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.

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

Samdani Art Foundation (SAF) has been collaborating with artists, architects, curators, writers, and thinkers to shift how culture is experienced around the world by creating opportunities for profound encounters with Bangladesh. PARTNERS TEAM Our Story Founded in 2011 by collector couple Nadia and Rajeeb Samdani, Samdani Art Foundation (SAF) has been collaborating with artists, architects, curators, writers, and thinkers to shift how culture is experienced around the world by creating opportunities for profound encounters with Bangladesh. The foundation has developed and continues to produce the Dhaka Art Summit, the world’s highest daily visited contemporary art event that is now entering its seventh edition, expanding the audience engaging with contemporary art across Bangladesh and increasing international exposure for artistic practices that do not lie within the “art capitals of the world” or which have not yet been written into the limited canon of art history. SAF has collaborated with institutions on every continent in unique and meaningful ways; from producing a symposium on collective practices with RAW Material Company from Senegal; being a research partner for the Asia Pacific Triennial in Australia and contributing to the first time Bangladeshi artists were exhibited and collected by QAGOMA; curating and producing the first work of Bangladeshi contemporary art to be collected and exhibited at Tate Modern by Yasmin Jahan Nupur, commissioning and producing the touring exhibition A Beast a God and a Line curated by Cosmin Costinas which was born in Dhaka and traveled to Myanmar, Hong Kong, Thailand, Norway, and Poland, to donating a Rashid Choudhury tapestry to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the first time that this important master of Modern South Asian art history has had a major institutional presence in the United States, to lending to the 35th Sao Paulo Biennale in Brazil, to being a partner of Documenta 14 and Documenta 15 in their meaningful presentations of Bangladeshi art, among many other examples, SAF takes pride in its role of furthering the reach of what it does in Bangladesh to the rest of the world. You can learn more about SAF’s many collaborations here . Samdani Art Foundation (SAF) has been collaborating with artists, architects, curators, writers, and thinkers to shift how culture is experienced around the world by creating opportunities for profound encounters with Bangladesh. SAF believes that the planet has much to learn from Bangladesh and South Asia, and its international collaborations (which know no geographic borders) seek to expand creative horizons and collapse outdated frameworks for considering art and culture within the limited frameworks of North American and Eurocentrism. As a non-commercial research and exhibition platform for art and architecture related to South Asia, DAS rejects the traditional biennale format to create a more generative space for art and exchange that re-examines how we think about these art forms in a regional and wider context. It supports curators from all over the world at key moments in their careers to ground their thinking with working experience in Bangladesh, to learn new ways of exhibition making that can engage with both specialists and visitors who are new to contemporary art. It also supports scholars to consider art histories that do not take Europe and North America as the central point of comparison, as evidenced by MAHASSA, a major collaboration with the Getty Foundation, Asia Art Archive, and Cornell University’s Institute for Comparative Modernities. All of SAF’s education and exhibition programs are free and ticketless, and the foundation supports the production of new thinking through residencies, exhibition opportunities, and other programs that it produces with its partners. While it is an independent organization, 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 which allows it to extend the reach of its programs widely in the country. Dhaka Art Summit EXPLORE The bi-annual Samdani Art Award, organized in partnership with the Delfina Foundation, has created an internationally recognized platform to showcase the work of young Bangladeshi artists to an international audience at the Dhaka Art Summit. Over 70 emerging Bangladeshi artists have had the opportunity to work with an international curator, often for the first time, and have feedback from an international jury to support their creative development, and most of these artists have had international exhibition opportunities resulting from this mentorship and exposure. While it is not a funding body, many emerging Bangladeshi and Bangladeshi diaspora artists such as Ayesha Sultana, Munem Wasif, Naeem Mohaiemen, Rana Begum, and many others have had their early major institutional presentations supported through SAF’s