ALL PROJECTS Safina Radio project With the subtitle Not as Far as it Seems, the Dhaka edition of Safina Radio Project took questions of belonging and home as its departure point. Responding to the practices, curatorial premises and work on show at the Dhaka Art Summit 2016, Safina explored common grounds within historical contexts, providing a cross-section of origins and their interpretations. Preprogrammed and commissioned pieces opened up a broad cultural context for Dhaka; literature, architecture, art, and music content brought to the fore the rich cultural undercurrents of one of Asia’s most complex cities, drawing listeners closer to Dhaka as a centre for cultural discourse. From 5–8 February, Safina Radio Project broadcasted conversations and performative pieces created with artists, writers, and curators during their time at the summit, drawing on their encounters with the city. safinaradioproject.org Contributors include: Shumon Ahmed Nabil Rahman Ronni Ahmmed Mustafa Zaman Ayesha Sultana Yasmin Jahan Nupur Sarker Protick Munem Wasif Reetu Sattar Mehreen Murtaza Rahel Aima Kashef Chowdhury Mariam Ghani Chitra Ganesh Sharmini Pereira Belinder Dhanoa Safina Radio Project Quinn Latimer Salima Hashmi Paul B. Preciado Katya García-Antón Firoz Mahmud Lynda Benglis Director: Anabelle de Gersigny Commissioned by Alserkal Avenue

ALL PROJECTS The Asian Art Biennale in Context Curated by Diana Campbell Directly after DAS 2016, I spent two months as researcher in residence at the Fukuoka Asian Art Museum, looking to trace Fukuoka’s exhibitions of modern Bangladeshi art in the 1980s. Flipping through the extensive photo albums kept by museum staff from the time, I encountered installation images of Asian Artists Exhibition II—Festival: Contemporary Asian Art Show 1980 (known from here on out as the First Fukuoka Asian Art Show, Part II) from November 1980 which included works of art that were familiar to me from the storage of National Art Gallery Collection at the Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy. The haunting blue geometry of Safiuddin Ahmed’s 1979 painting Fishing Net exhibited not only at the 1 st Fukuoka Asian Art Show, Part II, but also at the First Asian Art Biennale in 1981, and DAS 2016 in Rewind . It became apparent that the exhibition histories between the Fukuoka Asian Art Museum (FAAM), the Asian Art Biennale and the Dhaka Art Summit (both hosted in the Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy) were intimately intertwined in ways not perceptible on the surface. A whole generation of Bangladeshi intellectuals was brutally massacred by the Pakistani military just two days before the country’s independence in 1971, and understandably investing in the regeneration of Bangladeshi culture was high on the national agenda. The Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy was founded by an act of Parliament in 1974, and the visionary and charismatic artist Syed Jahangir joined as its inaugural Director of Visual Arts in 1977, determined for Bangladeshi art to make a mark across the country and also internationally. In 1978, Jahangir quickly organized in Dresden what would be a traveling exhibition of Bangladeshi contemporary art, which inspired him to set up the visual arts department of the Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy as a collecting institution via the National Art Gallery collection. He traveled to India that same year to participate (as an exhibiting artist) in the fourth Triennale-India, where he was impressed by the Lalit Kala Akademi. Nevertheless, he decided to take his own institution in a different direction, looking instead to the East for inspiration, as many artists in previous generations in Bengal had done—from Nandalal Bose (1882–1996) to Abanindranath Tagore (1871–1951) to Mohammad Kibria (1929–2011), to name but a few of those who employed new strategies in their quests to create autonomous spaces for art. Jahangir visited Fukuoka twice in 1980 to prepare for the 1 st Fukuoka Asian Art Show, Part II, where he consulted on the participation of 28 Bangladeshi artists, including himself. It was during his first visit to Fukuoka during the Summer of 1980 were he first had the idea to start the Asian Art Biennale, which is the oldest Biennale of contemporary art to continue to exist in Asia, recently completing its 17 th edition. With strong support from the Bangladesh government and the foreign ministry, assisted by Farooq Sobhan (who is now chair of the board of the Samdani Art Foundation), it seemed the biennale was set to succeed in its January 1981 opening date. However, when Jahangir returned to Fukuoka in November 1980, with only two months to go until the Dhaka opening of the Asian Art Biennale, only three countries had agreed to participate in the platform. Jahangir networked with his fellow artists in Fukuoka, who through a form of radical generosity, agreed to initiate their countries’ participation outside of diplomatic channels. These networks forged in Fukuoka were pivotal to the success of the Asian Art biennale under Jahangir’s leadership; seminal figures from Southeast Asia such as Raymundo Albano (Philippines), Redza Piyadasa (Malaysia), Mochtar Apin (Indonesia), and Lain Singh Bangdel (Nepal) lent their talent as organizers to bring the best of their country’s artists into the fold of the Asian Art Biennale in Bangladesh. This speaks to the energy, drive, and gumption present among artist communities at the time to set up their own alignments outside of traditional and often colonial channels. We are pleased to show photographs reprinted from the archive of the Fukuoka Asian Art Museum chronicling the beginnings of these friendships that forged inter-Asia solidarity extending into Bangladesh. The Asian Art Biennale in Context at DAS 2018 presents all of the 27 works of Bangladeshi art that the Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy collected out of the first four Asian Art Biennales before Jahangir left his post soon after the 5 th edition in 1991. The acquisition committee was made up of a group of senior artists from the Academy, and therefore most of these 27 works were made by artists who were part of this system. With this in mind, the selection of works is not indicative of the spirit of the Bangladeshi participation as a whole at these Asian Art Biennales, with the exception of SM Sultan, Ratan Majumdar, Nurun Nahar Papa, Rasha, and Pramesh Kumar Mondol most of whom led more bohemian existences. Rattan Majumdar’s work stood out among the 28 artists exhibiting at the First Fukuoka Asian Art Show Part II. He was only 26 years old at the time, and also exhibited his melancholic prints at the Whitechapel Gallery that same year, and in Dresden two years earlier in the exhibition previously mentioned in this text. Notably absent from the contemporary art scene of Dhaka today, Majumdar has an incredible archive chronicling his early days as an emerging Bangladeshi artist supported by the Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy which we are pleased to show in this exhibition. In addition to the two bodies of work entitled Divided Society collected by the Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy in 1981 and 1989, we also exhibit his National Award-winning work Pleasure in Nudity from the National Art Exhibition in 1979, a testament to the kind of work the Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy was supporting at the time-- which some might consider radical for the context of today. Piecing together the narratives from the catalog essays of the first four Asian Art Biennales, it became apparent that works by international artists at the early shows were donated to the National Art Gallery collection, including the entire Philippine pavilion of 1983 curated by Raymundo Albano. After over a year of searching for these work in the collection storage, we are pleased to present 5 prints on wood collage by the award-winning Filipino printmaker Romulo Olazo, who also exhibited in the First Fukuoka Asian Art Show Part II in 1980. We also present one panel of a 1980 triptych An Afternoon for Bangladesh painted by Filipino artist Phyllis Zaballero, who met Jahangir in Fukuoka one month before painting this work specifically for the exhibition at the invitation of Raymundo Albano, knowing that it would be a donation. I interviewed Zaballero in her Manila studio and archive, and we present a view into the history behind this work and hope that the other two panels will soon be found. Interestingly, while the work was created in preparation for the first Asian Art Biennale in 1981, the Philippines did not exhibit a pavilion until 1983, and Zaballero’s work did not exhibit until 1986 in the third edition of the biennale organized after Albano’s death via the Cultural Center of the Philippines. The point of this exhibition is to highlight the collection within the Shilpakala Academy building that hosts the Dhaka Art Summit, pointing to a Golden Age of the institution under Jahangir’s leadership in the early stages of Bangladesh’s nation building process. The exhibition presents fragments of continuing strands of inquiry into Bangladesh’s role within a rich network of artists across Asia who were trying to build a space for artistic exchange outside of colonial paradigms and build strong and relevant institutions in their local contexts (such as Jahangir with the Shilpakala Academy, and Albano with the Cultural Centre of the Philippines). Dhaka Art Summit benefits from the incredible legacy of the Asian Art Biennale, and we look forward to continuing this research into its institutional history with other colleagues across Asia at a key moment in time when several of the protagonists of this story are still active. The young artists of Bangladesh today benefit from the international exposure that Jahangir and his collaborators created for them via this special biennale. Traces of the Asian Art Biennale can be found elsewhere in the Summit, and this biennale is certainly among the “gifts of the inferno” alluded to in Bearing Point 2. The inaugural panel in DAS’s auditorium talks program, Another Asia , features Syed Jahangir who will speak about his experience setting up the biennale. Jack Garrity of the Pacita Abad estate will discuss this pioneering Filipino Artist who exhibited in the 3 rd Asian Art Biennale, and Juneer Kibria will discuss his father Mohammad Kibria (also present in Planetary Planning) in a panel about transnational artistic and architectural practices that included Bangladesh. Bearing Point 4, includes the provocative Hostage series of Shahid Sajjad which exhibited in the 6 th Asian Art Biennale in 1993. A workshop on “forensic art history” will give local Bangladeshi art historians tools to further their inquiries into this fascinating period of Bangladeshi art history, and the Asian Art Biennale will also be addressed in the Scholar’s Weekend via the symposium Displays of Internationalism. This presentation would not have been possible without the following individuals and institutions who supported us with time, access, and encouragement: Fukuoka Asian Art Museum Raiji Kuroda Rina Igarashi Syed Jahangir Yasunaga Koichi Patrick Flores Rattanamol Singh Johal Rattan Mojumder Marga Villanueva Storage staffs from Shilpakala Phyllis Zaballero Liaquat Ali Lucky Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy Asian Art Biennale Will Smith, Art in America Md. Muniruzzaman Artists Abdus Sattar (B. 1979, Barisal, Bangladesh, lives and works in Dhaka, Bangladesh) Abdus Sattar is a well-known oriental art practitioner and honorary professor at the Department of Oriental Art, University of Dhaka. In his early artistic life he has been trained by Somnath Hore as a print maker but chose to focus on the unexplored areas of oriental art in this country. Alok Roy The Man – I, (1983) Burnt clay Courtesy of the Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy, Dhaka Alok Roy’s The Man – I presents a study of the human condition in the fragile and difficult medium of burnt clay. Roy’s forms fold and collapse into themselves, seemingly on the verge of disappearance. The central form encompasses a human head, caught mid-scream, alluding to a sense of collective suffering and trauma. Aminul Islam (b. 1931, Tetia, Bengal Presidency, British India, d. 2011, Dhaka, Bangladesh) Reflections and Reality, 1976 Painting and collage (mirror) Courtesy of the Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy, Dhaka Aminul Islam was an active member of leftist political and cultural organizations, which heavily influenced his practice. Reflection and Real uses the language of geometric abstraction to produce social critique, meditating on the perceived versus the reality of a society. The collage presents a shattered surface, that reflects and multiplies itself over and over again, speaking to fractures in society that reproduce themselves in every generation. The artist presented a similar work at the first Fukuoka Asian Art Show, Part II in 1980. Bonizul Huq Love of Tree, 1983 Oil on Canvas Courtesy of the Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy, Dhaka Banizul Huq’s Shadow – I presents an image that is fills one with both a sense of foreboding, and calm. Huq abstracts from the form of a banyan tree around which cattle are huddled; the banyan tree occupies an important position in the vernacular spiritual beliefs of South Asia, where it is seen as both a repository of wisdom, and also the dwelling-place of ghosts. The cows, which are also important symbols in Hindu beliefs, that huddle at its base seem to be ghostly presences, occupying a metaphysical realm, rather than one of reality. Hamiduzzaman Khan (b.1946, Kishoreganj, Bangladesh, lives and works in Dhaka, Bangladesh) Remembrance-III ’71 (1980) Brass Courtesy of the Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy, Dhaka Hamiduzzaman Khan’s Remembrance-III ’71 memorializes all those who lost their lives during the Bangladesh War of Liberation. The sculpture depicts a frail yet resolute figure, clad in only a dhoti, standing a shattered door, riddled with bullet-holes, celebrating the resolve of the freedom fighters in the face of horrific violence. Hashi Chakraborty (b. 1948, Chittagong, Bangladesh- d.2014, Chittagong) Memory – 15, 1983 Courtesy of the Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy, Dhaka Hashi Chakraborty’s work reflects a deep romanticism, drawing on influences from both cubist and folk modes of painting. Chakraborty creates a creates a dream-like space where floating shapes interact with each other to suggest emergent forms. He explores the idea of memory and inspiration found in romantic poetry, as the space where past experiences spontaneously emerge and play themselves out. Kazi Abdul Baset (b. 1935, Dhaka, Bengal Presidency, British India, d. 2002, Dhaka) Painting-I (1980) Courtesy of the Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy, Dhaka Kazi Abdul Baset’s work occurs on the border between abstraction and figuration, drawing equally from his exposure to Abstract Expressionism, which he had encountered while studying at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago from 1963-64, and Bengali folk forms. In Painting-I we find traces of the handling of colour by artists such as Mark Rothko, where abstract fields of pigment are layered to create a sense of depth. Baset’s painting creates an energetic encounter between different coloured fields, interrupted by a smoke-like column which imbues the work with a sense of urgency. Baset’s painting reflects a strong desire to modes of abstraction beyond those already established in the West. Mansur Ul Karim (b. 1950, Rajbari, Bangladesh; lives and works in Chittagong) Open Window and Chair, 1983 Oil painting Courtesy of the Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy, Dhaka Mansur Ul Karim uses both abstract and figurative modes within his paintings, which draw their inspiration from the landscape of Bangladesh. Open Window and Chair presents a vantage point from which to view a rapidly changing world; energetic brushwork and composition creates the impression of a rapidly transforming space. Karim views these changes favourably, even romantically, pointing to the openness with which artists of his generation embraced cross-cultural exchanges. Mohammad Kibria (b. 1929 in Birbhum, British India; d. 2011 in Dhaka) Painting-V (1980) Oil on canvas Courtesy of the Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy, Dhaka Mohammad Kibria was a master of abstraction, whose paintings delve into the realm of pure colour. Painting-V explores the tension between hard and soft forms produced by placing various shades of earth brown side-by-side, and plays with varying levels of luminousity that appear through these juxtapositions. This work, as in most of the paintings he created, references entropy in nature found when moss or other natural materials grow on man-made structures, inspired zen philosophy that he encountered during his time studying in Japan. This painting exhibited both in the first Fukuoka Asian Art Show, Part II in 1980 and two months later at the first Asian Art Biennale in Dhaka in 1981 before entering the collection of the Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy. Nitun Kundu (B. 1935, Dinajpur district, Bengal Presidency, British India- D. 2006, Dhaka) Homage to the Martyrs Bronze Courtesy of the Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy, Dhaka Through this sculpture, Nitin Kundu pays homage to the martyrs of the Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971. He creates an ascendant column, which spirals towards the sky, memorializing the heavy price of freedom paid by those who were killed, and their lofty aspirations. This sculpture exhibited both in the first Fukuoka Asian Art Show, Part II in 1980 and two months later at the first Asian Art Biennale in Dhaka in 1981 before entering the collection of the Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy. Qayyum Chowdhury (B. 1932, Feni, Bengal Presidency, British India- D. 2014, Dhaka) My Village (1977) Oil on canvas Courtesy of the Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy, Dhaka Nature plays a key role in Qayyum Chowdhury’s stylized abstract paintings. His lyrical painting My Village, depicts a romantic vision of village life in harmony with the rhythms of the sun and the tides, referencing strongly the landscape of Bengal whose lush green expanses are riddled with small, snaking bodies of water. Rafiqun Nabi (B. 1943, Chapai Nawabganj, Bengal Presidency, British India, lives and works in Dhaka, Bangladesh) The Poet (1980) Wood-block print Courtesy of the Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy, Dhaka Known as a painter, print-maker and illustrator, Nabi’s work references the vernacular forms of Bengal to create compositions with a strong narrative component. In The Poet, Nabi celebrates the Romantic ideal of the poet finding inspiration in nature, paying tribute to figures such as Rabindranath Tagore and Jibanananda Das whose work served as inspiration during the Language Movement (Bhasha Andolon) which ultimately led to the establishment of the nation of Bangladesh. Rasha Life II, 1983 wood Courtesy of the Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy, Dhaka Akhtar Ahmed Rasha, known as Rasha, uses found pieces of wood to realize his sculptural forms, which often follow the shapes of the wood itself. In this work, Rasha depicts the hardships of a new nation, and the struggles before it: a figure crouches, with an alms bowl before him, and an old man leans heavily on his staff; towering above them, however, we see the face of a man, looking ahead, illustrating the artist’s hope for the future. The work won the Grand Prize of the 3rd Asian Art Biennale in Dhaka, after which it entered the collection of the Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy. S.M. Sultan (b. 1923, Narail District - d. 1994, Jessore) First Plantation (1975) Natural Pigment on canvas Courtesy of the Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy, Dhaka S.M. Sultan is known for his energetic style, weaving together multiple sources of inspiration, and his paintings of Bangladeshi agricultural workers, whose figures he renders with exaggerated musculature. Sultan’s First Plantation, which depicts farmers in the act of sowing seeds, bursts with a sense of anticipation and optimism, reflecting his hopes for the new nation of Bangladesh, which became independent only a few years before this painting was finished. This work marked a shift in his practice as he was previously known as a landscape painter, and this monumental and iconic figure appears in the many works he made post 1975. Safiuddin Ahmed (b. 1922, Calcutta, British India; d. 2012, Dhaka) Fishing Net (1979) Oil on canvas Courtesy of the Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy, Dhaka Safiuddin Ahmed’s work references the strong linearity and bold use of colour found in the indigenous visual practices of the Santhal communities of Santiniketan, among whom he spent many of his early years. Fishing Net speaks to the intimate relationship between man and nature in village life in Bengal, depicting the gleam of the fresh catch as is lies in the fisherman’s net. Water is a recurring theme across the artist’s work as the impact of the 1974 flood was emblazoned into his imagination. This painting exhibited both in the first Fukuoka Asian Art Show, Part II in 1980 and two months later at the first Asian Art Biennale in Dhaka in 1981 before entering the collection of the Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy. Shahabuddin Ahmed (b. 1950, Dhaka, lives and works between Dhaka, Bangladesh and Paris, France) First Step (1986) Oil on canvas Courtesy of the Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy Shahabuddin Ahmed’s work is heavily influenced by the violence he saw first-hand when he served in the Mukti Bahini during the Bangladesh Liberation War. Ahmed’s energetic, almost violent, brushwork in First Step visualizes his exuberant hopes for the future of the new nation of Bangladesh, created during the 15th anniversary of its independence. Sultanul Islam Life Circle (1985) Concrete Courtesy of the Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy Sultanul Islam’s sculpture Life Circle explores the cyclic nature of life and death, and of the pain of existence, drawing from Buddhist beliefs which have become part of vernacular mythology in South Asia. Islam’s crouching figure, which seems simultaneously on the verge of life and death, becomes a representation of the notion of samsara, which binds us to our mortal desires. A similar sculpture is found in the collection of the Bangladesh National Museum. Syed Jahangir (b. 1935, Satkhira, Bengal Presidency, British India, lives and works in Dhaka, Bangladesh) Soul Seeker – II Oil on canvas Courtesy of the Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy Syed Jahangir draws inspiration from the landscape of Bangladesh, and his trips to the Rangamati in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, to produce meditative and metaphysical paintings. Soul Seeker continues this spiritual search for the heart of the country, creating forms that resist easy resolution, but rather seem to keep unfolding before our eyes, pointing to the never-ending nature of the search. Intuition and knowledge that exists outside of reason are another concern of Jahangir’s early works, which is also alluded in the title of this series of works, “Soul Seeker.” Syed Jahangir was instrumental in setting up the first Asian Art Biennale and creating networks across Asia, many of which began during his time spent in Fukuoka preparing for the first Fukuoka Asian Art Show, Part II, 1980.

