bangladesh that makes the Summit possible. Rashid Talukder was a photojournalist whose images represent a significant contribution to the collective memory of Bangladesh. Among many other defining events in the history of the nation, he documented the struggles of East Pakistan in the 1960s that led to the liberation war and the formation of Bangladesh. His photographs immortalise mass uprisings, resistance movements, and the participants, of whom many were killed by the Pakistani army. Talukder also photographed artists, highlighting their role in the liberation. As a photojournalist, he worked at the Daily Sangbad and The Daily Ittefaq successively, reaching wide audiences. Dedicated to expanding the field of photojournalism in Bangladesh, he founded the Bangladesh Photo Journalists’ Association in 1972. S. M. Sultan b. 1923, Narail; d. 1994, Jessore First Plantation sketch , c. 1976 Ink on brown paper Courtesy of the collection of Farooq Sobhan While South Asian art history describes him as a landscape painter, S.M. Sultan is remembered in Bangladesh for his energetic paintings of strong farmers made after 1975. These are primarily large-scale paintings made with natural pigments on unprimed jute canvases, celebrating the strength of Bengali peasants, both male and female, in their struggle against colonial and ecological disasters. Famine had been plaguing the country across generations from the era of the British Raj until just the year before Sultan first painted these icons of physical might. In this context, his depiction of the weak and downtrodden as invincible forces can be seen as subversive. In this sketch for the First Plantation, Sultan created a mythical environment where a larger-than-life figure demonstrates power, yet maintains a humble and protective gesture cherishing a single seed, a metaphor for all of humanity. The nude angels in the background speak to the plurality and liberalism found within the Bangladeshi art community who recognizes this work as one of the country’s most iconic contributions to Bangladeshi art history. After travelling extensively as a celebrated artist both internationally and within South Asia, Sultan retreated from urban life, moving to his home village of Narail, where he founded the Shishu Shwarga art school. His devotion to rural art education has had a lasting legacy, inspiring many initiatives to promote personal growth outside of urban centres through art. Sultan’s activities highlight the importance of rural culture in the collective identity of Bangladesh. Tuan Andrew Nguyen b. 1976, Sai Gon; lives and works in Ho Chi Minh City Solidarities Between the Reincarnated , 2019 Digital pigment print on Hahnemuhle paper and graphite on paper, two-channel video Courtesy of the artist and James Cohan Gallery Solidarities Between the Reincarnated interrogates the place of the archive document in a personal re-appropriation of history at the crossroads between echoes that persist amidst institutional amnesia and gaps in transmission within collective memory. At its core, this project considers the movement of people through (post-)colonial violence and the obscuring of its legacy in the context of France’s use of colonial troops in global and colonial conflicts and of communities born from it. Tuan Andrew Nguyen offers imagination and creation as ways in which to connect the gaps and fulfil a desire for connection through imagined lines of solidarity whose absence in the historical canon are brought to clash against expanded possibilities for the means by which we can remember. Tuan Andrew Nguyen’s practice explores strategies of political resistance enacted through counter-memory and post-memory. Extracting and re-working narratives via history and supernaturalisms is an essential part of Nguyen’s video works and sculptures where fact and fiction are both held accountable. He initiated The Propeller Group (f. 2006), a platform for collectivity that situates themselves between an art collective and an advertising company. Dr. Zahia Rahmani b. 1962, Les Attouchs; lives and works in Paris and Heilles Seismography of Struggles – Towards a Global History of Critical and Cultural Journals , 2017 Video and sound installation, 59 min Courtesy of INHA, Paris Seismography of Struggle is an inventory of non-European critical and cultural journals, including those from the African, Indian, Caribbean, Asian, and South American diaspora, produced in the wake of the revolutionary movements of the end of the 18th century up to the watershed year of 1989. The sound and visual work included here reflects populations who have experienced colonialism, practices of slavery, Apartheid, and genocide. The struggle against slavery is at the root of many critical and cultural journals. Colonialism impacted the social and cultural cohesion of a number of communities and was also fought against in both writing and gesture by constantly renewing the modalities of political action. The oldest material evidence of this eminently modern exercise is L’Abeille Haytienne, a critical journal that was founded on the island of Haiti in 1817. The journal expresses the constant desire for emancipation. Christopher Columbus landed in Haiti in December 1492 and named it Hispaniola. The island later became a French territory and was renamed Dominica and, over time, more than 400,000 slaves live there and were subjected to France’s ferocious rule. C.L.R. James noted that, in 1789, this territory alone accounted for more than two-thirds of French foreign trade. In 1804, the revolt of subjugated populations gave rise to the birth of a small independent state of Haiti. Even though this cause was