partnership. Awards & Initiatives Faysal Zaman, (অ )পূর্ণ, (un)filled, 2021-2023. Installation. Photographer: Farhad Rahman AWARDS PROJECTS A permanent home for the collection is currently in development: Srihatta – Samdani Art Centre and Sculpture Park will open in 2025, designed by Dhaka-based, Aga Khan Award for Architecture-winning architect, Kashef Mahboob Chowdhury of URBANA. Located in Sylhet, Bangladesh, Srihatta will house the Samdani Art Foundation Collection, accommodate space for up to ten artists in residence, and commission new works by world-class South Asian and international artists. Opening up new possibilities for art and community engagement in rural Bangladesh and raising standards for the public accessibility of institutions in South Asia, the first project realised on this site is Rokeya – an interactive sculpture created in collaboration with the local community by leading Polish artist Paweł Althamer in early 2017. Ephemeral projects such as these remain in public memory, and serve the basis for a new kind of sculpture park that is less about object making, and more about ritual, community, and climate. SAF Collection

ALL PROJECTS Talks Programme Dhaka Art Summit 2023 https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PLpE5N73vV6zDuO7erQ2fyBY4VQk6FcYEe&v=k75XZ_3YWA0 Bonna And Her Sisters Discuss Names, Collaboration, And Institutional Relevance In A Newly Born World The opening panel brought Bonna together with her sisters, those from Natasha at Singapore Biennale, EVA of Ireland’s Biennial, and Melly of Kunstinstitut Melly in the Netherlands together in conversation as sisters who consider the shift in how they see themselves as institutions and exhibition platforms, learning and unlearning how to be relevant in a world that shifted seismically since the closing of DAS 2020, especially in the wake of climate catastrophes pummeling the planet. Binna Choi (Natasha, Singapore Biennale, and CASCO in Utrecht), Diana Campbell (Bonna; Dhaka Art Summit), Sebastian Cichocki (EVA International, Ireland’s Biennial, and the Museum of Modern art in Warsaw), Vivian Ziherl (Kunstinstitut Melly, formerly Witte de With). Venue: Auditorium, Dhaka Art Summit, National Art Gallery, Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy Time: 2pm Date: 3rd February 2023 https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PLpE5N73vV6zDuO7erQ2fyBY4VQk6FcYEe&v=LfGN_Ftw11s The Power Of Orality; Lore, The Loristic, And Living Memory Introduced by Sharlina Hussain-Morgan Cultural Attaché, U.S. Embassy Dhaka Foregrounding the spoken word and the auditory over the written, this panel engages with the oral as a vast resource holding together the folk and indigenous cultural expressions and way of life. As community scholars, folklorists, oral discourse experts, and writers embedded in the retellings of the folk, the invited speakers address different aspects of oral/oralities, its joys, performativity and form of instituting knowledge and transference from one body to another. This first gathering is organized as part of Transcultural Folklore Research Forum, a parallel appendage to Very Small Feelings. Esther Syiem (North-Eastern Hill University, Shillong), Kanak Chanpa Chakma (Artist, Rangamati), Mohammad Rezuwan (Folklorist and Writer, Cox’s Bazaar), Michael Bevacqua (University of Guam, Guam Museum), Somi Roy (Culture Conservationist, Writer and Translator, Manipur). Venue: Auditorium, Dhaka Art Summit, National Art Gallery, Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy Time: 5 pm Date: 3rd February, 2023 https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PLpE5N73vV6zDuO7erQ2fyBY4VQk6FcYEe&v=kKJq5HA8DCI Srihatta In Sylhet, A Journey From An Idea To A Context, To A Building, Towards An Institution The Samdani Art Foundation shared inspiration and details of its soon to be open first permanent art center in Sylhet, Bangladesh, slated for January 2024. Kashef Mahboob Chowdhury (URBANA), Diana Campbell (Samdani Art Foundation), and Nadia Samdani (Samdani Art Foundation) with Beatrix Ruf (Hartwig Art Foundation) Venue: Auditorium, Dhaka Art Summit, National Art Gallery, Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy Time: 2pm Date: 4th February 2023 https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PLpE5N73vV6zDuO7erQ2fyBY4VQk6FcYEe&v=kmZ4Ia5OJR0 On Making Sculptures And Buildings Dance This panel brought together practitioners who tend to be defined as sculptor, theater practitioner, architect, artist, and curator, but whose practices confound categorization. Dancing across disciplines, they discussed their DAS commissions and their ongoing collaborative work which seeks to expand the reach of what art can be in life. Antony Gormley, Miet Warlop, Suchi Reddy, Sumayya Vally, Yasmin Jahan Nupur with Diana Campbell Venue: Auditorium, Dhaka Art Summit, National Art Gallery, Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy Time: 3:30pm Date: 4th February, 2023 