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. SAMDANI ART AWARD 2023 SHORTLIST Sumi Anjuman Sumi Anjuman, হাওয়ায় নেওয়া চাঁদ, Winds carry moon, 2021-2022. Interdisciplinary medium. Commissioned and Produced by Samdani Art Foundation for DAS 2023. Courtesy of the artist and Samdani Art Foundation. Photographer: Farhad Rahman b.1989 Sohorab Rabbey Sohorab Rabbey, Almanac of an eroded land, borrowed from our children 2022-2023. Installation. Commissioned and Produced by Samdani Art Foundation for DAS 2023. Courtesy of the artist and Samdani Art Foundation. Photographer: Farhad Rahman b.1994 Rasel Rana Rasel Rana, একজন বাগানির স্বপ্ন , The Gardener’s Dream 2023. Acrylic on canvas. Commissioned and Produced by Samdani Art Foundation for DAS 2023. Courtesy of the artist and Samdani Art Foundation. Photographer: Farhad Rahman b. 1995 Rakibul Anwar Rakibul Anwar, মহানগর, Mohanagar, 2023. Drawings on paper. Commissioned and Produced by Samdani Art Foundation for DAS 2023. Courtesy of the artist and Samdani Art Foundation. Photographer: Farhad Rahman b.1993 Mojahid Musa Mojahid Musa, Assimilated Musing VI, 2022-2023. Sculptural installation using recycled materials, clay, machinery parts, wood, metal, hair, jute, ornaments, found objects from nature, adhesive. Commissioned and Produced by Samdani Art Foundation for DAS 2023. Courtesy of the artist and Samdani Art Foundation. Photographer: Farhad Rahman b. 1990 Habiba Nowrose Habiba Nowrose, Salvation, 2023. Photography. Commissioned and Produced by Samdani Art Foundation for DAS 2023. Courtesy of the artist and Samdani Art Foundation. Photographer: Farhad Rahman b.1989 Faysal Zaman Faysal Zaman, (অ )পূর্ণ, (un)filled, 2021-2023. Installation. Commissioned and Produced by Samdani Art Foundation for DAS 2023. Courtesy of the artist and Samdani Art Foundation. Photographer: Farhad Rahman b. 1996 Dipa Mahbuba Yasmin Dipa Mahbuba Yasmin in association with Md.Solayman, Md. Dulal & Jagannath Das, ঠাউর, Gaze, 2022-2023. Pinting on canvas, paper, wood. Commissioned and Produced by Samdani Art Foundation for DAS 2023. Courtesy of the artist and Samdani Art Foundation. Photographer: Farhad Rahman b.1989 Dinar Sultana Putul Dinar Sultana Putul, A space without a ship, 2023. Mixed media. Commissioned and Produced by Samdani Art Foundation for DAS 2023. Courtesy of the artist and Samdani Art Foundation. Photographer: Farhad Rahman b.1989 Ashfika Rahman Ashfika Rahman, Death of A Home, 2023. Installation. Commissioned and Produced by Samdani Art Foundation for DAS 2023. Courtesy of the artist and Samdani Art Foundation. Photographer: Farhad Rahman b. 1988 Fazla Rabbi Fatiq, মরীচিকা, Mirage 2022-2023, Photographs. Fazla Rabbi Fatiq, মরীচিকা, Mirage 2022-2023, Photographs. Fazla Rabbi Fatiq, মরীচিকা, Mirage 2022-2023, Photographs. Fazla Rabbi Fatiq, মরীচিকা, Mirage 2022-2023, Photographs. Fazla Rabbi Fatiq, মরীচিকা, Mirage 2022-2023, Photographs. Fazla Rabbi Fatiq, মরীচিকা, Mirage 2022-2023, Photographs. Fazla Rabbi Fatiq, মরীচিকা, Mirage 2022-2023, Photographs. Fazla Rabbi Fatiq, মরীচিকা, Mirage 2022-2023, Photographs. Fazla Rabbi Fatiq, মরীচিকা, Mirage 2022-2023, Photographs. Fazla Rabbi Fatiq, মরীচিকা, Mirage 2022-2023, Photographs. Fazla Rabbi Fatiq, মরীচিকা, Mirage 2022-2023, Photographs. Fazla Rabbi Fatiq, মরীচিকা, Mirage 2022-2023, Photographs. Fazla Rabbi Fatiq, মরীচিকা, Mirage 2022-2023, Photographs. Fazla Rabbi Fatiq, মরীচিকা, Mirage 2022-2023, Photographs. Fazla Rabbi Fatiq, মরীচিকা, Mirage 2022-2023, Photographs. Fazla Rabbi Fatiq, মরীচিকা, Mirage 2022-2023, Photographs. Fazla Rabbi Fatiq, মরীচিকা, Mirage 2022-2023, Photographs. Fazla Rabbi Fatiq, মরীচিকা, Mirage 2022-2023, Photographs. Fazla Rabbi Fatiq, মরীচিকা, Mirage 2022-2023, Photographs. Fazla Rabbi Fatiq, মরীচিকা, Mirage 2022-2023, Photographs. Fazla Rabbi Fatiq, মরীচিকা, Mirage 2022-2023, Photographs. Fazla Rabbi Fatiq, মরীচিকা, Mirage 2022-2023, Photographs. Fazla Rabbi Fatiq, মরীচিকা, Mirage 2022-2023, Photographs. Fazla Rabbi Fatiq, মরীচিকা, Mirage 2022-2023, Photographs. Fazla Rabbi Fatiq, মরীচিকা, Mirage 2022-2023, Photographs. Fazla Rabbi Fatiq, মরীচিকা, Mirage 2022-2023, Photographs. Fazla Rabbi Fatiq, মরীচিকা, Mirage 2022-2023, Photographs. Fazla Rabbi Fatiq, মরীচিকা, Mirage 2022-2023, Photographs. Fazla Rabbi Fatiq, মরীচিকা, Mirage 2022-2023, Photographs. Fazla Rabbi Fatiq, মরীচিকা, Mirage 2022-2023, Photographs. MD Fazla Rabbi Fatiq b. 1995 Cumilla; lives and works in Cumilla WINNER Mirage is a series of photographs that attempts to highlight the corruption that lies behind many construction projects in Bangladesh. Focusing on numerous bridges that started to be built in canals, open fields, and agricultural lands over the past two decades - but that now lie abandoned and unused – Fatiq draws attention to the ongoing impact and the sheer scale of this predicament. In several instances, his works depict bridges that have collapsed, with their approach roads in ruins if they were ever made at all. These monumental, almost surreal forms now dominate landscapes across the country, symbolising for Fatiq the systemic corruption in the construction industry where huge budgets are misused and projects left unfinished. Although this series of photographs is devoid of people, it nonetheless conveys lost hopes of connectivity between places and communities, particularly in rural areas where local populations have no option but to move around by water for much of the year. While his works can be hauntingly beautiful, Fatiq’s approach to his subject matter is shaped by an acute social and political sensibility. In Mirage, he deftly combines aspects of traditional photography with elements of abstraction, symbolism and ambiguity, giving rise to the question of what lies underneath the surface of an image. Samdani Art Award 2023 The Samdani Art Foundation announced Bangladeshi artists Purnima Aktar and Md Fazla Rabbi Fatiq as joint winners of the biannual Samdani Art Award. It is the first time two finalists have been awarded the prize which aims to support, promote and highlight the country’s emerging contemporary artists. Purnima Aktar and Md Fazla Rabbi Fatiq were selected from a shortlist of 12 artists whose work was part of an exhibition curated by Anne Barlow (Director at Tate St Ives) at DAS 2023. The members of the international jury included Ibrahim Mahama, artist; Tarun Nagesh, Curator of Asian Art at the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art (QAGOMA) in Brisbane, Australia; Roobina Karode, Chief Curator, Kiran Nadar Museum of Art; and Simon Castets, Former Samdani Art Award Curator and Director of Strategic Initiatives, LUMA Arles. Md Fazla Rabbi Fatiq is the recipient of the residency at the Delfina Foundation and Purnima Aktar is the recipient of the residency in Ghana, hosted by Ibrahim Mahama’s Savannah Centre for Contemporary Art and Red Clay. Purnima Aktar,আঠারো ভাটির দেশ, A Tale of Eighteen Tides, 2022-2023. Installation. Purnima Aktar,আঠারো ভাটির দেশ, A Tale of Eighteen Tides, 2022-2023. Installation. Purnima Aktar,আঠারো ভাটির দেশ, A Tale of Eighteen Tides, 2022-2023. Installation. Purnima Aktar,আঠারো ভাটির দেশ, A Tale of Eighteen Tides, 2022-2023. Installation. Purnima Aktar,আঠারো ভাটির দেশ, A Tale of Eighteen Tides, 2022-2023. Installation. Purnima Aktar,আঠারো ভাটির দেশ, A Tale of Eighteen Tides, 2022-2023. Installation. Purnima Aktar,আঠারো ভাটির দেশ, A Tale of Eighteen Tides, 2022-2023. Installation. Purnima Aktar,আঠারো ভাটির দেশ, A Tale of Eighteen Tides, 2022-2023. Installation. Purnima Aktar,আঠারো ভাটির দেশ, A Tale of Eighteen Tides, 2022-2023. Installation. Purnima Aktar,আঠারো ভাটির দেশ, A Tale of Eighteen Tides, 2022-2023. Installation. Purnima Aktar,আঠারো ভাটির দেশ, A Tale of Eighteen Tides, 2022-2023. Installation. Purnima Aktar,আঠারো ভাটির দেশ, A Tale of Eighteen Tides, 2022-2023. Installation. Purnima Aktar,আঠারো ভাটির দেশ, A Tale of Eighteen Tides, 2022-2023. Installation. Purnima Aktar,আঠারো ভাটির দেশ, A Tale of Eighteen Tides, 2022-2023. Installation. Purnima Aktar,আঠারো ভাটির দেশ, A Tale of Eighteen Tides, 2022-2023. Installation. Purnima Aktar,আঠারো ভাটির দেশ, A Tale of Eighteen Tides, 2022-2023. Installation. Purnima Aktar,আঠারো ভাটির দেশ, A Tale of Eighteen Tides, 2022-2023. Installation. Purnima Aktar,আঠারো ভাটির দেশ, A Tale of Eighteen Tides, 2022-2023. Installation. Purnima Aktar,আঠারো ভাটির দেশ, A Tale of Eighteen Tides, 2022-2023. Installation. Purnima Aktar,আঠারো ভাটির দেশ, A Tale of Eighteen Tides, 2022-2023. Installation. Purnima Aktar,আঠারো ভাটির দেশ, A Tale of Eighteen Tides, 2022-2023. Installation. Purnima Aktar,আঠারো ভাটির দেশ, A Tale of Eighteen Tides, 2022-2023. Installation. Purnima Aktar,আঠারো ভাটির দেশ, A Tale of Eighteen Tides, 2022-2023. Installation. Purnima Aktar,আঠারো ভাটির দেশ, A Tale of Eighteen Tides, 2022-2023. Installation. Purnima Aktar,আঠারো ভাটির দেশ, A Tale of Eighteen Tides, 2022-2023. Installation. Purnima Aktar,আঠারো ভাটির দেশ, A Tale of Eighteen Tides, 2022-2023. Installation. Purnima Aktar,আঠারো ভাটির দেশ, A Tale of Eighteen Tides, 2022-2023. Installation. Purnima Aktar,আঠারো ভাটির দেশ, A Tale of Eighteen Tides, 2022-2023. Installation. Purnima Aktar,আঠারো ভাটির দেশ, A Tale of Eighteen Tides, 2022-2023. Installation. Purnima Aktar,আঠারো ভাটির দেশ, A Tale of Eighteen Tides, 2022-2023. Installation. Purnima Aktar b. 1997, Narayanganj; lives and works in Dhaka. WINNER The Sundarbans mangrove forest, known as the ‘land of eighteen tides’, is host to a vast range of flora and fauna, including the Bengal tiger. According to local folklore, the Sundarbans is watched over by Bonbibi, a revered female deity. It is said that for hundreds of years, woodcutters, honey collectors and others whose livelihoods depend on the forest, have prayed to Bonbibi to protect them from harm. Despite being a UNESCO World Heritage site, the fragile ecosystem of the Sundarbans is increasingly under threat due to climate change and environmental pollution. A Tale of Eighteen Tides is an allegorical work that explores this loss of biodiversity in the forest alongside the cultures and traditions that are in danger of dying out with it. Comprising eighteen parts, the installation depicts the figure of Bonbibi alongside a Bengal tiger and other wild animals, with those species that are already extinct painted in monochrome. Aktar’s work is inspired by nature and the myths and symbols of the Bengal Delta, as well as by artistic source including Mughal miniatures, Tantric paintings and Bangla folk art. She often combines these in her work to address issues around social and environmental justice. 2023 2020 2018 2016 2014 2012 Award Archive

OPEN CALL FOR BANGLADESHI ARTISTS SAMDANI ART AWARD 2026: PARTICIPATION IN A GROUP EXHIBITION AT KUNSTHALLE BASEL, SWITZERLAND The Samdani Art Award was developed in 2012 to create an internationally recognised platform for emerging Bangladeshi artists, offering opportunities for international visibility, professional exchange, and long-term artistic development. Presented by the Samdani Art Foundation, the award has supported artists through exhibitions, residencies, and collaborations with leading international curators and institutions. Many previously shortlisted artists have gone on to participate in major exhibitions, residencies, and institutional programmes around the world. As part of the 2026 Samdani Art Award, curators Diana Campbell and Mohamed Almusibli invite artists based in Bangladesh to apply for a presentation at Kunsthalle Basel within Regionale 27. Initiated by Kunsthalle Basel in collaboration with Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia, New Delhi, and Samdani Art Foundation, Dhaka this collaboration introduces a new curatorial focus to Kunsthalle Basel's contribution to the 27th edition of the tri-national exhibition project, which unfolds across institutions in Switzerland, France, and Germany from November 28, 2026, to January 3, 2027. The Regionale unfolds in the Dreiländereck, where Switzerland, France, and Germany meet–a region shaped as much by its borders as by the crossings they invite. At Kunsthalle Basel, works by regional artists are shown alongside works by the invited artists from Bangladesh, who are asked to engage with the region from their own perspectives. Across both, the exhibition turns on a shared set of questions–borders, proximity, belonging, and distance–approached from within the region and from beyond it. Through this open call, Bangladeshi emerging artists of all ages are invited to submit portfolios featuring available works that may be considered for exhibition at Kunsthalle Basel as part of Regionale 27. Shortlisted artists’ works will travel to Basel for exhibition, with all shipment and logistics managed by the Samdani Art Foundation. Please note that travel and accommodation expenses for artists visiting Switzerland will not be covered. The Samdani Art Award has historically supported artists through international residencies and institutional collaborations. Since 2014, the foundation has been partnering with Delfina Foundation, London to provide residency for the winner of the art award. The 2023 edition was curated by Anne Barlow at the Dhaka Art Summit 2023. Award recipient Fazla Rabbi Fatiq participated in a residency at Delfina Foundation, while award recipient Purnima Akhter undertook a residency in Ghana, hosted by Ibrahim Mahama’s Savannah Centre for Contemporary Art and Red Clay. For the 2026 edition, the recipient of the Samdani Art Award will participate in a residency in the UK. THE SHORTLISTED ARTISTS WILL RECEIVE: Participation in the exhibition presented at Kunsthalle Basel as part of Regionale 27. International exposure to curators, institutions, and audiences through the Regionale network. Shipment and logistics support for selected works from Bangladesh to Switzerland and back, managed by the Samdani Art Foundation. Opportunities for dialogue and exchange with international arts professionals connected to the Samdani Art Award and Regionale. Eligibility Artists who apply must be: Emerging artists based in Bangladesh. There is no age restriction for artists considered emerging. Currently living and working in Bangladesh. Exceptions may be made for students studying abroad or artists participating in temporary residency programmes. Not permanently based abroad or living overseas for full-time employment. Have not previously participated in major international exhibitions, biennials, museum exhibitions, or other significant international platforms that have provided extensive global exposure. Able to communicate in basic English. Seeking an opportunity to further develop their artistic practice within an international context. Application Process Applicants are expected to submit their applications through the Google Form. Each application should include: A completed application form. A short CV detailing recent solo and group exhibitions, workshops, residencies, education, and relevant experience. One portfolio-style PDF including: - At least 15 high-quality images of recent works and selected examples of older works where relevant. - Captions or short descriptions for all included works. - Links to video, film, audio, or digital works (Vimeo, YouTube, personal website, etc.) embedded within the PDF. - An indication of which works are currently available for exhibition. Please combine all materials, i.e CV and Portfolio into one PDF file only. Maximum file size: 20 MB Google Drive, Dropbox, or WeTransfer links will not be accepted. Applications submitted by email will not be accepted. No printed materials, CDs, or DVDs will be accepted. Please submit your application via the Google Form linked here . Deadline for applications 20 July 2026 For queries, please email us at apply@samdani.com.bd or call +88028878784-7 All applicants will be informed of the status of their application. A selection of preliminary applicants will be contacted following the review process by the curators. Shortlisted artists for the exhibition will then be selected through one-to-one studio visits/interviews in August 2026. TERMS AND CONDITIONS 1. The Samdani Art Award 2026 focuses on existing works. No new commissions or production grants will be provided for this edition. 2. Selected artists must ensure that the submitted works are available for international exhibition during the exhibition period and shipment timeline. 3. The Samdani Art Foundation will manage shipment and logistics for selected works traveling to and from Switzerland. 4. The Samdani Art Foundation will not provide financial support for artist travel, accommodation, visas, or per diems related to visits to Switzerland. 5. By applying, artists grant permission for submitted materials to be reviewed by the Samdani Art Foundation, invited curators, jury members, and participating institutional partners connected to the Samdani Art Award and Regionale 27.