won, the struggles continued. For over two centuries, print media has been a space that has accommodated varied experiences. Born out of a sense of urgency in response to colonialism, journals have aligned with a critical, political, aesthetic, poetic, and literary ambitions and helped sustain graphical and scriptural creativity. They have appeared with regularity in the struggles that women and men have waged for their emancipation. Consisting of formal singularities and political objectives that support human communities and their aspirations, the journal, this fragile object, often pulled together difficult material that was motivated by noble causes and the determination of committed authors. The journal reveals a rare aesthetic power. In this all-digital era, we must re-establish and qualify its formal, aesthetic, and political function on a global scale. Zahia Rahmani is one of France’s leading art historians and writers of fiction, memoirs, and cultural criticism. Rahmani curated Made in Algeria, genealogy of a territory (2016), dedicated to the role of cartography in the colonial expansion. Rahmani founded the Global Art Prospective (f. 2015), a collective of young researchers and actors within the art scene who are specialists in non-European territorial and cultural spaces.

ALL PROJECTS STITCHING SCREENS Supporting Artistic Collaboration Across India, Bangladesh, And Digital Space Introduction The way that we engage with and interact with each other has changed drastically in 2020. While it is not currently possible to physically travel long distances and meet existing and future friends, we have suddenly transitioned into an era of unprecedented digital connectivity - where screens and telecommunications cables and satellites seem the only links to the furthest corners of the planet. Rather than simply uploading existing material online, artists are finding new ways to work and harness digital platforms. Stitching Screens is a cross-border collaboration between the Dhaka, Bangladesh based Samdani Art Foundation (SAF) and the Delhi, India based Foundation for Indian Contemporary Art (FICA), connecting patrons, curators, and artists across India and Bangladesh to commission new work born from the challenges and possibilities of an age when we connect through screens. These words by the eighteenth-century mystic poet Lalon, whose words and songs inspired countless generations of writers and singers from Rabindranath Tagore to Allen Ginsberg, prime the spirit of this project: A mirror-city is next to my house A neighbour lives there I never saw him The village is surrounded by water fathomless And no boat is available I long to see him But how can I reach that village If the neighbour would touch me Anguishes of death would disappear He and Lalon live side by side Still a million miles wide gap remains. These times have forced us to think about our common humanity. And in a time of increasing divides, SAF and FICA come together to offer a platform for artists to work across borders. We invite Indian and Bangladeshi artists to explore artistic exchanges that enliven and activate the digital universe in the current time of distance and disconnect, to initiate dialogue across borders. We are looking at art as a coming together, a productive capacity of seeking connections, intricacies, availabilities, discords, (in)coherences, continuities, disparities, seeking new initiations. The first phase included interactive sessions among 22 invited emerging practitioners from Bangladesh and India who shared their work and instigated thinking around the art of proposals and collaborative modes of making. These artists will choose a collaborator with whom to submit a proposal that actively engages with the idea of collaboration with an artist from across the border. To participate in co-creation is to become entangled, to shake up one’s habitual way of engaging with the world, catalyzing potential conversations that can be initiated between the contexts, time zones and spaces. The second phase will mobilise support and mentorship for one collaborative project by an artist duo from Bangladesh and India, selected from submitted proposals by a jury comprised of Shilpa Gupta (artist, India), Munem Wasif (artist, Bangladesh), Shanay Jhaveri (Assistant Curator, Metropolitan Museum of Art), Daniel Baumann (Director, Kunsthalle Zurich), Vidya Shivadas (FICA), and Diana Campbell Betancourt (Samdani Art Foundation). About FICA The Foundation for Indian Contemporary Art (FICA) is a non-profit organisation that aims to broaden the audience for contemporary Indian art, enhance opportunities for artists, and establish a continuous dialogue between the arts and the public through education and active participation in public art projects and funding. Encouraging, promoting and supporting innovative work in the field of the visual arts, FICA works in collaboration with, and for the benefit of the art community of students, art historians/critics/curators, collectors and art enthusiasts. It has focused on building a long term relationship with other organizations, local and international, including museums, art schools, galleries and government institutions, collaborating on regular art events, educational programs and special exhibitions, while also developing active year-long public programing with the intention of bringing contemporary art closer to its audience. About Samdani Art Foundation The Samdani Art Foundation (SAF) is a private arts trust based in Dhaka, Bangladesh founded in 2011 by collector couple Nadia and Rajeeb Samdani to support the work of the country’s contemporary artists and architects. Led by Artistic