https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PLpE5N73vV6zDuO7erQ2fyBY4VQk6FcYEe&v=NXwF220bV48 Artistic Pedagogies This panel brought together artistic practices that lie at the intersection of community engagement and experimental pedagogy, creatively filling in for the infrastructural, social and ecological gaps that alienate large numbers of communities and groups from access to education and learning. Panelists addressed the role and power of facilitation, the economy of sources and resources in spaces/contexts of abundance and scarcity. Ahmet Öğüt, Anga Art Collective, Ashfika Rahman, Lokesh Khodke, Marzia Farhana, moderated by Akansha Rastogi The panel was supported by Goethe Institut Dhaka Venue: Auditorium, Dhaka Art Summit, National Art Gallery, Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy Time: 11 am Date: 5th February, 2023 https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PLpE5N73vV6zDuO7erQ2fyBY4VQk6FcYEe&v=irRf9wH58Jc Padma Book Launch With Kazi Khaled Ashraf The session launches the new book The Great Padma: The River that Made the Bengal Delta, and discusses the river as an existential phenomenon in the life of Bengal. The Padma draws us to the ancient reservoir of our existence; it is the very theater of the creation of land and life. Often called Kirtinasha, the destroyer of human glories, the Padma has also gifted the land that makes the Bengal Delta exist in a perpetual dynamic of flow and overflow, and accretion and erosion. Edited by Kazi Khaleed Ashraf, with a preface by Amitav Ghosh, the book The Great Padma reveals the magnificence and diversity of the great river, assembling historians, geographers, anthropologists, architects, photographers, and people from other cultural disciplines to tell the monumental story of the Padma. Kazi Khaleed Ashraf in discussion with Arijit Chatterjee, Syed Manzoorul Islam, David Ludden, and Parsa Sanjana Sajid Venue: Auditorium, Dhaka Art Summit, National Art Gallery, Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy Time: 2 pm Date: 5th February, 2023 https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PLpE5N73vV6zDuO7erQ2fyBY4VQk6FcYEe&v=4yJMjCaO8Qc Living In Impermanence: Designing Spaces In A Refugee Response Life in a refugee camp is often seen as an impermanent thing, where in reality it actually becomes a big part of a person living as a refugee’s life. An inclusive and healthy environment in a camp is thus very important for the well- being of both the displaced and host communities. From 2018 to 2022, working with the Rohingya refugees as well as the surrounding Bangladeshi hosting communities in the Ukhiya-Teknaf area, has never been about one particular space, but rather about collaborating together in a crisis situation to overcome unexpected challenges over time. Khwaja Fatmi, Rizvi Hassan, moderated by Shahirah Majumdar Venue: Auditorium, Dhaka Art Summit, National Art Gallery, Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy Time: 7 pm Date: 5th February, 2023 https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=UULF-duNdwn9I0FUTz9_WK0J4Q&v=qz5-RouVMBA The Duality Of The Delta Diverse life experiences manifest in our deep sensory connections with the environment. While communal resilience enables people to be one with their land, activism reinforces shared and proactive practices. An Ornithologist, Advocate, Community Architect, Artist and AN Environmental Economist will engage in collective storytelling to expand micro and macro details of their shared journeys to evoke varied insights, and elaborate on the tremendous creative opportunities we have to contribute to a better environment. Bishwajit Goswami, Enam Ul Haque, Khondaker Hasibul Kabir, Shouro Dasgupta, Syeda Rizwana Hasan, moderated by Huraera Jabeen Venue: Auditorium, Dhaka Art Summit, National Art Gallery, Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy Time: 5:30pm Date: 10th February, 2023 https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PLpE5N73vV6zDuO7erQ2fyBY4VQk6FcYEe&v=Z_KVYjATvxs ON GATHERING by Nikima Jagudajev In collaboration with WIELS in Brussels, Nikima Jagudajev is developing work inspired by how people gather in Bangladesh in Dhaka Art Summit, and this talk will delve into their experience interacting with the visitors and watching visitors interact with each other during the Summit. Jagudajev's process based collaborative practice looks at social forms; social relations as spatial relations and how we assemble in fulfilling and considerate ways. Harnessing the choreography of play as a framework, performers (Conduit) and visitors (Arrivor) are incorporated into an open-ended game. World building is aided by a group of artists who shape the playground with elements such as live music, food, a deck of collectable cards, secrets and nonlinear dance choreographies that fold in on themselves like portals through time. These elements work as informal invitations to engage in different ways, shifting attention and offering agency and ontological transformation. Like 3-dimensional Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPG) this mythopoeic world is both serious and playful, enchanted with meaning and full of mods. One’s experience is determined by the games’ formal properties as well as the interaction of various interpreting subjectivities. Nikima Jagudajev, Helena Kritis and Ruxmini Reckvana Q Choudhury Venue: Auditorium, Dhaka Art Summit, National Art Gallery, Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy Time: 5 PM Date: 11th February 2023