ALL PROJECTS A Beast, A God, And A Line Curated by Cosmin Costinas, was on view at MAIIAM Contemporary Art Museum in Chiang Mai, Thailand 14 November, 2020 - 26 March, 2021 The exhibition welds a narrative of the geographical expanse of Asia-Pacific as a collective universum, where the works on view bridge geographies and timeframes. Ancient and contemporary travel routes, personal biographies, political and environmental violence, and a revisiting of historiographies are but a few of the threads transcending the show. Over 60 artists from across the region which include Cambodia, India, Vietnam, Madagascar, Bangladesh, Philippines, Australia, as well as Thailand, sets a foundation for the possibility of taking an in-depth glimpse into this complex region of the world in both its political and artistic sense. A beast, a god, and a line question how we should negotiate common ground in the context of the overall political and ideological fragmentation discussed above. How can positions that claim disparate and conflicting genealogies sit together in a shared exhibition space? One tenuous leading line that weaves diverse intersecting layers and different aspects of this exhibition are textiles. A material and language common to different cultural spaces, textiles also have a firmly routed history in art, being possible sites for parallel processes of historiography. Moreover, textiles hold a different position in negotiating relationships with places and contexts, in ways that the individual agency of artists escapes. The exhibition works from today’s loss of confidence in the ideals and certainties of liberal democracy that have shaped globalisation in the previous decades. Across Asia-Pacific, as well as in Europe and most of the world, alternatives and challenges to Western modernity are currently proposed or unfolding. The artists in the exhibition investigate traces of colonial domination, as well as the different ramifications of that hegemony today, when cultural and environmental genocides continue to unravel landscapes, communities, and worlds, particularly among the most marginalised indigenous groups. The curator has selected artworks from MAIIAM’s collection to provide relatability in the context of Thailand, whilst contributing to the intentions and relevance to the exhibition. Many of the artists in A beast, a god, and a line are among the most powerful voices who today are reinventing the significance of matter, objects, and forms, their genealogies and deep significance. The exhibition is organised by Para Site, Hong Kong. It was on view at Dhaka Art Summit, Dhaka, the Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw, as well as at The Secretariat (Pyinsa Rasa/TS1), Yangon throughout 2018, and previously at Kunsthall Trondheim, Norway in 2019. Artists Ampannee Satoh| Anida Yoeu Ali| Anon Pairot| Antonia Aguilar| Apichatpong Weerasethakul| Arnold Flores| Chandrakanth Chitara| Charles Lim| Christy Chow| Cian Dayrit| Daniel Boyd| Dilara Begum Jolly| Etan Pavavalung| Garima Gupta| Gauri Gill| Harit Srikhao| Huang Rui| Ines Doujak| INTERPRT| Jaffa Lam| Jakkai Siributr| Jakrawal Nilthamrong| Jimmy Ong| Jiun-Yang Li| Joël Andrianomearisoa| Joseph de Ramos| Joydeb Roaja| Jrai Dew Collective (curated by Art Labor)| Khamsouk Keomingmuang| Lantian Xie| Lauro Penamante| Lavanya Mani| Malala Andrialavidrazana| Manish Nai| Ming Wong| Moelyono| Munem Wasif| Naiza Khan| Nguyễn Trinh Thi| Nontawat Numbenchapol| Norberto Roldan| Paphonsak La-Or| Paul Pfeiffer| Po Po| Raja Umbu| Rajesh Vangad| Rashid Choudhury| RJ Camacho| Sarah Naqvi| Sarat Mala Chakma| Sawangwongse Yawnghwe| Sheela Gowda| Sheelasha Rajbhandari| Simon Soon| Simryn Gill| Sopheap Pich| Su Yu Hsien| Sutthirat Supaparinya| Taloi Havini| Tawatchai Puntusawasdi| Than Sok| Thảo-Nguyên Phan| After Dhaka, Hong Kong, Yangon, Warsaw, and Trondheim, the latest international iteration of A Beast, a God, and a Line, curated by Cosmin Costinas, was on view at MAIIAM Contemporary Art Museum in Chiang Mai, Thailand. Trevor Yeung| Trương Công Tùng| Tuguldur Yondonjamts| Zamthingla Ruivah

ALL PROJECTS Social Movements and Feminist Futures Curated by Diana Campbell What does an enfranchised future look like? Since the inception of the nation-state, not everyone has been considered a citizen with rights to protect. Throughout the world, the disenfranchised including peoples of colour, indigenous peoples, and people of diverse sexual and gender orientation, continue to fight for spaces to endure, imagining how and when their security, their representation in and of the world is recognised. The artists in this movement employ fantasy and poetry to imagine territories that emancipate them from the everyday violence of capitalism, patriarchy, and political/religious fundamentalism. These worlds might exist in outer space, on the ocean floor, at the poles of the planet, or they may emerge from hiding places between the lines that seemingly restrict and foreclose uncertain histories. Adriana Bustos b. 1965, Córdoba; lives and works in Buenos Aires Venus Planisphere 2 , 2019–2020 Acrylic, Graphite, and Silver Leaf on Canvas Commissioned for DAS 2020 Courtesy of the artist Official Territory , 2019 Acrylic, Graphite, and Silver Leaf on Canvas Courtesy of the artist and Collection Sharjah Art Foundation Adriana Bustos’s Vision Machine project poses questions about what we see, how we see it, and how vision can reinforce or dismantle the narratives which underlie systems of oppression. Two large maps – representing polarised views yet identical in structure – depict the constellations as they appeared in the skies on day one of month one of the Christian era. The names of stars have been replaced by words and concepts which act as a guide to the drawings around them. One of the maps quotes historical images depicting acts of patriarchal violence. They are rendered in red, and when seen through a filter positioned in front of the work they fade away and our gaze is instead drawn to the images in the opposite map depicting known and unknown heroines as well as references to repressed practices and events associated with women. This commission for DAS extends the artist’s research into the feminist histories of South Asia. Bustos works with photography, video, performance, and drawing, addressing concepts drawn from anthropology, history, science, popular culture, fiction, biographical writings, and academic and intuitive knowledge. Her works act as arenas of intersecting methodological and representational systems that challenge global histories, specifically concerning Latin America. Bharti Kher b. 1969, London; lives and works in New Delhi Intermediaries , 2019–2020 Commissioned and produced by Samdani Art Foundation for DAS 2020 Courtesy of the artist, Samdani Art Foundation, and Nature Morte. Realised with additional support from Nature Morte and Perrotin Bharti Kher’s Intermediaries series invites us to consider a transitional space in the present – somewhere between truth and reality. This notion of the go-between or medium fascinates Kher, often resulting in unlikely pairings becoming hybrids, often half-female forms such as these women in the process of becoming snakes in this newly commissioned project for DAS. Made by traditional idol makers, Kher’s painted mud and clay sculpture rises from the earth and will return to it through the natural process of entropy, speaking to the many layers of religions and cultures that have existed on the land that is now Bangladesh. Her work reminds us that there are multiple selves within us and that we are in a constant state of transformation. Kher’s way of working is radically heterogeneous, encompassing painting, sculpture, text, and installation. Central themes are the notion of the self as formed by multiple and interlocking relationships with human and animal bodies, places, and readymade objects. The body, a central element to her work, is one of the many tools she uses to transform metaphysical narratives into forms of hybridity. Chitra Ganesh b. 1975, Brooklyn, New York; lives and works in Brooklyn Sultana’s Dream , 2018 Portfolio of 27 Linocuts BFK Rives Tan Courtesy of the artist and Samdani Art Foundation Manuscript , 2018/2020 Bamboo, raw silk, video Projection developed with and animated by The Studio NYC Courtesy of the artist Totem , 2018/2020 Brick, bamboo, clay, mud, and straw Commissioned and Produced by Samdani Art Foundation for DAS 2020. Courtesy of the artist and Samdani Art Foundation How we do , 2018/2020 Video, chalk, paint, jute structure Commissioned and Produced by Samdani Art Foundation for DAS 2020. Courtesy of the artist and Samdani Art Foundation Using printmaking, video, installation, and sculpture, Chitra Ganesh unpacks gender and power in a futurist imaginary inspired by the utopian, feminist, sci-fi novella Sultana’s Dream (1905) by Bengali author and social reformer Begum Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain. In the words of the artist, the project ‘draws on Hossain’s vibrant imagery, translating a story written in verse into a visual grammar that connects with problems that shape 21st-century life: apocalyptic environmental disaster, the disturbing persistence of gender-based inequality, the power of the wealthy few against the economic struggles of the majority, and ongoing geopolitical conflicts that cause widespread death and suffering. These works comment on this fraught moment in world history, demonstrating the enduring relevance of feminist utopian imaginaries in offering an invaluable means of envisioning a more just world.’ Ganesh met with Bangladeshi artisans and architects as well as members of the broader queer and trans community of Dhaka in the process of creating this commission for DAS. Their open process of sharing know-how challenges received notions of how labour is gendered and organised within patriarchal structures. Ganesh works across media including drawing, installation, animation, and prints. Her work draws from and deconstructs historical and mythological texts to queer the future of the iconic female figure. Her pictorial language is inspired by surrealism, expressionism, and South Asian visual culture, such as Kalighat painting and ACK comics. Edgar Cleijne and Ellen Gallagher b. 1965, Eindhoven; lives and works in Rotterdam and New York. b. 1965, Providence, Rhode Island; lives and works in New York and Rotterdam Osedax , 2010 16 mm film projection, Hand-painted slide projection, Music: ‘Message From A Black Man’ by The Whatnauts, 1970 (A&I Records). Courtesy of the artists and Gagosian Gallery. Presented with the generous support of Gagosian Gallery and the Embassy of the Netherlands in Bangladesh The collaborative film installation Osedax is named after a new species of bone-devouring worm discovered around the time this work was made. The discovery inspired Edgar Cleijne and Ellen Gallagher to draw parallels between science fiction and hard science protocols, focusing on transformation processes of physical matter where you think you see one thing, but it turns out to be completely different. The work is based on ‘whale fall,’ the scientific term for dead whales that have fallen to the ocean floor and are consumed by scavengers. The work relies on antique film technology (16 mm and synced slide projectors), but the artists also use modern 3D animation technology to draw into the film, weaving between watery passages and creating a portal into enchanting worlds populated with micro-organisms and submarine life forms and mythical stories of the African diaspora. Edgar Cleijne is a Dutch artist predominantly working in photography and film. Merging discordant threads of analogue and digital imaging and sound, Cleijne looks at the effects of the human-engendered climate emergency in the crossing points of culture and nature. Gallagher’s work comprises painting, film, cut and layered paper, and intricate combinations of the three. Through processes of accretion, erasure, extraction, and synthesis, she counters static representations of race and nation, traversing geographies and histories. The eclipse of the African body into American blackface minstrelsy informs Gallagher’s investigations into the violence embedded within the history of abstraction. Ellen Gallagher b. 1965, Providence, Rhode Island; lives and works in New York and Rotterdam Watery Ecstatic (RA 18h 35m 37.73s D37° 22’ 31.12’) , 2017 Cut Paper Courtesy of the artist and Samdani Art Foundation Ellen Gallagher’s Water Ecstatic series (2001 onwards) imagines life as fluid: from our early days as cells that develop into foetuses within amniotic sacs in our pregnant mothers to the imaginary underwater world of Drexciya. In this myth, created by a Detroit-based electronic band of the same name, children born from pregnant African slaves thrown overboard during their passage across the Atlantic Ocean have gills and webbed feet and are therefore able to thrive underwater without the need to come up for air in the oppressive racist world above. Drexciya’s world started out on the ocean floor and sailed into the cosmos when the group bought the naming rights to a Drexciya star, whose celestial address is referenced in the title of this work. Gallagher relates her labour-intensive cut-paper process on bright white paper to scrimshaw (illustrative carvings primarily made on whalebones and ivory). The intricate forms that she carves into paper of botanical and marine life growing from African masks conjure a utopian realm, adjacent to a horrific one, that can only exist in the realm of fantasy. Gallagher’s work comprises painting, film, cut and layered paper, and intricate combinations of the three. Through processes of accretion, erasure, extraction, and synthesis, she counters static representations of race and nation, traversing geographies and histories. The eclipse of the African body into American blackface minstrelsy informs Gallagher’s investigations into the violence embedded within the history of abstraction. Héctor Zamora b. 1974, Mexico City; lives and works in Lisbon Movimientos Emisores de Existencia (Existence-emitting Movements) , 2019–2020 Performative action with women and terracotta vessels, HD Video 5:25 min Courtesy of the artist and Labor Movimientos Emisores de Existencia (Existence-emitting Movements) is an action in which a group of women walk directly on an installation comprised of hundreds of raw clay vessels in different shapes and sizes inspired by traditional ceramic traditions of Bangladesh. Most cultures, including those of the artist’s native Mexico as well as Bangladesh, perpetuate the iconic image of a woman bearing a vessel on her head to transport water or food; a symbol of the hard domestic labour weighing down women in society. Héctor Zamora disrupts the order of things by placing the vessel not upon the women’s heads, but