Director and Curator Diana Campbell Betancourt, SAF seeks to expand the audience engaging with contemporary art across Bangladesh and increase international exposure for the country’s artists and architects. Its programmes support Bangladeshi artists and architects in broadening their creative horizons through production grants, residencies, education programs, and exhibitions. To achieve this, SAF collaborates with the Bangladeshi government through official partnerships with the Ministry of Cultural Affairs, People’s Republic of Bangladesh, and the Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy. SAF’s motivations are articulated through a variety of initiatives, the largest being the bi-annual the Dhaka Art Summit (DAS), an international, non-commercial research and exhibition platform for art and architecture related to South Asia. With a core focus on Bangladesh, from its inception in 2012, DAS re-examines how we think about these forms of art in both a regional and an international context. SAF also supports the exhibition of Bangladeshi artists in the cases where institutions have meaningfully engaged with Bangladesh in their research about South Asia. SAF’s programme, the Samdani Artist-Led Initiatives Forum, recognises the importance of Bangladesh’s independently established and self-funded art initiatives. Supporting these initiatives’ ongoing efforts, the Forum will help each to continue their work locally while building their profile internationally through SAF’s network. Committed to increasing art-engagement in Bangladesh, SAF runs the annual Samdani Seminars, a free lecture and workshop programme that facilitates engagement between internationally renowned arts professionals and local communities across Bangladesh through participatory artworks, lectures, and workshops.

ALL PROJECTS Charcha Sessions Thakurgaon, 1 - 7 Dec 2018 The Samdani Art Foundation was delighted to partner with Samdani Artist Led Initiatives forum member Gidree Bawlee on their inaugural Charcha Sessions festival in rural Balla, Thakurgan, Bangladesh from December 1-7, 2018 as part of our annual grant program. The four artists in residence for in this inaugural session were Kamruzzaman Shadhin, Yasmin Jahan Nupur, Khandakar Nasir Ahmed and Anisuzzaman, Rubel. Learn more about this program from the text below by Salma Jamal Moushum. The ‘Charcha Sessions’ came into being to facilitate continuing collaborations between visiting artists and the artists/artisans from the village to catalyze a long-term impact on both of their practices. As an organization Gidree Bawlee's aim is to create a balance of influence in the artistic processes of the visiting artists and the community art/craft practitioners. In the future, this project will be held several times of the year to support continuous projects that will be developed by the artists, and also to encourage new experimentation in regards to community engagement. We believe these frequent sessions will help both the visiting artists and the community art practitioners to find an equal ground in their collaborative practice. The sessions will bring interested artists in short-term (or long-term) residencies, or sometimes bring together only the community practitioners working with various materials to experiment and collaborate with each other. Yasmin Jahan Nupur, Shushila Rani and Somari Rani Yasmin Jahan Nupur has been researching the traditional practices of weaving in Bangladesh for several years. In this session she continued her research and practiced with her co-artists Shushila Rani and Somari Rani. Exploring the relationship of women's body to the waist loom while weaving, the artists experimented and attempted to push the boundaries of traditional jute weaving with backstrap looms. This is an ongoing project with learning and experimentation continuing past the residency. Kamruzzaman Shadhin and Prodip Roy Kamruzzaman Shadhin's interest in the traditional crafts of the region and their underlying history and relationship with communities has been a major part of his artistic research and journey. Shadhin and Prodip Roy have been working together for the last several years experimenting with various methods and techniques of bamboo craft. In this session, the artists worked together to transfer the brush strokes from an action painting by Shadhin into a bamboo canvas using traditional bamboo bending methods that Prodip specializes in. The bamboo platform was installed as part of the ceiling of a room of the residency. This is an on-going, process-driven collaborative experiment which will continue in the years to come. Nasir Ahammed, Shariful Islam and Shubesh Barman In his previous visit, Nasir Ahammed in collaboration with bamboo craftsmen from the community, experimented with bamboo twigs creating a large installation in collaboration with the bamboo craftsmen of the village. This time Nasir and his co-artists Shariful Islam and Shubesh Barman used dry branches and twigs and straw which were abundant due to the harvest season and created a dome-like structure which was installed in various spaces around the community. The experimentation will continue as the artists plan on more future explorations with bamboo twigs. Anisuzzaman Rubel, Chandra Kumar and community children Rubel, a recent graduate from the department of sculpture at Dhaka University, collaborated with Chandra Kumar, a clay artisan specialized in idol making. Combining both of their creativity and technique they experimented with clay, straw and bamboo which to create a shade providing sculpture beside a pond. The artists have plans to expand their experiment further in the next visits.