ALL PROJECTS Art Mediation Programme 2023 Dhaka Art Summit The 2023 Art Mediation Programme, led by Ruxmini Reckvana Q Choudhury and assisted by Swilin Haque, was a remarkable success. Artist, art educator, and art mediator Tarana Halim played a pivotal role in managing the programme, which brought together an impressive team of 123 skilled art mediators. With an audience exceeding half a million over the course of just nine days, the mediators expertly guided visitors through a vibrant and inclusive Dhaka Art Summit experience. Their efforts ensured that the diverse range of activities offered at the summit was accessible, engaging, and enriching for all attendees.

ALL PROJECTS Visas to Happiness- Children's Workshop The children’s workshop 'Visas to Happiness' conceptualised by Mumbai-based artist Reena Saini-Kallat is primarily an instrument to spark dialogue and raise questions related to the notion of happiness and how we view the world. There is increasing political interest in using measures of happiness as a national indicator in conjunction with measures of wealth, and findings suggest that smaller countries tend to be a little happier because there is a stronger sense of collectivism. However, Bangladesh has recently slipped behind in its rankings on happiness. This workshop is the third in the series of short courses that were previously held in Chennai and Mumbai and involve specially produced mock-passports and arrival cards. The passports can be filled-in by children who bring their own understanding to the project from their personal and cultural values. As part of the project, Kallat, along with the children, will paint two ambitious murals with a large number of birds collectively forming a text in both English and Bengali, reflecting ideas about movement, flight and freedom. The text reads, “Happiness is not a station you arrive at but a manner of travelling.” Image: Reena Kallat, Visas To Happiness, Children’s Programme, 2014. Courtesy of the artist, the Dhaka Art Summit and the Samdani Art Foundation.

ALL PROJECTS Liberty Curated by Md. Muniruzzaman assisted by Takir Hossain This exhibition articulates a wide range of emotions and helps visualise freedom, sovereignty and free thought. Liberty -- its analytical significance -- is very much connected to the political, social and economic context of Bangladesh. Since the birth of the country, the people of the state have experienced political turmoil, religious bigotry and natural catastrophe. The people of the country lost their freedom in different periods for varied reasons. Freedom is the birthright of a man. However, we had to suffer under the shackles of slavery for long 200 years under the British colonial rule and about 25 years under the savage domination of the Pakistani rulers. Pakistani rulers treated the Bangalees with very brutal and malicious attitude. An excessive inequality was created by them in the different spheres of national life. These were made simultaneously in political, economical, social and cultural spheres. This exploitation by the Pakistani rulers caused bitterness among the Bangalees. Consequently, at one time, Bangalees crossed the limits of their patience and revolted against the Pakistani rulers. At last, the nation got freedom and relished liberty. Afterwards, the state faced several dilemmas in different phases. Specially, the artists of the country engaged themselves when the country faced any crisis. Their canvases always liberally express their thoughts, common people’s rights, and were in favour of establishing democracy and secularism in our society. The exhibition provides a chronological feature of Bangladeshi contemporary art. The show highlights the wide range of subjects but the theme of the exhibition --- “Liberty” --- is the focal point. The exhibition features several styles of different generations of painters in the country. The styles can be categorised as realistic, semi-realistic, abstract expressionism, abstract impressionism, symbolism, figurative, neo-expressionism, photo realism and more. To maintain individual languages, the painters depict rustic scenic beauty and untainted river and pastoral life, river erosion, daily chores of varied occupations, surrounding atmospheres, social and political crises, folk tradition, urban and rural life and more. A number of painters have concentrated on pure form, composition