rather beneath their feet. By inverting the equation, what occurs is a shared space of liberation where women can turn the tide of patriarchy and recover pleasure in their lives. Zamora uses materials that resonate with the location of his chosen site, such as terracotta and bricks that allow him to question and engage with institutional structures. He often operates in dialogue with local communities, which allows him to produce ephemeral site-specific works that highlight social, political, and historical issues specific to their context. Himali Singh Soin b. 1987, New Delhi; lives and works between London and New Delhi we are opposite like that , 2018–2020 Two-channel video installation, 11:35 min Courtesy of the artist. With support from India Foundation for the Arts, Frieze London, Forma Arts and Media Ltd., and Channel 4 Random Acts we are opposite like that is a magic-realist tale from the high Arctic circle, told from the nonhuman perspective of an elder that has witnessed deep time: the ice. Shown in an installation format for the first time, Himali Singh Soin’s videos recount the 19th-century anxiety of an imminent ice age and illumine the hubris of the abandoned township of Ny London, where British extractionists mined marble that turned to dust when the permafrost evaporated. An alien figure, part-cyborg, part-vessel of ancient feminine knowledge, explores the blank, oblivious whiteness, foraging for decolonial possibilities in a landscape of receding glaciers. Inspired by field recordings, an original score for a string quartet creates an etheric soundscape coded with temperature variances and latitudes and longitudes from the field. ‘we are opposite like that’ beckons the ghosts hidden in landscapes and turns them into echoes, listening in on the resonances of potential futures. Soin works across text, performance, and moving image. She utilises metaphors from the natural environment to construct speculative cosmologies that reveal nonlinear entanglements between human and nonhuman life. Her poetic methodology seeks inspiration from the ancient Stoics and contemporary philosophy to explore alchemical ways of knowing and the loss inherent in language. Huma Bhabha b. 1962, Karachi; lives and works in Poughkeepsie Cowboys and Angels , 2018 Cork, styrofoam, acrylic paint, oil stick Courtesy of the artist and Samdani Art Foundation Untitled , 2014 Ink and collage on colour photograph Courtesy of the artist and Samdani Art Foundation Intense in their presence, Huma Bhabha’s works aggressively attract the viewer by layering visual textures from across the many landscapes (real and imagined) that she has inhabited, from rural New York to Karachi to cinemas projecting horror and science fiction movies. She found in her research that illustrators of sci-fi movies and comic books used African masks and imagery from other cultures to develop their characters. According to the artist, the issues that sci-fi deals with – such as the state of the world, the future, and the fate of human beings – closely parallel her own interests as she explores the global as local and globalisation as the new colonialism. She sees these themes as ‘eternal because as human beings we haven’t been able to get beyond them.’ Bhabha’s alien forms emerging from photographic paper, cork, and styrofoam suggest a world beyond our human limitations. Bhabha’s work addresses themes of colonialism, war, displacement, and memories of home. Using found materials such as styrofoam, clay, construction scraps, and cork, she creates haunting human figures that hover between abstraction and figuration, and include references to science fiction, horror films, tribal art, religious reliquary, and modernist sculpture. Marzia Farhana b. 1985, Dhaka; lives and works in Dhaka Sovereignty to Nature , 2019–2020 Acrylic painting & collage on canvas, toys, magazine images, texts, installations with domestic materials, bricks, small engines, everyday objects, chair/tool, found footage, video on CRT monitor/3D projector Commissioned and Produced by Samdani Art Foundation for DAS 2020. Courtesy of the artist and Samdani Art Foundation We live in a man-made world; the discrimination against women and nature on this planet is a part of the machinery behind its violent destruction. Marzia Farhana’s DAS commission Sovereignty to Nature addresses this discrimination from an eco-feminist perspective. Situating her subject matter in Bangladesh, a nation among the world’s most heavily affected by environmental destruction, with less than five per cent of its forest cover remaining, Farhana traces the current situation to the male invention of capitalism that subjugates nature to a rational economic calculus. Divided into three individual paintings signifying collapsed bodies in an apocalyptic world, elements such as machinery parts, toys, everyday ordinary materials, domestic materials and printed images tell the story of the destruction of nature and the consequential suffering of women and the planet. Farhana invites the viewer to call for a radical restructuring of human sovereignty, where all living and non-living inhabitants of our planet are included. Farhana works with several media including painting, installation, and video. Her practice is time-and-space based, facilitating collaborations, participation and reinforcing the possibility of co-authorship on works of art that reinvent empathy. Farhana has recently co-authored works with a government school in Bangladesh, as well as with local communities in Kochi. For her, art is an ‘act of resistance’ to overcome the violence committed by the domain of the hegemonic society. Nilima Sheikh b. 1945, New Delhi; lives and works in Baroda Beyond Loss , 2019–20 Casein tempera on canvas scroll Commissioned for DAS 2020. Courtesy of the artist and Chemould Prescott Road. Realised with additional support from Chemould Prescott Road ‘Immediate trauma finds historic/mythic prototypes. Dire times call for apocalyptic vocabularies,’ reflects Nilima Sheikh on the tragedies long-plaguing Kashmir, the epicentre of the destruction left in the wake of the British partition of India and exacerbated by rising Indian nationalism. The work takes the form of a narrative scroll that immerses the viewer in its representation of mourning, loss, and absence. As in life, song, and performance, so too in painting we look for a form to express and release what can seem inexpressible. In many cultures of mourning, women participate in prime roles, however, there are times when mourning has to be conducted in silence, in solitude, in the incantations of memory. Sheikh has been visiting Kashmir since she was a young child and has made work about the plural history of the place since 2002. This new work signals the valour of the women of Kashmir, whose energies are necessary to metaphorically ignite the flame of the cooking pot to reignite home-life in the face of an oppressive world outside. Sheikh works with paper, painting, installation, and large-scale scrolls. Drawing from her extensive research on traditional Indian and Asian art forms, including mural paintings from China and screens and scrolls from Japan, her work reflects her decades-long advocacy for women’s rights. Sheikh’s mystical landscapes address themes such as displacement, longing, historical lineage, violence, and ideas of femininity. Sara Sejin Chang (Sara van der Heide) b. 1977, Busan; lives and works in Amsterdam and Brussels The Mother Mountain Institute , 2017–ongoing Installation, collection of stories, sound, drawings Commissioned and Produced by Samdani Art Foundation for DAS 2020. Courtesy of the artist. Realised with additional support from Mondriaan Fonds and the Embassy of the Netherlands in Bangladesh With special thanks: Mrs Sayrun; Dutch Foundation Shapla Community Voice mother: Mehreen Mahmud. Voice mountain: Moktadir Dewan. Words mountain written by: Sara Sejin Chang (Sara van der Heide); Agnieszka Polska, Kumgang Sunimthe head monk of the Seon Monastry of Mihwangsa, South Korea; Park, Jin Yeo, the woman who can see the future and the past, South Korea; Jeonhwan Cho;Dario Escobar, hermit Qadisha Valley, Lebanon; Nabil Rahman The Mother Mountain Institute aims to give a voice to mothers who have, often under duress, given their child up for adoption. Legacies of imperialism and colonialism can be read through the lens of transracial and transnational adoptions with the Global North. The interests of the birth mother are often overlooked with its many stakeholders. Women in precarious social and economic conditions can be faced with pressure from the state, the church, and/or criminal traffickers. In this work, two figures are evoked: the Mother and the Mountain, who both speak. A woman’s voice narrates the story, based upon an interview with a mother by the artist that took place in January 2020 in Bangladesh. Alternating, the mountain speaks. After separation, the respective desires of the mother and child to find one another again remain. Like celestial bodies pulled by gravity, they circle around each other. Besides the political, economic, cultural and historical context provided about the why, the how and the when, no sufficient answers are provided that can heal the inner wound of being separated from one’s child. The mountain is present here as a patient shelter and as a spiritual entity who might provide answers to impossible questions transcending rational thought, represented through sound and drawings made during the artist’s walks in hills and mountains known for their spiritual qualities in Poland, India, Bangladesh, Lebanon, and South Korea. www.mothermountaininstitute.org Sara Sejin Chang works with drawings, installations, performances, films, and interventions, examining patriarchal and Western imperialist ideas about linearity, gender, nation-state, spirituality, and world-making. In many of her works, Chang draws from her historiography and reflects paradoxically on these artistic processes and interventions as acts of historical repair, healing, and belonging. Saskia Pintelon b. 1945, Kortrijk; lives and works in Mirissa No News Good News , 2019 Collage on Newspaper Courtesy of the artist and Saskia Fernando Gallery No News Good News is an ongoing body of work where the artist Saskia Pintelon imagines a world where the text comprising the English, Flemish, and Sinhalese newspapers that she reads is rearranged to tell stories of more hopeful and equal futures. With a subtle sense of humour, these subversive works push back against patriarchy in the world which often defines what is newsworthy, proposing new rules to break rigid standards of beauty and definitions of success and happiness. They question reigning paradigms about a variety of subjects from old age, to romance, matrimony, gender, religion, addictions through association and juxtaposition. The strong visual quality of Pintelon’s newspapers forces us to stop and reflect, and through her imaginative editing process we are able to consider news that we overlook as a result of information overflow. Saskia Pintelon is at heart a figurative painter who periodically verges towards abstraction and text-based work. Inspired by local and universal issues, stories from the gut and the heart, politics and day-to-day concerns, her body of work interprets the collective human experience, environment and the cycle of life with intimate and personal preoccupations. She has spent nearly four decades working in Sri Lanka and her work reflects the hybridity of living between and across cultures. Taslima Akhter b. 1974, Dhaka; lives and works in Dhaka Stitching Together: Garment Workers in Solidarity , 2017 With Bangladesh Garment Sromik Samhoti (Bangladesh Garment Workers Solidarity) Community Stitching Action on Cloth Made by families of Bangladeshi Garment Workers. Courtesy of the artist ‘A thousand stars twinkle on the sky, and I dream of Beauty by my side ,’ reads the translation of a traditional Kantha-stitched statement embroidered into Taslima Akhter’s moving ‘Memorial Quilts’. This is not an abstract dream, Beauty was the wife of Alam Matobor who disappeared in the deadly collapse of the garment factory Rana Plaza in 2013, one of the worst industrial accidents in history. Their daughter Farzana embroidered her father’s words on a handkerchief, and the stories of loss of 14 other families make up the details (which include messages, photographs, and belongings donated by surviving relatives) comprising this powerful collaborative reminder to ‘remember the dead and fight for the living.’ A counter-narrative to disaster, these quilts empower families to memorialise their loved ones and draw together a growing number of allies who demand the wage and safety conditions necessary to avoid history repeating itself. Akther is a documentary photographer and human rights activist, drawing attention to the issues faced by garment workers for over a decade. Her photographs address issues of gender, the environment, and social discrimination. Akther’s politics strongly influence her photography, which often captures the lives and struggles of those she rallies for. She is the chair of Bangladesh Garment Sromik Samhoti (Bangladesh Garment Workers Solidarity) founded in 2008. Vivian Caccuri b. 1986, São Paulo; lives and works in Rio de Janeiro A Soul Transplant , 2019 Drawing on paper A Sweet Encounter , 2019 Drawing on paper New Immunity , 2019 Drawing on paper Courtesy of the artist and A Gentil Carioca Ghost Clothes Aedes , 2019 Ghost Clothes , 2019 Installation made of embroidery on mosquito nets. Commissioned for DAS 2020. Courtesy of the artist and A Gentil Carioca The mosquito, a pivot of epidemics such as yellow fever, dengue fever, and Zika, has often been a propagator of anguish, fear, and urban and environmental crises in Vivian Caccuri’s native Brazil as well as in Bangladesh, which recently suffered the worst dengue epidemic in its history. Caccuri seeks a new environmental relationship with mosquitoes and proposes a futuristic moment when a new culture emerges in Brazil that has overcome its fear of mosquitoes – developing immunity and thriving in new symbiotic relationships with these insects in the wake of environmental destruction. Inspired by hallucinations typical of yellow fever, Caccuri’s new sculptural work melds the human body and the mosquito body into one. The protection of the skin spreads into space as if breaking the visible boundary between this membrane and the environment. Caccuri works with objects, installations, and performances in combination with sound. Complex experiments in sensory perception allow her to create situations that disorient everyday experience, addressing ecology, interspecies relationships, and the legacies of globalisation and colonial violence. Caccuri’s practice lingers between visual art, experimental music, and anthropology.