ALL PROJECTS Sean Anderson: A Talk about Moma’s Young Architects Program around the world EMK Center, Dhaka, 27 April 2017 Dhaka Art Summit 2018 Fellow Sean Anderson spoke about MOMA's Young Architects Program that takes place around the world at the EMK Centre. SEAN ANDERSON Sean Anderson is Associate Curator in the Department of Architecture and Design at The Museum of Modern Art, New York. A Fellow of the American Academy in Rome and the Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa, he received two degrees in architectural design and architectural history from Cornell University, an M. Arch from Princeton University and a Ph.D in art history from the University of California, Los Angeles. He has practiced as an architect and taught in Afghanistan, Australia, India, Italy, Morocco, Sri Lanka and the U.A.E. His book, Modern Architecture and its Representation in Colonial Eritrea was published in 2015 and was a finalist for the AIFC Bridge Book Award for Non-Fiction.

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

ALL PROJECTS Geological Movements Curated by Diana Campbell We may think of ‘land’ as fixed but it is constantly shifting: below us through erosion, volcanic eruptions, and earthquakes; swirling above us as dust clouds. The earliest signs of life, the impetus of cellular movement, as well as aeons of extinction are inscribed in stone and fossils. Fossil fuels, created from the remains of life from the deep geological past, power much of our way of life and threaten our collective future through the violent process of extracting and burning them. Geological and political ruptures often overlap, and the artists in this movement excavate metaphors to consider our past, present, and future on this planet beyond human-bound paradigms. Their works challenge us to find commonalities and to emerge from this sediment to heal, imagine, design, and build new forms of togetherness. What will coalesce and fossilise our presence on this planet for lifetimes to come? Adrián Villar Rojas New Mutants, 2017–2020 Moroccan marble floor tiles encrusted with Devonian period micro Ammonite and Goniatites fossils; blue chroma key paint; spices (turmeric, chili powder, garam masala powder); plant-based pigments (indigo, sindoor, alta), gouache; sand; potatoes and coal, on aggregate rammed earth walls Commissioned and produced by Samdani Art Foundation for DAS 2020 Courtesy of the artist, Samdani Art Foundation, Marian Goodman Gallery, and kurimanzutto Realised with additional support from kurimanzutto and Marian Goodman Gallery New Mutants is a new immersive installation by Adrián Villar Rojas where visitors enter DAS by walking over a marble floor encrusted with 400-million-year-old ammonite and orthoceras fossils. These now-extinct species of undersea creatures thrived for 300 million years, swimming across the super-ocean Panthalassa and witnessing the creation and breakup of the single continent Pangaea. A painting of a burned-out fireplace emerges from the rammed-earth walls that rise from the fossil floor, tracing the seismic shift that occurred in the evolution of humanity and our planet when we learned to control fire, invented agriculture, and began to settle and build civilisations. This work serves as a metaphor to think outside of human-bound time, and to consider common ground on which to come together. Villar Rojas creates site-specific installations using both organic and inorganic materials that undergo change over time. Tied to their exhibiting context, they generate irreproducible experiences relying on a ‘parasite-host’ relation. His team-based projects that extend over open-ended periods allow him to question the aftermath of the normalised production of art in the Capitalocene era. Fragments of this installation will be permanently on display at Srihatta, the Samdani Art Centre and Sculpture Park in Sylhet in a dedicated pavilion designed by the artist. b. 1980, Argentina; lives and works nomadically Elena Damiani As the dust settles, 2019–2020 Watercolour on handmade Lokta Barbour grey paper. Commissioned for DAS 2020 Courtesy of the artist and Revolver Gallery ‘There is a strange sympathy between the atmospheric particles that float through the sky and the human beings who migrate across the ground and then across the sea. Each body sets the other into motion – a pattern of movement and countermovement.’ Adrian Lahoud Elena Damiani has created a collage of watercolour renditions of storming dust particles in the atmosphere as captured by NASA. Several hundred million tonnes of dust unsettle and travel through the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans from deserts to the Caribbean, Central America, and South America. We imagine land to be static, but deforestation, desertification, and climate-change-related storms distribute dust across vast distances in our planet’s atmosphere. The handmade Nepalese paper beneath the layers of paint making up this work is a surface that could be read as stone tiles, an aerial view of a desert, or even a microscopic view of human skin. Damiani creates installations, objects, and works on paper that focus on the politics of space and memory. She portrays landscapes and geological processes to reinterpret natural stages and their generative processes. Her work draws inspiration from collage techniques and historical science books, while the stone and metal in her sculptures recall the environments she studies and refracts. b. 1979, Lima; lives and works in Lima Jonathas de Andrade b. 1982, Maceió; lives and works in Recife Pacifico, 2010 Super8 transferred in HD, 12 min Courtesy of the artist and Vermelho Through the process of animating a styrofoam board model with maps and paper, Jonathas de Andrade proposes a fictional geological solution for the political turmoil and violence that normally accompanies changes of borders. A massive earthquake erupts over the Andes, detaching Chile from the South American continent. As a consequence, the sea returns to Bolivia, restoring its lost coastline, Argentina gains coasts with both the Pacific and the Atlantic oceans, and Chile becomes a floating island adrift in the seas. The aesthetic approach of the film allows the artist to touch upon topics such as the notion of truth as an ideological construction and the fabrication of mass commotion/emotion as political artifice. De Andrade works predominantly with installations, videos, and photo-research. Addressing those overlooked in the dominant cultural narrative of Brazil, the artist ponders on the relationships between different social milieus. In collaboration with labourers, indigenous tribes, the disabled, and others, de Andrade commonly points out the inequality stemming from the discourses of colonialism and neo-imperialism. The artist co-founded the artistic collective A Casa como Convém in 2007. Karan Shrestha b. 1985, Kathmandu; lives and works between Kathmandu and Mumbai in these folds, 2019 Ink on paper, three-channel HD video Commissioned for DAS 2020 Courtesy of the artist Within Nepal’s contained geography, the landscape presents possibilities for adversity to spring from any fissure: be it a decade of revolutionary upheaval, political instability, natural disasters, economic ruptures, repressed social edifices, or perpetual state violence. Through the installation of a three-channel video and an ink drawing, in these folds addresses the resulting precariousness that has characterised Nepal’s recent past. Incorporating documentary and fiction, Karan Shreshta questions the rhetoric of progress prescribed for paving the way forward and considers how transcendental practices that have endured over time are attempts at grappling with the everyday. Shrestha’s works overlay encounters in physical landscapes on mental maps of people and spaces he comes across so as to examine and restructure notions of the present. His practice – incorporating drawings, sculpture, photography, text, film, and video – seeks to blur the oppositions that build and define our individual and collective identities. Matías Duville b. 1974, Buenos Aires; lives and works in Buenos Aires Untitled, 2019 Sanguine on paper My red way, 2019 Sanguine on paper Levitating in red, 2019 Sanguine on paper, sandpaper Courtesy of the artist and Barro Gallery Matías Duville’s earthy mud and iron-oxide-infused sanguine drawings call to mind landscapes in transition from natural disasters and also from human interference from the extraction and clearing processes needed for infrastructure development. Similar to these methods, Duville’s drawings pulse with expressive brutality, trying to represent what the end of the world might look like both in a geographical and psychological sense. These works are inspired by the mental landscapes that are created inside our heads when we look directly at the sun and close our eyes to recover from its blinding light. The artist takes us along on his journey deep into the mind, trying to connect us with the idea of a universe out of control. Duville works with objects, videos, and installations, although he predominantly employs drawing. His works evoke scenes of desolation with rarified, timeless atmospheres like those that precede a natural disaster: hurricanes, tsunamis, or situations of abandonment in the forest that act as a dreamlike vision of a wandering explorer, like a mental landscape. Omer Wasim b. 1988, Karachi; lives and works in Karachi In the