and architectural lines and texture. The exhibition includes the artworks of the first generation of artists in the country. A few of them were directly involved with the establishment of the first art college of the country in Dhaka in 1948. The exhibition also comprised of the artworks of the painters who first went abroad to take higher education on their preferred fields in the mid 1960s. During that time, these groups of painters were greatly influenced by abstract expressionism, lyrical abstraction, pure abstraction and non-figuration. This time, artists concentrated on textures, forms, tones, especially they concentrated more on technical aspects. Though the movement of the sixties was heavily influenced by internationally prominent Abstract Expressionists like Mark Rothko, Barnett Newman, Franz Kline and Adolph Gottlieb, it paved the way towards liberalisation. Thus the present accomplishments of Bangladesh’s art owes a lot to the liberalisation. The exhibition also includes the artists of the ‘70s, ‘80s and early ‘90s generations. The 1970s and 1980s were very significant times for the painters of our country. These generations of painters went through political turmoil and most of them were regarded as socially aware painters. It is also very noticeable that after independence, another transformation happened in our art arena. Painters felt free and their artistic creativities flowered. During the time a number of painters went for higher training in different parts of the world. Some stayed there permanently and tried to establish themselves in the new horizon. Their works are also included in the exhibition and some of these paintings highlight the blending of West and East art. Most of these works are colour and composition based. The exhibition also includes the artworks of leading painters of early ‘90s. Their works are experimental in terms of line, form and space. Textural intensity is also emphasised in several painters’ works in the exhibition. Their working styles are bold, thought-provoking and their themes clearly reflect our political instability, religious intolerance, economic hardship and social discrimination. Takir Hossain Artists Abdul Manan Abdus Shakoor Shah Syed Abul Barq Alvi Ahmed Nazir Ahmed Shamsuddoha Anisuzzaman Atia islam Anne Chandra Shekhar Dey Farida Zaman Golam Faruque Bebul Hamiduzzaman Khan Hritendera Kumar Sharma Jamal Ahmed K. M. A. Quayyum Kalidas Karmakar Maksuda Iqbal Nipa Mohammad Eunus Monsur Ul Karim Nasim Ahmed Nadvi Nazlee Laila Mansur Nisar Hossain Ranjit Das Rashid Amin Samarjit Roy Chowdhury Sheikh Afzal Hossain Sawpan Chowdhury Tasadduk Hossain Dulu Kanak Chanpa Chakma Khalid Mahmood Mithu Nasreen Begum Syed Jahangir Monirul Islam Sahid Kabir Rokeya Sultana Abu Taher Mohammad Iqbal Biren Shome Mostafizul Haque Saidul Haque Juise Shahabuddin Ahmed Aloptogin Tushar Shishir Bhattacharjee Zahura Sultana Hossain Wakilur Rahman

ALL PROJECTS Pasar Ilmu, Activation Programme by Gudskul Goethe Institut Auditorium, Dhaka, 5 Aug 2019 (It is to invent a learning space in where people participate in deciding what’s needed and learning material.)

ALL PROJECTS Raqib Shaw: Whitworth Art Gallery Co-Curated By Diana Campbell Betancourt, Chief Curator Of Dhaka Art Summit And Artistic Director Of Samdani Art Foundation, Dr Maria Balshaw, Director Of Tate, And The Artist, As Part Of The New North And South, A Network Of Eleven Arts Organisations From Across South Asia And The North Of England In A Three-Year Programme Of Co-Commissions, Exhibitions And Intellectual Exchanges A solo exhibition by contemporary artist Raqib Shaw at Whitworth Gallery, Manchester from 24 June- 19 November, 2017 which examined the real and imagined spaces between the East and West. Shaw ’s opulent paintings of fantastical worlds were combined with historic textiles, furniture and drawings from the Whitworth's collection. The exhibition takes the form of an installation, drawing on influences of renaissance and baroque imagery, combined with theatrical extravagance, nature and poetry, to echo the mythic space Shaw creates in his paintings. New wallpaper designed by Shaw, commissioned specially for the exhibition, created an extraordinary backdrop for his work. The exhibition was reimagined for the South Asian context, during the Dhaka Art Summit 2018. A new network of eleven arts organisations from across the North of England and South Asia announced a three-year programme of co-commissions, exhibitions and intellectual exchange to celebrate shared heritage across continents and develop artistic talent. The New North and South network, supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England’s Ambition for Excellence programme, will bring prominence to the work of leading Bangladeshi, Indian, Pakistani, Sri Lankan and UK artists and include new artistic commissions, exhibitions and performances in Manchester, Leeds and Liverpool and in Colombo, Dhaka, Lahore, Karachi and Kochi.