ALL PROJECTS To Enter The Sky Curated by Sean Anderson To Enter The Sky Curated by Sean Anderson (Associate Professor and Undergraduate Program Director at Cornell University’s Department of Architecture) Weather, when visualized, relies on the interaction of multiple forces enacting potential acts of benefit as well as destruction. Sometimes predictable, and even mapped, more often, spaces inherit weather in unpredictable patterns that suggest tumult, a conjuring or a question, in defiance of the unknown. For example, airplane pilots depend on degrees of turbulence to achieve lift, to enter the sky. Likewise, for architects and builders, turbulence presents a manifold of acts for the body and the landscape to confront, with which to bend and flex, and from which one may achieve improbable balance. With sea level rise and the increased intensity of unprecedented weather systems, the world has witnessed recent devastating floods in Northern Pakistan and Bangladesh, the ongoing strengthening of cyclones in the Bay of Bengal, and the anticipated disappearance of Maldivian atolls as well as those throughout the South Pacific. The invention of land for real estate development adjacent to the oceans and seas simultaneously destroys sensitive ecosystems while displacing vulnerable human and non-human settlements. A perpetuation of cataclysmic events tear at the definitions of geography, of fixed temporalities, for an architecture and urbanism subject to extremes continually redefined on the ground, in the water and the air. Recent years have also shown us that a global pandemic can challenge nearly every aspect of humanity and expressions of collectivity. Refugees and asylum seekers traverse the planet while confronting the fixity of imposed boundaries. Architecture can be reimagined to consider how and with whom we seek common grounds among spaces of repair, comfort and joy. With livelihoods unfolding over screens large and small, and those landless and nationless continue to seek refuge, the built environment presents itself as a backdrop, stage and as an agent for change. We all share one sky. Drawings by children situate both the vulnerability and strength of future selves who, in a spirited display of potential, of beauty, of imagined spaces and buildings, can also aspire to elevate and share possible futures. Just as we navigate the unknown, architecture must activate new encounters with economies of materiality, ecology, community, sovereignty, and citizenship. How do we design and build for the inevitability of conflicts, past and future? How does architecture establish belonging in landscapes of devastation and transit? This exhibition responds to those insecure conditions that allow architects, artists and designers to engage with the dimensioning of turbulence as a catalyst for addressing how we encounter each other. To Enter the Sky brings together examples of architectures and artworks of resilience, of trust, while not discounting fear, entropy, and destruction. The exhibition centers Bangladesh as part of a broader reckoning of what it means to be human in and of the built environment today. We know that various turbulences will persist. Architecture need not be resistant. Rather, the exhibition asserts how a spatial medium, with its multitudes of hope and chance, can begin to disseminate radical stories of becoming to help us understand our own fragile inheritances as individuals, communities, nations. LOCATION: FIRST FLOOR SOUTH PLAZA Sumayya Vally Ceramic vessels activated by performance Performance 7pm daily Commissioned by Samdani Art FoundationCo-curated by Diana Campbell and Sean Anderson as an overlay of “To Enter the Sky” and “Bonna” Pavilion and performance conceptualisation by Sumayya Vally Sound in collaboration with Shoummo SahaChoreography in collaboration with Arpita Singha Lopa oletha imvula uletha ukuphila Translation: “They who brings rain, brings life” IsiZulu proverb Wielding the comings of rain is a tradition practiced by cultures across geographies. To possess the power to command rainfall is by inference possessing the power to dictate the flow of the natural cycle and climatic conditions. Across Southern Africa, rain-making rituals are directed towards royal ancestors because they were believed to have control over rain and other natural phenomena. One of these rare and powerful individuals is the Moroka of the Pedi tribe in South Africa: the traditional rain-making doctor. Here, a series of fired and unfired clay vessels are assembled as a temporal space to hold gatherings. Over the course of DAS, a series of performances which draw on the traditions of rain-making and harvest are performed in the space where the hands that formed the pots also work to un-form them. The rituals include the use of water, which allows the un-fired pots to dissolve over time, revealing areas and niches of gathering contained by the pots, as well as rhythmic drumming that evokes the sound of thunder at the end of each day. Vally’s design, research and pedagogical practice is searching for expression for hybrid identities and territory, particularly for African and Islamic conditions. Her design process is often forensic, and draws on the aural, the performative and the overlooked as generative places of history and work. b. 1990, Pretoria; lives and works in London LOCATION: SECOND FLOOR Ali Kazim Untitled (Cloud Series) 2018 In his 1949 novel, A Sheltering Sky, Paul Bowles writes about the precarities of individuals: “How fragile we are under the sheltering sky. Behind the sheltering sky is a vast dark universe, and we're just so small.” The sky, that which envelops us, is an arbiter of all life on the planet. It is that which comforts or destroys and always reminds us of where we are and where we can be. While the horizon is a measure of the sky, clouds, as condensations of molecules, are signs of life and its potentials; they signal transformations. The cloud is a sky’s signature. Detached from the ground and horizon, the clouds presented in these drawings suggest both movement and stasis. Caught in a moment of change, the clouds are suggestive of temporary presence, just as the weather conditions that they indicate and the individual lives that may be affected among spaces below. What may be discovered behind these scaleless formations? They are emboldened by forces large and small while also having the capacity to reveal new worlds. The works of Ali Kazim are embedded in the spatial histories of Pakistan’s landscapes and the civilizations that once inhabited the region. In works that use a variety of materials and techniques to evoke bodily and emotional experiences, Kazim’s work reimagines multiple narratives that are at once metaphors for human connectivities that may be hidden among unexcavated remains, long-abandoned cities, and the spaces that may be exposed or still buried. Ali Kazim b.1979, Pakistan Agnieszka Kurant Risk Management Commissioned for the New York Times 2020 Post-Fordite Fossilized automotive paint, epoxy resin, powdered stone, steel 2021-22 Sentimentite Digital NFT and physical sculpture Various pulverized objects, powdered granite stone, resin 2022 How can we redefine methods for understanding and responding to precarity at multiple scales throughout the world today? Materials extracted from the ground are but one illustration of how natural resources are continually pillaged in order to support unsustainable population growth and unfair labor practices, which is coupled with environmental devastation. The works in this exhibition speculate about the consequences of economies in parallel with digital capitalism, in which entire societies have become distributed factories of data production and exploitation, where everyone is a worker producing digital and carbon footprints. Risk Management presents a geographical map of a history of outbreaks of social contagions based on fictions spanning the last thousand years. The work draws on the inability of risk-prediction models to consider irrational human behavior and other largely impactful social phenomena. Post-Fordite takes up a recently discovered hybrid, quasi-geological formation created as a natural-artificial byproduct, through fossilization of thousands of layers of automotive paint accumulated and congealed on production lines at automobile factories since the opening of the Henry Ford Motor Company manufacturing plants in the early 20th century. Recently, these fossilized-paint configurations , named Fordite or Detroit Agate, by the former workers of now defunct factories, began circulating online and accruing value. Since Fordite can be cut and polished, it is often used like precious stones to produce jewelry. Post-Fordite embodies more than 100 years of amalgamated human labor and the collective footprints of workers, past and present, translated into geology. S entimentite is a speculative mineral-currency investigating the relationship between digital capitalism and geology in which a future mineral could become more precious than gold and become a currency. Kurant collaborated with computational social scientists who used Artificial Intelligence sentiment-analysis algorithms to harvest data from hundreds of thousands of Twitter and Reddit posts related to recent historic seismic events, including the Fukushima nuclear disaster, Brexit, the Arab Spring, Black Lives Matter, the pandemic global lockdown, and Bitcoin’s meteoric rise. These aggregated emotions of millions of people shaped the forms of 100 sculptures, which were cast in a new mineral created by pulverizing 60 objects used as official and informal currencies throughout the history of humanity: shells, Rai stones, whale teeth, corn, Tide detergent, electronic waste, soap, beads, mirrors, batteries, playing cards, phone cards, stamps, tea, and cocoa pods. Invested in exploring how “economies of the invisible” bolster fictions about humanity’s survival in the face of such destructive socio-political and economic processes, Agnieszka Kurant’s sculptural and mapping works speculate on how value is translated and can transgress conventional definitions. Her work challenges how objects today are mutated through their global circulation and production while also questioning modernist conceptions of aura, authorship, production, and hybridity. Many of her works emulate nature and behave like living organisms and self-organized complex systems. b.1978 Łódź; lives and works in New York Aziza Chaouni Projects Rehabilitation of Modern Public Buildings in Africa Sidi Harazem, Morocco Old Fourah Bay College, Sierra Leone (1827) CICES, Dakar, Senegal (1974) Throughout the world today, modern architecture, especially those examples in rapidly developing areas of the Global South, remains at risk of demolition due to economic, political, and societal forces that consider its buildings not worthy of preservation. Modern buildings are often judged unattractive, too far removed from “traditional” architecture and building types while overlaid with memories of a traumatic colonial past. How do contemporary architects reimagine the ways in which modernism is understood today? How can spaces imbued with societal traumas be rewritten with the goal of transforming their value to communities and publics? These three rehabilitation projects are actively engaging with and responding to the design of community-centered spaces that are envisaged as cooperative, reparative and responsive for all that participate in their making. In Morocco, Sierra Leone and Senegal, like in other areas subject to the simultaneity of post-colonial transition meeting neoliberal economic drivers, buildings and landscapes are continually being questioned as productive zones for living today. Designed between 1959 and 1975 by prominent Moroccan architect of Corsican origin, Jean-François Zevaco, the Sidi Harazem Thermal Bath Complex, located near the city of Fez, is the first example of public post-independence leisure architecture designed for Moroccan inhabitants. Unfortunately, villagers whose ancestors had lived on the same land for generations were forcibly moved several miles away to accommodate the new tourist destination.Deploying a long-term phased masterplan that accounted for the memory of these historical events while also attending to environmental sensitivities with the use of water in a drought-prone area of the country, the Complex moves beyond the rehabilitation of the buildings themselves to adaptively reuse the spaces for the local population. Since 1827, Old Fourah Bay College was a laboratory and educational setting in which western ideas of governance, political organization and public service were shared as experiments with populations across Sierra Leone and West Africa. The onset of conflict throughout the 1990s radically altered this building and it was occupied by displaced families fleeing a brutal ground war. Working with local school and university groups to rethink what a “dream school” might look like, new methods of design centered in active conversations and designed interactive spatial exercises have established new shared narratives from which the College can once again return to being a space of civic and educational learning. Designed by the architects, Jean-François Lamoureux and Jean-Louis Marin, the CICES was commissioned by the first president of Senegal Léopold Sédar Senghor, who sought a universal African architectural language, shed from Western referents. The CICES complex uses Modernist principles in its circulation and layout, and simultaneously embraces Senghor’s ‘asymmetric parallelism’ theory, that he defines as "a diversified repetition of rhythm in time and space,” which allows for unique spatial experiences. Working with local stakeholders to reconsider what a “masterplan” for such an iconic complex affected by environmental and economic issues will be, ensures its continued use as a productive site for international exchange and commerce into the future. Aziza Chaouni was born and raised in Fez, Morocco and is trained both as a structural engineer and as an architect. Through the integration of users and stakeholders across the design process, Chaouni’s office, Aziza Chaouni Projects, offers alternative processes for imagining and designing empathetic spaces that move past staid aesthetics to articulate human and material-centered approaches to sensitive areas throughout North and West Africa. b.1977 Fez; lives and works in Fez and Toronto Coral Mosques of Maldives Mauroof Jameel and Hamsha Hussain Among the Maldivian atolls and islands, there are at least 26 documented mosques and compounds that have been constructed using coral stone. Assembled from porite coral stone ( hirigaa ) hewn from the reefs and integrated with interior structures fashioned from timber and crafted by lacquer work, itself a unique Maldivian artform, these buildings represent an architecture of resilience found nowhere else on the planet. Akin to other monumental structures found in India and Southeast Asia, the mosques coalesce building, material and artistic practices that point to the transit of ideas and typologies. While historical uses of coral in building construction have been discovered among the Mayan communities of Central America between 900-1500 BCE and among the coastal communities of the Red Sea between 146-323 BCE, among the Maldives, the coral used is both unique to the islands while the building conveys spatial and spiritual resonances found across the Indian Ocean and its sub-continent. These buildings illustrate how the use of localized materials at any scale can maintain long standing spaces for communities. The continued use of the coral mosques today is emblematic of a nation’s peoples and their unwavering faith in the face of environmental calamity. The images of six primary coral mosque compounds included in this exhibition are in use across the islands today and were nominated for UNESCO’s World Heritage List in 2013. Each example embodies architectural forms that are both specific to their island location while also expressing discrete art practices including exterior coral carving, calligraphy, and lacquer work that speak to the movement of Islamic artistic practices across the ocean. With carpentry techniques in the mosques no longer extant and coral mining forbidden for environmental sensitivities, these buildings are recognized for their integration of construction techniques and artforms that speak to the Indian Ocean realm as a space for visual, material, and spatial exchange. Ihavandhoo Old Friday Mosque Miskiy Magu, Ihavandhoo, Haa Alifu Atoll6º 57' 17.33" N and 72º 55' 38.33" EIhavandhoo Old Friday Mosque was completed in 16 December 1701 CE (15 Rajab 1113 A. H.) during the reign of Sultan Ibrahim Muzhiruddin (1701-1705). Meedhoo Old Friday Mosque Hiyfaseyha Magu, Meedhoo, Raa Atoll5º 27' 27.80" N, 72º 57' 16.41"EAccording to local oral history, the mosque was probably built during the reign of Sultan Muzaffar Mohamed Imaduddin around 1705. It is the only surviving coral stone mosque with Indian clay roofing tiles. Malé Friday Mosque Medhuziyaaraiy Magu, Henveiru, Malé, Kaafu Atoll4º 10' 40.77" N, 73º 30' 44.57" EMalé Old Friday Mosque and its compound comprise one of the most important heritage sites in the country. It is also the biggest and one of the finest coral stone buildings in the world. The present mosque was built in 1658 during the reign of Sultan Ibrahim Iskandhar I, replacing the original mosque built in 1153 by the first Muslim sultan of the Maldives. Fenfushi Old Friday Mosque Hiriga Goalhi, Fenfushi, Alifu Dhaalu Atoll3°45′15″N 72°58′35″EFenfushi Friday Mosque was built during the reign of Sultan Mohamed of Dhevvadhu (1692-1701) on the site of an earlier mosque. It is a well-preserved compound with a unique coral stone bathing tank, coral stone wells, a sundial, and a large cemetery with grave markers of fine quality. Isdhoo Old Mosque Isdhoo, Laamu Atoll2° 7′ 10″ N, 73° 34′ 10″ EIsdhoo Old Mosque was built prior to a renovation in 1701 during the reign of Sultan Mohamed of Dhevvadhoo (1692-1701). This is the mosque where the 12th century royal copper chronicles 'Isdhoo Loamaafaanu' was kept in a special chamber. The mosque is built on a pre-Islamic site and analysis of the architectural details of the mosque indicates that the stonework could be even older. Hulhumeedhoo Fandiyaaru Mosque Koagannu, Hulhumeedhoo, Addu City0º 34' 51.6" S and 73º 13' 42" EHulhumeedhoo Fandiyaaru Mosque located in the Koagannu area in the island of Hulhumeedhoo (Addu City) was probably built around 1586 during the reign of Sultan Ibrahim III. The Koagannu area is the largest and the oldest cemetery in the Maldives with more than 500 coral grave markers, a sheltered mausoleum and 15 open mausoleums. It had six small mosques but now four small mosques remain. They are Koagannu Miskiy c.1397, Boadhaa Miskiy c.1403, Athara Miskiy c.1417 and Fandiyaru Miskiy c.1586. Felecia Davis and Delia Dumitrescu Computational textiles are textiles that are responsive to cues found in the environment using sensors and microcontrollers for the making of a textile that uses shape-shifting properties of the material itself to communicate information to people. In architecture, these responsive textiles are transforming how we communicate, socialize, and use space. For instance, they can be used in making temporary and more permanent manifestations of shelter in conflict and environmentally devastated areas. Davis, a trained engineer and architect, with Dumitrescu, a textile designer, asked with this project, ‘How can we design lightweight textiles for use in architecture that can translate responses to their environment? Further, how might we make textiles that dilate if the temperature surrounding the textile becomes hot, or if one wants more transparency in that textile to see the view?’ With her experimental lab, SOFTLAB@PSU, Davis creates responsive textiles that defy conventional structural and representational modes for the material itself and its applications. At the Smart Textiles Lab in Sweden, Dumitrescu has been developing responsive artistic effects in textile design that reshape an understanding of textile as a material that operates at different scales. In this project they consider ‘how’ and ‘what’ textiles can be ‘when’—much like individuals and communities. The first typology of material developed for this work was pixelated, designed with yarn that melts at high temperature; accordingly, the fabric opens or breaks when it receives current. Openings allowed the designers to ‘write’ upon the fabric making apertures, collecting foreground and background through the qualities of the material. The second material has been designed with yarn that shrinks or closes into solid lines in the fabric when it receives current. Shrinking is activated by the material while also revealing more opaque patterning in the textile closing parts of that textile off, transforming the material and the quality of space framed by that material. Davis’ work bio responsive textiles questions how we live while she re-imagines how we might use textiles in our daily lives and in architecture. Davis and her lab are interested in developing computational methods and design in relation to bodies in locations that simultaneously engage specific social, cultural and political constructions. Her collaborative lab is dedicated to developing soft computational materials and textiles alongside industry and community partners to establish a culture of hands-on making and thinking through computational materials not only as a future but also as a holistic approach to living within uncertain circumstances. Central to Dumitrescu’s research is the topic of material and textile design, focusing on new materials expanding from computational textiles to biodesign and biofabrication. Through the notion of textile design thinking, her research expands the textile methodology; it includes systematic work with: colour, materials, texture, structure, pattern, and function to explore and propose new design futures for sustainable living from material to spatial design. b. United States and Romania; Lives and works in State College, Pennsylvania and Borås Marshall Islands Navigation Charts Beijok Kaious The Marshall Islands in eastern Micronesia of the Southern Pacific Ocean consists of thirty-four coral atolls composed of more than one thousand islands and islets spread out across an area of several hundred miles. The islanders have mastered an ability to navigate between and among the almost-invisible islands—since the land masses are all so low that none can be seen except from a short distance away. In addition to closely observing wave and swell patterns, the Marshallese used the celestial constellations to navigate the ocean. They also determined the locations of the islands by observing the flight of the birds that nested on them. Song was also used to estimate the distance that the navigators traveled. Navigation is a form of storytelling and placemaking. For thousands of years Marshall Islanders used complex navigation techniques with charts made from coconut midribs and seashells. There are three kinds of Marshall Island “stick charts”: the Mattang , the Rebbelib , and the Meddo . The mattang was specifically designed to train individuals in the art of navigation while the Rebbelib covered a large section or the entirety of the islands. The charts consisted of curved and straight sticks. The curved sticks represented ocean swells and the straight sticks represented the currents and waves around the islands. The seashells represented the locations of the islands. Marshallese navigators memorized the charts and did not take them with them on their canoes. Each chart was unique and could only be interpreted by the person who made