Heart of Mountains, 2019 Charcoal on canvas, lacquer, wooden armatures Commissioned for DAS 2020 Courtesy of the artist In the Heart of Mountains situates us amidst Omer Wasim’s journey in the mountains of the Gilgit-Baltistan region of Pakistan, a contested terrain that he scaled with queer friends and friendships. The work, as well as his action, denounces romantic visions and imaginaries of the area perpetuated by the state, and instead relies on charcoal to make visible the mountains as witnesses to state violence, colonial and neo-colonial rule, and as sites where many death-worlds arise. These mountains anticipate their own demise, foreshadowing capital interests in the region that are in diametric opposition to nature, ecology, and people. Queer bodies and community enable this mode of inquiry, becoming, in the process, insurgents that counter state-sponsored redaction and violence. While it also stands alone as an installation, the work also becomes an environment for new readings into the future. Wasim is an intermedia artist whose practice queers space, subverting the frames of development and progress that shape human relationships to the city and nature. His work bears witness to the relentless erasure, violence, destruction of our times by staying with queer bodies as they hold space and enact desire. Otobong Nkanga b. 1974, Kano; lives and works in Antwerp Landversation, 2020 Site-specific installation and conversations from Dhaka Commissioned and produced by Samdani Art Foundation for DAS 2020. Courtesy of the artist, Samdani Art Foundation, and Mendes Wood DM. Realised with additional support from Unilever Bangladesh. Project coordinator Helena Ramos Land extends beyond mere soil, territories, and earth. It relates to our connectivity and conflicts in relation to the spaces we live in and how humans try to find solutions through simple gestures of innovation and repair. As relationships with nature and people become affected, how can we find a platform to share, learn, exchange and heal? A series of tables forming a circular structure serve as the basis for an exchange between visitors and a group of people who all have close – professional, caring, vital – relationships with the earth. Otobong Nkanga weaves together strands of landversations realised in Beirut, Shanghai, and São Paulo in this project’s newest iteration in Dhaka, and her collaborators have included geologists, housing and land rights activists, farmers, and many others who transform the land itself into other realities. What is ordinarily constructed through their contact with land now forms the foundation for new situations of exchange and transmission, activating interpersonal networks that come together in DAS with the power to move the world outside the exhibition. Nkanga’s drawings, installations, photographs, sculptures and performances examine the social and topographical relationship to our everyday environment. By exploring the notion of land as a place of non-belonging, Nkanga provides an alternative meaning to the social ideas of identity. Paradoxically, she brings to light the memories and historical impacts provoked by humans and nature. Raphael Hefti b. 1978, Biel; lives and works in Zurich Quick Fix Remix, 2015/2020 Sculptures created from performance with thermite powder and sand Courtesy of the artist. Realised with additional support from Pro Helvetia Raphael Hefti uses the language of material to communicate a fascination with the behaviour of liquid metals, a material history which is part of the epic story of human civilisation across vast geographies. This performance, a spectacle between blunder and precision, is a conversation with the world of heavy industries and iron casting. The artist misappropriates thermite welding processes typically used to repair high-speed train tracks, transforming liquid steel through a blazing landscape of incisions that leaves behind a bed of solidified metal debris. Just as volcanic eruptions make visible the hidden energy properties of the molten rock and liquid metal moving deep within the earth, Hefti’s ‘artistic alchemy’ makes visible the hidden industrial practices and processes that form the machine-made landscapes powering our way of life. Working across sculpture, installation, painting, photography, and performance, Raphael Hefti explores how humans transform materials in the everyday urban landscape by pushing and testing material limits, while removing these materials from utilitarian obligations. He often works with teams of industry technicians to modify and misapply routine procedures and construction methods to open up new possibilities and unexpected beauty through guided accidents that he documents in his work.