ALL PROJECTS Sebastian Cichocki: Art in Post Artistic (and Post Democratic) Times National Art Gallery, Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy, 19 February 2017 Art in Postartistic (and Postdemocratic) Times Seminar with Sebastian Cichocki, Samdani Seminars 2017. Courtesy of the Samdani Art Foundation. Photo credit: Noor Photoface. This project is supported by the Asia-Europe Foundation (ASEF) and Arts Network Asia (ANA). This project is also supported by the Polish Institute New Delhi. Sebastian Cichocki, Chief Curator of the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw and Curator of the Sculpture Park in the Warsaw district of Bródno, Poland also held a seminar discussing Art in Postartistic (and Postdemocratic) Times on 19th February, 2017. 5 Bangladeshi artists led initiatives also presented their activities. SEBASTIAN CICHOCKI Sebastian Cichocki is a curator, writer, and art critic. He is chief curator of the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw and curator of the Sculpture Park in the Warsaw district of Bródno. In the years 2005 to 2008 he was program director of the Contemporary Art Centre in Bytom. Select exhibitions curated by Sebastian Cichocki include the Polish pavilions at the 52nd and 54th Venice Biennales, with Monika Sosnowska (1:1) and Yael Bartana (... and Europe will Be Stunned) respectively, the latter project co-‐curated with Galit Eilat, Making Use. Life in Postartistic Times, Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw (2016), Rainbow in the Dark. Part 2: On the Joy andTormentof Faith, KonstmuseumMalmö (2015), Rainbow intheDark, SALT Galata, Istanbul(2014), ZofiaRydet, Record 1978-‐1990, Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw (2015), Procedures for the Head, Kunsthalle Bratislava, Slovakia(2015), New National Art, Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw (2012), EarlyYears, KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin(2010), Raqs Media Collective, The Capital of Accumulation, Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw(2010), Oskar Hansen. Process and Art 1966-‐2005, Museum of Modern Art in Skopje, Macedonia. Sebastian Cichocki has managed the Sculpture Parkin Bródno, a long-‐term public art programme initiated in 2009 with the artist Paweł Althamer (featuring projects by Olafur Eliasson, Jens Haaning, Monika Sosnowska, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Ai Weiwei and others). He has produced a number of experimental exhibitions in the form of books, as well as residency programs and staged lectures.Cichocki is an author and co-‐author of several books on art e.g. A Cookbook for Political Imagination (2011), and The Future of Art Criticism as Pure Fiction (2011), Earth Works! (2014), and a popular children book on contemporary art “S.Z.T.U.K.A” (A.R.T.)

ALL PROJECTS My Oma 8 December 2023 — 1 September 2024, Kunstinstituut Melly, Netherlands Sheelasha Rajdhandhari's remarkable piece, 'My great-great-grandmother’s shawl,' from the SAF collection was featured at Kunstinstituut Melly, Netherlands, as part of the 'My Oma' exhibition. 'My Oma' was curated by Sofía Hernández Chong Cuy, Rosa de Graaf, Jessy Koeiman, Julija Mockutė, and Vivian Ziherl. Its key producers were Shana Lewis, Pilar Mata Dupont, and Wendy van Slagmaat-Bos. Advisors to the research and planning process of "My Oma" include our Artistic Director, Diana Campbell, alongside Edward Gillman, Sun A Moon, and Manuela Moscoso. In the performative artwork titled 'My great-great-grandmother’s shawl,' Kathmandu-based artist Sheelasha Rajbhandari intricately weaves together the threads of change embedded in fabric and time. The three sets of photographs depict generations of women in the artist’s maternal family, tracing the evolving clothing preferences that mirror broader political and economic transformations within Nepal. The first image features the artist's great-great-grandmother, Purna Kumari Vaidhya, adorned in a Dambar Kumari Shawl, a 19th-century textile composed of a block-printed fabric sandwiched between fine muslin. The second and third portraits depict her grandmother, Chiniya Devi Bijukchhe, and the artist herself, both framed in the same posture and draped in a shawl. However, these two shawls are replicated by the artist, evident by the clothing tags. This visual narrative explores the growing influence of capitalism and ready-made items, prompting an interrogation on notions of authenticity and mimicry in the production of culturally significant items.