it. Today, different configurations of the charts are still being produced across the islands and used by young navigators learning to “read” the ocean. Beyond maps, the charts are thus built stories that speak to the past, present and future simultaneously. The examples of charts ( meddo ) presented in the exhibition, while made as souvenirs on the island of Majuro by Beijok Kaious and facilitated by others, still speak to the continuities and difficulties of navigating across oceans and territories that are rapidly disappearing with the onset of global climate crises. Olalekan Jeyifous How can one envision and design potential? Rather than observing historically overlooked areas of cities such as Crown Heights, Brooklyn or within megacities such as Lagos, Nigeria as impoverished, exclusionary, and open to demolition, as is commonly depicted for underserved areas throughout the world, Jeyifous’s immersive images and spaces speak to the potential for questioning present conditions and future possibilities. Many of the spaces in such locations are also subject to the extremes brought about by environmental instability. Such alternative futuristic visions are simultaneously based in real spaces and conditions while also shifting the gaze of top-down “development” efforts in the same cities that gentrify, displace and erase. These works recenter individuals and collectives as plural complex communities understood as fundamental contributors to the forging of the built environment. The politics of architecture is presented as an extension of how people build themselves as much as their communities. Recognizing that architecture can be built and imagined by these communities, buildings and infrastructures are configured not in opposition to each other but appended to and effectively built among existing real estate projects, socially-constructed spaces and historical monuments. Trained as an architect, and now working at the intersection of art, spatial practices, and public art, Nigerian-born Olalekan Jeyifous explores how the conventions of immersive digital renderings, collages and videos open spaces for critique and revelation of the contemporary built environment. b.1977 Lagos; lives and works in New York Rizvi Hassan Collaborators: Minhajul Abedin, Khwaja Fatmi, Prokolpo Shonapahar, Rohingya Artisans: Kamrunnesa & Jaber, Khairul Amin, Aminullah, Hosna Akhter & Shofiq, Nurul Islam, Shahabuddin, Imam Hossain, Ali Johor, Faruk, Artisans from Sylhet & Shonapahar: Rehana Akhter, Khatun begum, Rita akther, Nikhil Architecture, for Rizvi Hassan, has the capacity “to connect life, to strengthen mental health, to enhance culture, to mitigate conflicts, to enrich the ground, or just to ensure the basic but very important needs to have a better quality of life.” Among the sustainable structures constructed in the world’s largest refugee camps housing Rohingya refugees in and around Cox’s Bazar, Hassan approached these community-centered designs that amplify quality of life for both non-human and human beings. Each of the buildings is responsive to regional climate and environmental precarities, including cyclones, while also establishing safe spaces for vulnerable women and children. Collaborating with members of these communities as well as those building the structures often without the aid of technical drawings, Hassan deploys tools and processes that may be considered antithetical to conventional Western-based architecture practices. His work is as much a facilitator as a designer. Rather, utilizing regenerative materials such as bamboo and thatch, but also overlooked products including mattresses for insulation, Hassan’s buildings emphasize how the use of non-extractive materials alongside minimal industrial intervention encourages sympathetic design processes, dynamic interior spaces, and much-needed shelter and respite for countless individuals. Rizvi Hassan and his collaborators established their practice to work in precarious zones including camps as well as flood-prone districts in Bangladesh. He has stated that “the nation didn’t prepare me to be just an architect, but to be an educated person who can contribute to society. For that, it is important even just to be present, in places where people will need us.” His work reimagines buildings and spaces that empower all community stakeholders while also creating inclusive spaces for the perpetuation of beauty, belonging and survival. b. 1993 Dhaka; Office based in Dhaka and Cox’s Bazar Rohingya Cultural Memory Centre (RCMC) Camp Life, 2022-2023 Hand-embroidered tapestry with stories of Rohingya refugee camp in BD. Participating Artisans: Yasmin, Shobika, Shomima, Roshida Facilitator: Sadya Mizan, Khurshida Permanent collection of RCMC Future Life, 2022-2023 Hand-embroidered tapestry with dream of future life of Rohingya refugee’s in BD Participating Artisans: Yasmin, Shobika, Showmima, Fatema, Ajida, Hosne Ara, Setara, Shamsunahar, Rokeya Facilitator: Rowson Akter, Asma Permanent collection of RCMC British physician and geographer, Dr. Francis Buchanan-Hamilton, published an article in 1799 that states, “the Mohammedans, who have long settled in Arakan, call themselves ‘Rooinga’, or natives of Arakan… the other are Rakhing … who adhere to the tenets of Buddha.” This early description not only establishes that there was an indigenous Muslim minority in the Arakan province of present-day Myanmar with the name Rohingya, but it further distinguishes them from the majority Rakhine Buddhist population. In 1982, the Burmese government enacted the 1982 Citizenship Law with a document that identifies 135 ethnic groups, which the government asserts had settled in Burma prior to 1823. The Rohingya, however, are not included as one of them. Subsequent decades of displacement and discriminatory policies incited by military coups and political brinkmanship has led to more than a million Rohingya refugees settling across numerous camps in Cox’s Bazar. Underlying their mass exodus into a country and spaces that are not their own, is the risk of negative psychosocial impacts stemming from, among other factors, a loss of cultural identity. Rohingya people have many stories, knowledge and wisdom that are rooted in mutual cooperation and care. “There is a dominant narrative that the Rohingya are poor and simple village people who don’t really have art or a developed material culture, and we want to show the world that this is not true,” describes Shahirah Majumdar. In 2022, the estab lishment of the Rohingya Cultural Memory Centre (RCMC) in Camp 18 was designed in tandem with extensive community participation and led by architect Rizvi Hassan. The RCMC is a Rohingya-led institution that collects, preserves, and disseminates the importance that knowledge narratives create goodwill among displaced communities. Even in the most unsettled conditions, cultural practice expressed through art is a significant mode through which generations of displaced communities can maintain their identity. The RCMC encourages empowerment across gender and social lines. Embroidery workshops provide an essential outlet for women artists, who gather to share personal experiences that are subsequently then stitched into tapestries. These are stories of being and becoming that further confer Rohingya histories into tangible forms. Women are trained by Bangladeshi artists who have helped them expand their artistic repertoire beyond traditional floral and faunal motifs, to even include human depictions. The embroidered tapestries presented here are powerful evocations that move past fear, anguish, and insecurity to illustrate stories of building that cannot be erased or forgotten. Sarker Protick jxb, OF RIVER AND LOST LANDS 2011 – 2023 [Ongoing] Inkjet Prints on Archival Paper ‘Of River and Lost lands’ is a series of photographs that surveys the River Padma (Ganges) and the waterborne land of Bangladesh. Made over a period of 12 years and continuing, the series describes a complex relationship of intimacy and ruthlessness between nature and humans on the margins. The life and ecology of rural Bengal, like much of both non-urban and urban worlds, have seen a continuous slow decay. It is a story of loss which begins with a hostile river resulting in devastating frequent erosion. With these occurrences, the landscape disappears and along with it, its many ways of life. Residents witness the river making abrupt changes in its course, drowning their villages, and resulting in forced migrations to other parts of the banks which too can erode without warning. Overnight, a stretch of land, and with it houses, farmlands, and livestock, will collapse and flow off in different directions. As uncontrolled sand mining proliferates, erosion increases at a fast pace. Now the River is not only a potential source of hostility, but also of casualty. Masses of land vanish and the river’s ecosystem changes in ways that cannot be undone. Shallow mud banks (chars) will emerge along with the influx of new sediments. The shore forms new land with the possibility to restart and build new communities for environmental and ecological refugees. Most places seen in these photographs have ceased to exist. As a result, the photographs survive as visual documents of these vanished and vanishing lands. Protick's works are built on long-term surveys rooted in Bangladesh. To make decaying memory tangible, to define the disappearance of a place without confining it, Protick’s often minimal, suspended, and atmospheric photography, video, and sound, explore how form and materiality often morph into the physicality of time. Accompanying its raptures and our inability to grasp or hold time, the process of image-making is a way to expand time, to make space for more subdued moments, or hint at the possibility of an embodied life. b. 1986, Dhaka; lives and works in Dhaka Storia Na Lugar / [un]Grounding NarrativesPatti Anahory and César Schofield Cardoso Among the islands that comprise the nation of Cabo Verde in the eastern Atlantic Ocean, increasing territorial segregation, socioeconomic disparities, a general lack of quality of the built environment, are all present despite development indices for the country indicating one of the best performances in Africa. Ongoing phenomena including the rapid and asymmetrical growth of cities, large investments in mass tourism, the lack of alternatives of materials and construction techniques, are having an irreversible effect on people’s lives throughout the world. Coupled with an increasing desire to build tourist resorts on already environmentally sensitive areas of the archipelago, this video work explores how both sea and sky are becoming compromised in the pursuit of unsustainable, destructive economies. Given this, [un]Grounding Narratives focuses on communities facing exclusion, insecurity, or marginalization, while engaged with various forms of negotiation that reflect how social and natural environments can be repaired through cultural practices of affirmation and belonging. Storia Na Lugar merges the analytical visual languages of an architect and a visual artist alongside a joint pursuit of social and environmental ethics with multidisciplinary art and architectural works that explore forms of environmental and structural precarity in West Africa. Through engaging an international network of researchers, social activists, artists and professionals to engender action, Anahory and Schofield Cardoso seek to influence policy makers and promote a more inclusive development approach for the world’s cities and islands. Patti Anahory b. 1969 aboard a ship at Latitude 26o 50’ N Longitude 17o 05’ W; Based in New York City and Praia César Schofield Cardoso b. 1973 Mindelo; Based in Praia, Cabo Verde Suchi Reddy Reddymade Architects Between Earth and Sky Experiences found within architecture and the (built) environment play an essential role in shaping our capacity to engage with agency, equity, and empathy. Suchi Reddy’s guiding principle is “form follows feeling,” privileging human engagement as a mode for conceiving, designing, and building architectures that invite wonder and discovery. While working toward broader yet critical notions of “design justice,” alongside investigations of machine learning, the holistic design of spaces is recognized as an asset for the benefit of all and not just for some. Reddy considers how we, as individuals and collectives, encounter space as both a constructed and imagined phenomenon. The “mirages” installed as part of this exhibition are an exploration of how belief and the reimagining of boundaries through architectural intervention may contain limitless possibilities. Mirages become metaphors for societal rupture and repair. What is a building or space but an extension of who we are and who we wish to become? Uniting the architect’s wide-ranging portfolio of architecture and artistic work is a multidisciplinary approach guided by a belief in the power of architecture and spatial experience to impact how we feel, how we shape society, and the positive contribution we can offer through design. Interested in the complexities of uniting scientific studies of neuroaesthetics with overt spatial and haptic experiences found in building, the experiential works of Suchi Reddy and her office Reddymade, are at once built manifestations of extensive research of the interplay of human behavior with the material, metaphysical and structural forms that build us. b. Chennai; lives and works in New York We Are From Here Collective Conceived with the collective We Are From Here based in the Slave Island (Kompannaveediya) area of Colombo, Sri Lanka, this work highlights how deeply interconnected communities continually find their homes threatened by gentrification for State and corporate interests. Focused on Slave Island, a rapidly developing location in the center of Colombo where Rahman grew up and now resides, the ongoing project explores the threat of socio-political intersections that are gradually being erased for inequitable economic and political drivers that subsequently are displacing residents. While many residents are of Malay origin, the suburb has been home to multiple cultures, languages, and religions for generations. The area was first described under British Colonial rule as a holding area created by the Portuguese to hold slaves from the African continent. Such historically rich yet seemingly overlooked areas are not only disappearing throughout Colombo but also across cities throughout the world due to the misalignment of definitions of value based on land and property and not for humans. The collective’s multi-media work spotlights how entangled threads of multiple narratives that offer both sources for and representations of intimacy, precarity and memory. The project focuses on mobilising a creative peace-making movement that would help participants and beneficiaries alike to socially engage in their own unique realities through artistic and spatial production. We Are From Here is a multidisciplinary artist’s collective formed by Firi Rahman in 2018 including Parilojithan Ramanathan, Manash Badurdeen (and earlier including Vicky Shahjahan) whose work includes drawing, photography and sculpture, considers the threatened codependent relationships that people and endangered species have with their natural, lived and built environments. Their work has questioned the rise of endangered species in Sri Lanka. The collective and Rahman are particularly interested in the interactions between animals and urban environments, and the responsibility societies share in protecting biodiversity. b. 1990(Firi Rahman), Colombo; Collective established in 2018; lives and works in Slave Island (Kompannaveediya), Colombo Jaago Foundation One Thousand Futures Drawing has been a universal language that both children and adults share since time immemorial. From one’s first attempts at drawing, including the random marking with lines and scratches, and even after the first representations of the world around them, individuals are communicating to establish reciprocal meanings through images. Children of all ages use drawing to express their individual interpretations of experiences near and far. Yet, drawings, as language, can also be “read” and translated. For architects in particular, drawings are tools with which to imagine, capture and define ways of inhabitation. They possess scale, contain volumes, indicate varying temporalities, relay environmental considerations and “speak” to multiple audiences through commonly accepted forms. Our eyes and bodies can occupy the spaces found in a drawing. The project at the heart of this exhibition relies on drawing, as both an artform and as perhaps the most widespread language in the world, to transcend age, gender, background, culture, and other markers of identity. One thousand school-age children from schools across Bangladesh were asked by the Curator to respond to one question with their drawings: What might the future look like? According to governmental agencies in 2022, with around 98% of Bangladeshi “children of primary school age” enrolled in school, many students still have difficulty with basic reading skills. While education is essential to improving the economy of any nation, many people lack foundational lessons for living if they do not receive proper schooling. But all children, when provided with the materials, can draw—or at least create a visual means by which to communicate and thus establish complex meanings for both themselves and others. The drawings presented here are not fictional as they are responsive to an individual’s personal experience and vision while also sharing in multiple images of hope, of joy, of the possibility for becoming and living without the fear of environmental catastrophe. The drawings are active reminders that beyond the structures and boundaries that continually define us, we can draw a future for and about ourselves. JAAGO Foundation began in a single room in the Rayer Bazar slum area of Dhaka. In April 2007, Korvi Rakshand and a group of friends rented a room in Rayer Bazar, with a vision of improving the lives of the local youth. Rakshand and his friends began teaching 17 local children from the area. The first project of the JAAGO Foundation was born from providing relief supplies in response to a flood that destroyed part of the Rayer Bazar in 2007. Since then, the JAAGO Foundation has expanded to actively work toward the integration and participation of all youth in nation building through activities that support inclusion, transparency, and accountability. More than 50,000 volunteers today are working across the country in 11 schools and other sectors to ensure the participation of youth to support and ensure equitable access to education, environmental stability, and women’s rights throughout Bangladesh. Neha Choksi Sky Fold 2, 2013 Sky Fold 8, 2013 Folded paper and light cyanogram Collection of the Samdani Art Foundation What might be the dimensioning of the sky? Across time and geography, the sky has been both a backdrop and a foreground for countless civilizations. Centuries of song and poem have accessed the sky as an arbiter for the faithful and is never complete. It can be made invisible and while at other times, it is a preface for events to come. For some, the sky is a limitless expanse, continuous, open. And yet, for many others, the sky cannot be accessed, it is felt as the origin of sorrow, or even imminent danger. These works at once suggest the fragility and difficulty to contain the sky, its temporalities, and its power. While the grid may be understood as an ordering system, a mathematical invention that is supposed to relay equanimity while also potentially demarcating both economic and political conditions upon the ground; when imposed upon the sky, one is confronted with the possibility of its boundaries, both real and imagined. Choksi’s interest in forging temporary presence is, for the artist, “an affirmative act of destruction.” The Sky Fold cyanograms are photographic works that are embodiments of the means of their own production, folded paper, and light. Like a blueprint of the sky, these photographic prints capture those creases in time—perhaps moments of rupture—when the sky which we all share is made a reflection of the multiple worlds in which we live and dream. Neha Choksi deploys interdisciplinary approaches including performance, video, installation, and sculpture to redefine the poetics and transience of everyday life. Often reflecting on absence, her works employ an uncertain gravity that suggests an uneasy groundedness. Centered among logics that respond to the dialectics of socio-cultural contexts and their variable scales, Choski’s interdisciplinary multi-format works are both interventions into and responses to intersections of time, consciousness, and context. b.1973, USA and India

ALL PROJECTS Photosynthesis Photosynthesis is a international artist residency programme dedicated to long-term artistic research in non-urban contexts. Supported by the Getty Foundation , the initiative brings together six arts organizations across four continents to create a collaborative residency model that enables artists to undertake sustained research across diverse ecological, cultural, and social landscapes. Through an eighteen-month residency programme, participating artists will spend successive three-month research periods at each partner institution, fostering meaningful engagement with place, community, and environmental inquiry. Through Srihatta: the Samdani Art Centre and Sculpture Park joins Denniston Hill (USA), LUMA Arles (France), Pivô (Brazil), Tate St Ives (United Kingdom), and The Mothership (Morocco) as one of the programme's six founding partners. Together, the institutions have reimagined the traditional artist residency format, creating a trans-local framework that supports slow research, artistic autonomy, and long-term collaboration across multiple environments and communities. The inaugural Getty Global Art and Sustainability Fellows are Annalee Davis (Barbados), Himali Singh Soin (India), and Michael Wang (USA) . As the programme's first cohort, the three artists will each undertake research residencies across the six partner institutions over the course of eighteen months, developing new work through sustained engagement with diverse contexts. As the Bangladesh partner, Srihatta: the Samdani Art Centre and Sculpture Park will host Himali Singh Soin , whose residency will begin in December 2026 . During her residency at Srihatta, she will undertake research informed by the ecological, cultural, and social landscapes of Sylhet, engaging with local communities and knowledge systems as part of the programme's commitment to long-term artistic inquiry and environmental exchange. Founded by Samdani Art Foundation , Srihatta is a rural art centre and sculpture park dedicated to artistic research, experimentation, and dialogue. By participating in Photosynthesis, the Foundation expands its commitment to supporting artists through research-led residencies while strengthening international collaboration and knowledge exchange. Srihatta offers a setting where artists can engage deeply with place, ecology, and community, contributing to new perspectives on environmental resilience and cultural practice. By connecting artists, institutions, and communities across four continents, Photosynthesis establishes a trans-local alliance dedicated to addressing ecological concerns through artistic research. The programme offers invited artists an unprecedented opportunity to develop their practices through an expansive residency model that values time, collaboration, experimentation, and sustained engagement with place while demonstrating the importance of transnational solidarity in responding to the climate crisis.