ALL PROJECTS A BEAST, A GOD, AND A LINE | TS1 YANGON CURATED BY COSMIN COSTINAS 6-24 JUNE 2018 | TS1, YANGON Dhaka Art Summit 2018 exhibition, A beast, a god, and a line travelled to TS1 in Yangon for its third iteration, featuring many works commissioned by the Samdani Art Foundation as part of the exhibition's 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. Installation image of A beast, a god, and a line at TS1, Yangon. Courtesy of TS1. Photo credit: Pyinsa Rasa.

Nadia Samdani MBE 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, together with her 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, they founded DAS, which has since completed six 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, a member of Asia Society’s Advisory Committee, a member of Delfina Foundation’s Global Council, a member of Art SG, also a member of Art Basel Global Patrons Council and a Programming Committee advisory member of Whitechapel Gallery, and advisory board member of Neela Asmaan Residency. 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 in 2023. Since 2015 she has been on the ArtReview Power 100 list, recognizing her contribution to developing the art scene of Bangladesh and connecting it with the wider world. 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. 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 whose work supports artists, architects, and designers from around the world to develop new work that challenges existing dominant geopolitical frameworks. Institution building and creating forums for interdisciplinary cultural convenings are a core part of her curatorial practice, which builds off of her life experiences working in South and Southeast Asia. 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 critically acclaimed 2014-2023 editions. 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 from across South Asia through a largely commission-based model where new work and exhibitions are born in Bangladesh, also adding a scholarly element to the platform as well as laboratories for new methodologies of audience engagement. In addition to her exhibitions making practice, Campbell is responsible for developing the Samdani Art Foundation collection and drives its international collaborations ahead of opening the foundation’s permanent home, Srihatta, the Samdani Art Centre and Sculpture Park in Sylhet, Bangladesh. Campbell’s practice specializes in building and amplifying networks. Concurrent to her work with Samdani Art Foundation and Dhaka Art Summit, she is Head of Global Initiatives of the Hartwig Art Foundation in Amsterdam working on expanded notions of collecting, commissioning and collaborating, and is also part of the facilitation group of AFIELD, a global network of socially engaged artistic initiatives. She has curated exhibitions in Austria, Bangladesh, Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, the Philippines, the United Arab Emirates, and the United States of America, and her writing has been published in Bangla, Chinese, English, German, Portuguese, and Spanish. 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. Ruxmini Reckvana Q Choudhury CURATOR Ruxmini Choudhury is a curator, art writer, researcher, and bilingual translator based in Dhaka, Bangladesh. She has been working as a Curator of the Samdani Art Foundation and has been part of the core curatorial team 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 was one of the participants of MAHASSA in 2019-20 and a CIMAM Grantee for the 2023 conference. 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 center. 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. Swilin Haque CURATORIAL ASSISTANT Swilin Haque is an art researcher based in Dhaka, Bangladesh. She joined the Samdani Art Foundation in 2022 as a Curatorial Assistant, where she works closely with the Artistic Director and curatorial team on exhibition research, artist liaison, and production coordination. Her work spans year-round research support for collaborative projects at the Foundation and its permanent home, Srihatta–Samdani Art Centre and Sculpture Park, assisting visiting curators and artists, and contributing to the Foundation’s digital and institutional infrastructure, including the care of its collection. Trained in painting at the University of Dhaka, she continues to maintain an engagement with artistic practice. She completed her postgraduate studies in Art History and Aesthetics at The Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda with the support of an ICCR scholarship, with a particular interest in political discourses found in art history. Swilin founded the Whoyait Art Space platform, through which she has organized several independent art initiatives and online talk programs between Bangladesh and India, with a focus on performance-based practices. Currently, she contributes to the Foundation’s research and archival development as part of Asia Art Archive’s “Archiving for the Future” workshop. Chloe Ysikl Yano COMMUNICATIONS SPECIALIST Chloe Ysikl Yano is the Communications Manager at the Samdani Art Foundation. She is from the island of Palau (Belau) located in the Oceania region. After returning to Belau in 2018 after completing her degree in International Business and Trade in Taiwan, she began her career working with cultural tourism and marketing in the government with the Palau Visitors Authority. The year after, she co-founded Create Belau, an artist and curator-led platform to encourage, inspire and echo the voices of artists from Belau and its diaspora. Meet The Team