ALL PROJECTS Stitching Collective Envisioned by Gudskul, Jakarta Stitching Ecosystem Stitching Ecosystem is a mini-festival format comprised of a series of workshops, sharing sessions, and market spaces with a focus on five of Gudskul’s eleven ‘collective studies’ subjects: Collective Sustainability Strategy, Public Relations, Spatial Practices, Art Laboratory, and Knowledge Garden. Gudskul will connect and reconnect collective networks and foster inter-collectiveness in order to understand and collaborate across different themes and contexts. We take this opportunity to build a bigger ecosystem, while maintaining the valuable organic intimacy found in any collective praxis. Further, this series of activities will cultivate, foster and distribute knowledge among the participating collectives in DAS, while also expanding network and sharable resources with the general public. Collective as School Collective as School is a sharing session between over forty collectives participating in DAS 2020 from Africa, Australia, Central and South America, Oceania, and South and Southeast Asia. Each collective will share their respective stories about how and why their collectives were established, what their goals are, how their regeneration processes unfold, what they learned, what their structure looks like, how they have sustained and survived, how they self-evaluate, how knowledge gets distributed within the collective internally and externally to broader communities, and how their collectives support each member as an individual. This closed-door introductory session will produce a series of schemes/maps of potentials, strategies, and common understanding to prime the remaining nine days of DAS. Speculative Collective Speculative Collective is Gudskul’s latest iteration of a knowledge-sharing and mapping module that was conceived as a tool to explore forms of collectivising through direct practice, forming a kind of know-how. Compressed both spatially and temporally, the project extends from ongoing work within the context of Jakarta. In a loosely defined process, Gudskul invites strangers to meet and share what they consider to be ‘knowledge’ by playing the roles of both teacher and student in a quick reciprocal exchange. This newly formed pair must then couple with another pair, forming a temporary collective. Gudskul has designed a ‘tool’ to enable participants to record this process for themselves and carry it on past these random yet choreographed meetings. Gerobak Cinema Gerobak Cinema is a mobile screening station presented as part of The Collective Body curated by Diana Campbell Betancourt and Kathryn Weir. The Chattogram based collective Jog and the Jakarta based collective ruangrupa collaborate using a rickshaw, producing screening sessions in several spots around the Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy, taking the energy from inside the venue out into the streets of Dhaka. The equipment will be collaboratively designed by artists, designers, IT technicians and created by the community according to local aesthetics to screen their own videos/movies, or even particular Bangladeshi movies. With these activities, we are trying to strengthen the relationships and collaboration potentials with the local community who may have not arrived at the world of contemporary art. Printmaking Workshop A collaborative workshop and sharing session between Grafis Huru Hara (Jakarta) and Pangrok Sulap (Sabah) and Shunno Space (Dhaka) will explore and raise similar issues the collectives are facing through specific media: woodcut and linocut techniques. This workshop will be open to students. Loneless Market One of our central focuses in developing an ecosystem is how sustainability could be understood through different perspectives. Not only in monetary aspects, but also values and notions, network and regeneration. Loneless Market is a session designed by Gudskul to develop exchange activities in material and immaterial things, and also at the same time generating revenues to benefit all of the participants of this marketplace. This will be a celebration of the nine days of collective work built across DAS. DAS is a Non-commercial research platform that exists to support grassroots art ecosystems – and all proceeds go directly to the collectives involved in this platform. Cooking & Karaoke Tent For the last evening before DAS closes, Gudskul will collaborate with local collectives to imagine a big dinner through creating a fusion of Bangladeshi and Indonesian food recipes. A karaoke session will play some well-known Bangladeshi and Indonesian songs and the group will be open to song requests. Open to all participating collectives and artists in DAS, this event serves to strengthen the bonds and networks built up across DAS 2020.