Statement from the Artistic Director Diana Campbell ARTISTIC DIRECTOR Welcome to the new web portal of the Samdani Art Foundation! We thank you for being here, as your visit speaks to a desire to connect with our work in Bangladesh, and a commitment to widen your worldview by including points of view that institutionalized knowledge historically belittled or omitted entirely. We see our role as being interlocutors in this ongoing process of learning unlearning and relearning; where we elevate histories of Bangladesh and other contexts from the global majority world (i.e. the world outside of Europe and North America) above the space relegated for footnotes (a nod to DAS 2018 participant Nancy Adajania). We call ourselves a research platform – which we build through the careful acts of collecting, producing, convening, mentoring, and sharing. We created this platform through a unique collaborative process linking the passion and dedication of collectors with the creativity of artists, architects, designers, curators, writers, historians and educators executed through the hard work of our team, our partners, and our volunteers, encouraged by the enthusiasm of our growing number of participants and visitors. We recognize that what is happening outside of the room is often the site of the most radical reimagining, where artists come together to create the conditions for great art to be made, and also activate tremendous social change in the world. At Samdani Art Foundation we are interested in art on the scale of life , far bigger than any exhibition in a gallery space can contain. Life in Dhaka pulses with a collaborative, hopeful, and can-do energy unlike anywhere else in the world; it is one of the most densely populated cities on the planet, the front line of where we feel the impacts of the world’s climate catastrophe. Dhaka Art Summit 2018 speaker Gayatri Chakravarty Spivak hit upon that when commenting that “Unless this kind of wonderful effort [of Dhaka Art Summit] is supplemented by another kind of effort, we cannot achieve the impossible possibility of a socially just world.” Our work at Samdani Art Foundation seeks to blur those boundaries between what is in the room and what is outside of the room – seeking to make a freer and more porous atmosphere for dialogue, understanding that beauty can change the world. Beauty can be impact, and impact can be beauty. This portal is an entry point to our ongoing and evolving work fostering connections between artists and architects of the past, the present, and the future with the Bangladeshi public, and welcoming in sensitive collaborators and visitors from all over the world to learn how to connect differently with cultures and geographies that they might not yet be familiar yet. Tied to our desire to strengthen and re-establish links that colonialism tried to sever between humanity and nature, we work to cultivate, maintain, and grow relationships, and to build confidence that these relationships can create the conditions to change how the (art) world functions. This is why Dhaka Art Summit can best be described as a family reunion, where more and more members join in, and you can see how this familiar family friend named DAS grows up more and more each time you visit her, but retains her childlike wonder, curiosity, and joy. One of the best compliments we’ve ever received at Samdani Art Foundation is that “Dhaka Art Summit is where the art world goes and they turn into people – accessible human and vulnerable.” Dhaka Art Summit is also a place that launches many careers, partially because international CVs hold no meaning where most of our visitors are unfamiliar with traditional markers of prestige, making it possible to really talk about the work and the intentions of the artist in ways that are difficult to do on the international art circuit. As we grow, acknowledging the limitations of communicating in English, we work to build our work around concepts and words in Bangla, making them accessible to both Bangla and non-Bangla speaking audiences. We are working to step off of the institutionalized timelines of biennales and step closer into life’s rhythms – and long-term collaborative projects related to culture and agriculture that will soon be visible at Srihatta, the Samdani Art Centre and Sculpture Park – will give a glimpse into our stretched-out timelines of the future, inspired by projects in the previous bi-annual (but not ‘a biennial’) format Dhaka Art Summit such as Otobong Nkanga’s Landversation and Damian Ortega’s work Sisters, where we learned first-hand that nothing you can possibly try to do can make a cornfield grow in less than 90 days. We are drawn to acts of imagination informed by knowledge. Since day one, we have been planning for what does not exist yet -- trying to design a space where anyone from any background can come and have a profound encounter with art and culture, and imagine that they can play a part in building a more beautiful, socially, and environmentally just world. We would be delighted if you were to join us and our growing number of collaborators in this endeavor. Read more about the thinking behind Diana's vision: Forging Artistic Connections_Stories from the Dhaka Art Summit by Diana Campbell from the upcoming publication of Frame Contemporary Art Finland . Considering Dhaka Art Summit from a CHamoru Perspective by Diana Campbell from the book American Art in Asia: Artistic Praxis and Theoretical Divergence . “It is deposited under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ ), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way." https://www.routledge.com/our-products/open-access-books/publishing-oa-books/chapters

ALL PROJECTS Voice to Voice, Screen to Screen 6 Nov 2022 Voice to Voice, Screen to Screen by Amol K Patil and Ashfika Rahman FICA and Samdani Art Foundation (SAF) delighted to present a collaborative online performance, "Voice to Voice, Screen to Screen" by Amol K Patil and Ashfika Rahman, launching their project, "A time comes when we hear nothing." The artists were awarded a grant for their project through the aegis of Stitching Screens, a platform instituted by FICA and SAF for supporting artistic collaboration across India, Bangladesh and the digital space in 2020 - 2021. Having worked on the project for over a year, Amol K Patil and Ashfika Rahman shared the final iteration of "A time comes when we hear nothing." The project was imagined as a means of solidarity for global working-class people. An expression by two artists across borders reflecting on the collective experience of social divides during lockdown. The projected connected them through common concerns and emotions for people. Common deep pain ran through the veins of Bangladesh to India despite a geographic border. As part of our virtual launch event, we screened an online performance by Amol K Patil and Ashfika Rahman titled, "Voice to Voice, Screen to Screen," realized in 2022 as an addition to "A time comes when we hear nothing." The performance was a cross-national conversation between two artists, a conversation symbolic of what might be shared between two laborers from Bangladesh and India. Questions of communication in two different languages. This conversation was inspired by the theatre script of Amol K Patil, referring to a long distance conversation between a migrant labourer and his wife. Here is a mundane conversation of people of different nationalities and different genders transcending borders through screens evoking the monotony of a digital life. Getting into the deeper feeling of the working class. A conversation between two digital voices, two screens. The performance followed by an interaction with the artists. Details for the screening: Date: Sunday | 6 November, 2022 Time: 7 PM IST / 7:30 BDT

ALL PROJECTS On Muzharul Islam: Surfacing Intention Co-Curated by Diana Campbell with Sean Anderson and Nurur Khan and Assistant Curator Ruxmini Reckvana Q Choudhury Observing the interplay and occasional confrontation inherent amongarchitectural spaces within an emergent nation-state, seventeen artists/collaboratives respond to the built and unbuilt legacy of the groundbreaking Bangladeshi architect Muzharul Islam (1923–2012). Active in politics because of his own conviction that ‘it was the most architectural thing he could do’, Islam humbly and uncompromisingly forged an architectural movement in what was East Pakistan as part of a broader claim toward decolonial consciousness in the 1950s leading to the country’s independence in 1971. His buildings and ideas influenced multiple generations of Bangladeshi architects working today and subsequently international figures. Working across photography, painting, sculpture, performance, sound, and film, the artists in the exhibition present work that at once negotiates and builds worlds that are borne from the local environmental and cultural climate of Bangladesh. For Islam as well as these artists, architecture and art are conceived as benefiting all who make up the lands of any nation, no matter their origin, without the boundaries of class or caste. On Muzharul Islam: Surfacing Intention Co-Curated by Diana Campbell Betancourt with Sean Anderson and Nurur Khan and Assistant Curator Ruxmini Reckvana Q Choudhury If the inception of the monument connoted manifestations of power, how do histories of collective agency, that which builds and/or questions the monumental, begin to be made visible? Architecture, in its capacity to embody the simultaneous recording of historical narratives in addition to marking action across time and space, extends how bodies modify, represent and experience the environment. Bangladeshi architect Muzharul Islam, born a generation prior to the partitioning of the Indian sub-continent and at work during the 1952 Language Movement and the 1971 Liberation War, was alarmed to witness attempts to transform the territory of his birth from a communal ecology grounded in culture to an alienated society in which interdependence was reduced. He deployed architecture and the assembly of physical and institutional structures as a fortress against myopic singular views of Nationhood and citizenship. While Islam believed in the strength of a Bengali identity, he also recognised how modernism as an ideology and tool could be deployed to extend the country’s influence beyond the region. Bangladesh, according to Muzharul Islam, should be conceived as modern from the beginning. In a striking departure from his predecessors, Islam’s prolific works throughout the country ensured that the pursuit of a Bangladesh-born architecture was as much concerned with signifying the multiple worlds in which the individual and society functioned while also locating oneself, a calculation of value built from within and not externally construed. Islam harnessed the diachronic histories of the built environment in Bangladesh as a means to reject proscriptive views of Bengal rooted in vernaculars. He instead refocussed how his collaborators, workers, students, and leading architects of his time including Louis I. Kahn and Stanley Tigerman could witness a Bengal of 2,000 years ago that was building large scale cities and monuments in brick as a means imagine the future of a country that did not yet exist. Muzharul Islam’s practice and ideology influenced multiple generations of Bangladeshi architects whose work has been increasingly visible internationally over the last five years. However, until recently, there has been little critical scholarly research in English about this architect who tirelessly and uncompromisingly fought to construct a new social order in cooperation with communities and partners of the land. Muzharul Islam’s conception of modernity in Bangladesh was conceived as an extension of its lands while also ensuring a way of life that was accessible to and responsive of an international community of architects, designers and artists. The production of a modern architecture in Bangladesh and more broadly, in South and Southeast Asia, expressed the potential of space with a materiality that was fluid in meaning and nature. While the introduction of concrete and cement in the region at the beginning of the 20th century promised the rise of new industrial techniques and forms, the use of brick in Bangladesh allowed for a return to the ground, to the unobstructed lands occupied for millennia by many different peoples. How brick might be conceived within modernist paradigms that privileged the multiple industries related to concrete, was crucial for an emergent nation attempting to assert its own visual and spatial identity. With an almost ontological connectivity to building, to histories in and out of time, brick remains an essential component that transcends multiple scales and contexts. Muzharul Islam’s brick architecture invests in tectonics that reconfigured how surfaces might be understood both as symbol and method. One may regard Islam’s drawings and buildings as a structuring of structures. For the architect, and the artists presented in this exhibition, contrasting (im-)materialities allow for the mutability of meaning even among precise configurations of settings. One may be able to observe how Muzharul Islam, as both an architect and an activist, revealed how communities and cultures could serve as agents in the imagining of new institutions. The conceit of the exhibition’s title reveals a paradox found within the reception of modern architecture in Bangladesh. On one hand, surfaces are both agents of and metaphors for what contains us. Buildings can be surfaces. And surfaces may embody how buildings are designed and built. Informing our visual and haptic faculties, surface is also that which collapses the negotiable nature of built space. Surfaces are a productive in-between, neither here nor there. In architecture, we are at once enmeshed among assemblies of surfaces that may have been ‘designed’ or ‘chosen’ while they are also subject to entropy, to the passage of time. By extension, the collaborative efforts for much of how Muzharul Islam’s projects transpired also allows for a questioning of labour; he built with and for the people of Bangladesh, refusing to inscribe himself as the ‘genius creator.’ Intention, likewise, is tied to internal and external processes that may broaden one’s understanding of affect. The invisible may subsequently become an index of strategies for making. Found at the horizon of the known, or perhaps at the threshold of building as object and form, intention remains ever-present, pointing a way forward, a movement toward a fragile yet more complete notion of self-knowledge. By surfacing intention, we are attempting to suggest how Muzharul Islam revealed subjectivities among his built and unbuilt projects. Consequently, the prompt for each of the artists allowed for expansive readings that are rooted in Bangladesh but also relevant to other local contexts such as Manila, Warsaw, Rio de Janeiro, New Delhi, among others. Each of the artists brought together for this exhibition use process, materiality and form to disassemble the boundaries that have long defined self and other. Conventional dialectics embedded within notions of gender and context are also questioned. In our discussions with each of the artists, how surface in all of its manifestations came to inform their own conception of Islam’s architecture was apparent. Surface was imagined as a modern agent for thinking through and responding to alternative spatial paradigms. Yet, we remained steadfast that such diverse perspectives resonate with how and why the (modern) architecture of Bangladesh might be reconceived through projection, sculpture, performance, photography, drawing and painting. What are the residues of intention? By circulating through this exhibition one participates in a journey that reveals elements of Muzharul Islam’s ideology that cannot be read by looking at an architectural plan or model. Fingerprints carry the material traces of a day’s activities and are unintended marks of our presence in a space. One of the first works visitors encounter when entering the Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy is an immersive installation on the winding central staircase of the venue choreographically built up by Rana Begum. Fingerprints of Bangladeshi collaborators of DAS come together to form a pattern of collectivity, a monument to democracy, speaking to what the hands of the people can achieve together, while maintaining the individuality of each person through the unique markings and spirals making up each fingerprint. If you look closely, similar traces of individual makers can be found on the terracotta screens and bricks of Muzharul Islam’s art school, Charukala, now formally known as the Faculty of Fine Art, University of Dhaka (designed 1953–55). Similarly, works by Ayesha Sultana, Maria Taniguchi, and Prabhavathi Meppayil measure the markings of making that build up and transform over time through processes of accumulation, oxidation, and entropy. As we pass Begum’s installation and enter Gallery One, we become enveloped in another spiralling environment of iron rebar growing from what appears to be two stairs ripped out of the central staircase of Muzharul Islam’s School of Fine Art. The climb up and down this staircase in addition to the hidden (and often forgotten) emotions from those daily journeys are part of what makes up the art history of Bangladesh, inspiring Monika Sosnowska to reimagine this element of Muzharul Islam’s architecture in a seemingly displaced sculptural form. Hajra Waheed’s video The Spiral (2019) draws us into another reading of the spiral, taking this catalytic geometry as a starting point to reflect on processes of upheaval in human experience. The video is a meditation on undefeated despair and the possibilities for radical hope that Islam fostered in his practice as Bangladesh fought for its independence. The spiral staircase in Muzharul Islam’s Charulaka winds around a column, a pivotal support structure bearing silent witness to the generations of movement around it. Tanya Goel has wrapped the pillars of the Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy’s South Plaza with Bangla resistance poems that Muzharul Islam and his peers engaged with at the dawn of Bangladesh’s existence. These texts and their florid Bangla forms painted in textured brick dust unfold as visitors circulate around these co-dependent structures which float free from obstructing walls for the first time in DAS’s exhibition history. Muzharul Islam designed his buildings with the hope that they would provide culturally grounded upward mobility for all the people passing through them in their own pursuits of knowledge. Movement is key to the works by Aditya Novali, Shezad Dawood, and Dayanita Singh in this exhibition. Novali created rotatable paintings inspired by the situated modernism of Muzharul Islam and his Indonesian contemporary, Y. B. Mangunwijaya. These paintings change form throughout the course of the show, speaking to how influence moves and shapes architecture across space and time outside of nationalist frameworks. Drawing on the futuristic geometry of Muzharul Islam’s drawings, Dawood’s adaptable ‘stage set’ functions somewhere between architecture and tapestry. For a number of years, Dawood has been developing a notion of ‘paintings without painting’, that are created through the collaging and sewing of different textile elements, some incorporating Bengali kantha techniques. These works, inspired by Islam’s plans for the University of Chittagong (1968–71), function as hangings and room dividers which envelop visitors and connect to a video that documents a dance performance realized in collaboration with choreographer Adrienne Hart, composer Patten, costume designer Priya Ahluwalia and Dawood. Dayanita Singh’s ‘Museum of Shedding’ takes the elitist form of the museum off its metaphorical pedestal and puts it in the hands of the people, where they too can become the curators, adjusting the sequence and display of the individual images within it. Institutions are dynamic mechanisms for the making of society. Like Islam and his emphasis on change from within, Dayanita’s Museums are open structures, frameworks for the making and reception of multiple meanings and audiences. While movement was crucial to Muzharul Islam, so was standing still, a necessary state of being to learn from nature and its transformations across time. The open plan of most of Muzharul Islam’s university and educational buildings speaks to how he wanted students and others alike not only to learn about art and culture within the classroom, but also from the activities teeming beyond the windows and across the roofs, verandahs, and ponds hosting other components of student life. The National Library in Dhaka has one artwork inside, a monumental mural of a jungle, and Lucas Arruda’s exquisite jungle paintings speak to a kind of knowledge that cannot be taught from books. They are embodied and yet distant; seductive yet menacing. Daniel Steegmann Mangrané’s narrative film, shot in Chaukala, looks at the spiritual interplay between humans and nonhumans and the kind of interconnected ecology that Muzharul Islam tried to foster in his work in Dhaka in the 1950s, which has ongoing lessons for other parts of the world today. The Otolith Group’s film O Horizon grounds the spirit of Dhaka’s art school in its predecessor Santiniketan in West Bengal, speaking to the wisdom its founders and architects tried to glean from its surrounding structures and forests. While the works described thus far draw inspiration from Muzharul Islam’s built spaces, many of these spaces no longer carry the architect’s intentions due to bureaucracy, degradation or ideas of modernisation that implemented elements such as air conditioners and false ceilings, obscuring the quiet majesty of his spaces. The invention of blueprints, aspects of which are used today in contemporary architectural practice, carry the scores of intentions, of what was meant to come but might never appear or what may have ceased to be. Muzharul Islam and Stanley Tigerman spent nearly ten years developing five polytechnic institutes across the country, including detailed studies into different microclimates of Bangladesh, which were never realized beyond visionary drawings and blue-prints from 1965–71. Marlon de Azambuja awakens Dhaka’s multiplicity of densities at all scales in an installation inspired by the ‘bones and organs of the city’, shifting how we consider, deploy, and imagine the clamps, bricks and tools that both Muzharul Islam and architects today imagine and construct the urban environments that contain us. Seher Shah and Randhir Singh’s cyanotype prints of Muzharul Islam’s poorly preserved Central Library at Dhaka University employ conventional architectural representational methods, such as the plan and elevation, and function between the precise formalism of a blueprint and the intuitive nature of drawing. Haroon Mirza’s animated scores of light and sound derived from Muzharul Islam’s drawings and blue-prints for Chittagong University bring to life an architectural vision for sites that would train Bangladeshis (the East Pakistanis) to develop their own destiny (even if ironically many of these projects were funded by the World Bank). Sometimes it is not possible to think or operate in a free and radical way with radical transparency, and it is necessary to remain invisible, emerging when the time is right. William Forsythe’s work, A Volume within which it is not Possible for Certain Classes of Action to Arise (2015) locates the need to find new ways of navigating spaces that constrict freedom, akin to the kinds of social spaces that Muzharul Islam tried to create within his lifetime. If previous (Western) modernist paradigms for truth-seeking were in part coalesced in and around solutions, to finality, then this exhibition attempts to reverse course, to allow for an opening, even if brief, to the possibilities afforded by architectures that may not yet be visible. These are architectures of becoming. For this exhibition, inasmuch as for the architecture of Muzharul Islam, surfacing is thus an active method for articulating simultaneities in a society’s arising, an awareness of emergent parallel historicities among movements near and far, a reshaping of value’s precarity, of collaborations borne from collectivity, each of which threatens to disturb the surface. The authors wish to thank and cite the dedicated research of the exhibition’s curatorial advisor Nurur Khan. Many of the ideas in this essay and exhibition stem from long conversations with Khan and relate to his upcoming PHD thesis. Muzharul Islam b. 1923, Murshidabad, British India; d. 2012, Dhaka Muzharul Islam was an architect, urban planner, and educator and is considered to be one of the pioneers of South Asian architecture. He sought to develop a language of architectural modernism in South Asia that responded directly to the local social, cultural, and climatic conditions, while also establishing the groundwork for the development of architectural education in the region. Islam’s architectural projects include the Faculty of Fine Arts, Dhaka University (1953–1955), the Central Public Library (1953–1954), the NIPA Building (1963–65) and the Rangamati Township (1964), Jahangirnagar University (1968–71), Chittagong University (1971), the National Library and the National Archives (1980–84). His works remain as outstanding instances of situated modernism, as well as sensitive and visionary architectural masterworks of architecture that address history, society, people, economy, city, and, foremost, the building and aspiration of a nation. Aditya Novali b. 1978, Surakarta; lives and works in Surakarta Y/M/B/U/M/Z/A/H/N/A/G/R/U/U/N/L/W/I/I/S/J/L/A/A/Y/M/A #1 ,#2,#3,#4,#5,#6,#7,#8,#9,#10,#11,#12,#13,#14 (rotatable painting series), 2019–2020 Oil paint and ink on modular rotatable triangular zinc bars covered with canvas, wood and zinc frame Commissioned for DAS 2020. Courtesy of the artist and Roh Projects. Realised with additional support from Roh Projects Aditya Novali finds inspiration in the ways that Muzharul Islam (1923–2012) and the Indonesian architect Y. B. Mangunwijaya (1929–99) created spaces that provided a better quality of life for the people building the new nations of Bangladesh and his native Indonesia. For both, the ambition of architecture was in part to create transcendent opportunities for mobility across class barriers with a humanist approach. Islam and Mangunwijaya demonstrated how architecture could cross the borders of the political, social, economic, and religious realms to invent solutions for living inspired by local wisdom, especially when considering how to live in variable climates. We live in a world where many people relate more to digital information than to the immediate environment around them. In this new body of work, the artist paints rotatable panels inspired by the work of Islam and Mangunwijaya as a means to create hybrid paintings that change across the course of the exhibition, drawing connections across time, space, and cultures through the rooted legacy of these figures to their land and people. Novali makes sculptures and installations using complex methods of production as well as commercial materials. Influenced by his background in architecture, his work addresses themes such as structure, space, and urban planning. Using audience participation, Novali’s works act as investigations of social issues related to space with the help of methodological techniques and orderly systems. Ayesha Sultana b. 1984 in Jessore; lives and works in Sylhet Breath Count Series, 2019–2020 Mark-making on clay-coated paper Courtesy of the artist, Experimenter Kolkata and Samdani Art Foundation Ayesha Sultana’s recent work negotiates space and distance by measuring the space between things- such as the breaks between taking breaths- marking the rhythm of the day. She contemplates the relationship between her hand, her body, and the rest of the landscape surrounding her, making visible the motion of rhythm without being seen. Through a body of scratch drawings on clay-coated paper, Breath Count are personal explorations of movement, mark-making and corporeality. Ayesha reveals staccato patterns that represent a delicate inward probe of her own body using count, distance, motion and removal in breath in these works. Like the marble lines in Louis Kahn’s parliament building, which mark the labour of a day’s work casting concrete, Sultana’s marks measure the labour of internal bodily systems. Sultana works with drawing, painting, object, and sound, through processes that translate notions of space. She employs drawing as a tool of inquiry, through cutting, folding, stitching, layering, recording, and tracing applied to her series characterised by repetition, variation, and rhythm. Sultana often draws inspiration from architecture and the natural environment. Daniel Steegmann Mangrané b. 1977, Barcelona; lives and works in Rio de Janeiro Fog Dog, 2019–2020 Film and ceramic installation Commissioned for DAS 2020 and produced by Samdani Art Foundation and Esther Schipper. Courtesy of the artist, Samdani Art Foundation, and Esther Schipper. Presented with additional support from Mendes Wood DM Daniel Steegmann Mangrané’s narrative film brings us into a community of human and inhuman inhabitants of Charukala, the Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Dhaka (designed by Muzharul Islam from 1953–55). Mixing fiction and contemplation, this work explores the past and future spectres that haunt present-day Bangladesh from the viewpoint of the stray dogs who live in and among its shared spaces. While life revolves around the art school for the protagonists in this film, the horrors of climactic and political violence elsewhere in the world appear and speak to the interconnectedness of seemingly disparate contexts. Employing sculpture, installation, film, holograms, and drawing, Steegmann invites the viewer to critically reflect on how the divide between culture and nature is perceived while exploring their constructed interstices. Echoing his interest in biological systems, specifically Brazilian rainforests, Steegmann’s works often introduce elements from nature into exhibition spaces. Dayanita Singh What, when and where is a museum? For Dayanita Singh, the museum rests within, occasionally outside of the conventional market and aesthetic discourses that have come to instigate their articulation throughout history. One finds congruence with the institutional building projects of Muzharul Islam who actively sought to democratise spaces. For her Museum of Shedding, Singh has selected a collection of images that, with one box, suggests an origin or window into a visual and spatial language that does not seek answers. Drawn from her extensive photographic body of work, the box forms part of a series of mobile museums that allow her images to be endlessly edited, sequenced, archived and displayed. Like Muzharul Islam, the spaces that Singh has photographed are imbued with the relations, voices and rituals of their occupation. Viewers share in their unfolding. Each photograph in a Singh museum contributes to the making of unbound mythologies: of a chair, of an individual, of interiors that stand outside of time. Familiar but perhaps also unknown, Singh’s photographs and Islam’s buildings situate us in a continual state of becoming. Dayanita Singh deploys photography to reflect and expand on the ways in which we relate to photographic images and their construction. Stemming from Singh’s longstanding interest in the archive, her museums at all scales present photographs as interconnected bodies and spaces that are replete with narrative possibilities. b. 1961, New Delhi; lives and works in New Delhi Hajra Waheed b. 1980, Calgary; lives and works in Montreal The Spiral, 2019 Video work with narration, 7:10 min Courtesy of the artist. Presented with additional support from the Canada Council for the Arts Conceived and written by Hajra Waheed as a series of working notes for an exhibition, the narration of this film explores a single form – the spiral – as a starting point to reflect on processes of upheaval in human experience. The film acts as a meditation on undefeated despair and the possibilities for radical hope. For Waheed, spirals are reflexive and interdependent, much like Muzharul Islam’s belief in the ability of architecture to bring people together to radically transform society for an equitable future. Waheed’s multidisciplinary practice ranges from interactive installations to collage, video, sound, and sculpture. Among other issues, she explores the nexus between security, surveillance, and the covert networks of power that structure lives, while also addressing the traumas and alienation of displaced subjects affected by legacies of colonial and state violence. Haroon Mirza b. 1977, London; lives and works in London Lectures in Theology, 2019–2020 24-channel electrical signals for Hi-Fi speakers and LEDs, steel, electrical wire, bespoke media device, carpet, wall painting Commissioned and produced by Samdani Art Foundation and Lisson Gallery for DAS 2020. Courtesy of the artist, Samdani Art Foundation, and Lisson Gallery. Realised with additional support from Lisson Gallery How does one envision a building while also recognising its inhabitation through time and space? Even with the best of intentions, spaces change over time and often deteriorate if not maintained. This is the case with several buildings designed by Muzharul Islam, such as the Jaipurhat Limestone and Cement Project (which was built as housing for 1,700 workers and is now a girl’s military school) and the five polytechnic universities designed by Islam and Stanley Tigerman throughout Bangladesh. Architectural plans and blueprints are like scores for the future, and Haroon Mirza has composed a new sound and light installation reimagining Islam’s frequencies of thought. For both the artist and the architect, building a society relies on the ways in which education contributes to and informs how equality transcends previously encoded class divides. Mirza’s medium is electricity, which is seen and heard simultaneously. He adopts found objects and audiovisual equipment in his installations and performances. Inviting the viewer to re-evaluate their definitions of noise and music, Mirza’s work is known for its physical impact and its undermining of straightforward narrative by exploring the sociocultural histories of the objects, ideas, and processes he employs. Lucas Arruda b. 1983, Sao Paulo; lives and works in Sao Paulo Series of Untitled (from the Deserto-Modelo series), 2013–2019 Oil on canvas Courtesy of the artist and Mendes Wood DM. Presented with additional support from Mendes Wood DM The National Library of Bangladesh (1978–9) reflects the architect Muzharul Islam’s engagement with Louis I. Kahn. Upon entering the lobby, one immediately encounters a monumental mural of a jungle painted. This immersive and magnanimous image, an unusual choice for a library, greets those seeking knowledge while conveying Islam’s belief that learning must be grounded in the demands of climate and place. Jungles rebuild themselves as dynamic and diverse ecosystems, akin to Islam’s ideas about Bangladeshi society, which had to rebuild itself after the Pakistani army brutally massacred the country’s intellectuals in 1971. Lucas Arruda creates images that concern the body’s relationship to light throughout the day and life. Like the mural in Islam’s National Library, Arruda’s jungles coalesce a metaphysical sensation that can’t be described by scouring all the books in the library. They allude to another form of feeling and knowing. Lucas Arruda works with painting, prints, light installation, slide projections, and films. His practice encompasses a wide spectrum of subjects, ranging from the conceptual framework of painting to metaphysical questions. Commonly portraying archetypal landscapes characterised by a subtle and intricate rendition of light, Arruda’s small-scale atmospheric compositions dwell on the viewer’s experiences as opposed to geographical specificity. Maria Taniguchi b. 1981 Dumaguete City; lives and works in Manila Untitled, 2017 Acrylic on canvas Courtesy of the artist and Samdani Art Foundation Untitled, 2017 5 works, acrylic on canvas Courtesy of the artist and Perrotin. Realised with additional support from Perrotin Like Muzharul Islam, Maria Taniguchi finds beauty in the marks of the human hand on objects that we associate with industrial production, such as bricks. These traces inform not only the contexts in which they were made but also the people who made them. Taniguchi’s painted architecture calls to mind the transformative and meditative process of brick-laying as well as the subtle changes that can be found across seemingly monotonous surfaces through the movement of light and shadow. Bricks are an apt metaphor for Muzharul Islam’s philosophy that can be read as nationalism expressed through modernity. ‘When I mention standing on one’s own soil’, writes Muzharul Islam, ‘it is to find oneself, but not to find oneself and become stagnant. What I am seeking is to stand on one’s own feet and then to proceed forward. If for that reason I have to take two steps backward to go one step forward, I have no problem with that. I think that there is no other way of moving forward.’ (Islam, Muzharul. An Architect in Bangladesh: Conversations with Muzharul Islam. Edited by Kazi Khaleed. Ashraf. Dhaka: Loka Press, 2014. p.37) Taniguchi works with painting and video in addition to printmaking, pottery, and sculpture. Her work focuses on concepts of composing, constructing, and framing, whilst referring to the craftsmanship and history of the Philippines. The repetitive process of creation employed in much of her work has been likened to the urban structure of Manila. Marlon de Azambuja b. 1978, Porto Alegre; lives and works in Madrid Untitled (from the Brutalismo Series), 2019–2020 Industrial metal clamps, building material sourced in Dhaka Commissioned for DAS 2020. Courtesy of the artist and Samdani Art Foundation and Instituto de Vision. Realised with additional support from Acción Cultural Española (AC/E) Marlon de Azambuja’s sprawling installation captures the density of Dhaka as well as its precarity in the wake of exponential urban growth resulting from climate change-related migration. The work unveils the inner organs of the city – construction materials such as bricks and concrete blocks, industrial clamps and building tools. Like unsung artists, Bangladesh’s construction workers transform these everyday materials into the buildings that make up the cityscapes of emergent massive cities such as Dhaka. Dhaka is the world’s most densely populated city, a fact that Muzharul Islam could never have imagined when he was the senior architect for the government of East Pakistan. ‘Cities should provide the environment for civilised life within the context of our own culture,’ said Islam. ‘The city can develop only as a part of the physical environment of the country – with the ultimate aim of abolishing all differences between the city and the rural areas. The traditional relationship with nature… should be continued in the cities.’ De Azambuja works with drawing, photography, sculpture, installation, and video to create new ways of looking at the structures that surround us. He is invested in the cultural and aesthetic impact of architecture and urban planning as spaces of confrontation between instinct and rationality, and the city as a living, breathing entity. Monika Sosnowska b. 1972, Ryki; lives and works in Warsaw Stairs, 2019–2020 Commissioned and Produced by Samdani Art Foundation for DAS 2020. Courtesy of the artist and Foksal Gallery Foundation Nearly every Bangladeshi artist exhibiting at DAS 2020 has climbed up and down the spiral staircase at Charukala (the Faculty of Fine Arts) at Dhaka University as part of their artistic journey. Muzharul Islam viewed architecture as a vehicle to a better life, elevating local materials to their highest potential (while avoiding decoration). For Islam, the common Bangladeshi woman and man could rise above the circumstances in which they were born via education. Inspired by Islam and his vision, Monika Sosnowska has created a sculpture using similar materials to the staircase at Charukala, but removing its function. This sculpture leads nowhere, and while it pays homage to foundational structures, it also invites the viewer to consider the illusions inherent in built spaces. Sosnowksa uses building elements and materials to create disorientating installations, spaces, and objects that explore the psychological impact of architectural space. She is interested in architecture’s capacity to influence behaviour as well as reflect social structures and ideologies. Flaws, glitches, and deficiencies in her work are used to question aspects commonly attributed to global modernisms. The Otolith Group Founded 2002 by Anjalika Sagar (b. 1968) and Kodwo Eshun (b. 1966), who live and work in London O Horizon, 2018 4K video, colour, 90 min Commissioned by Bauhaus Imaginista and co-produced by the Rubin Museum, with support from Project 88 Screening: 10am, 11.30am, 1pm, 2.30pm, 4pm, 5.30pm O Horizon refers to the surface layer of soil, changed in the area around Santiniketan as the result of Rabindranath Tagore’s introduction of new flora to the planning and development of the campus. The film extends The Otolith Group’s ongoing consideration of the current geological age as one in which human activity spurs the primary changes on climate and the environment. O Horizon reflects upon modernist theories of dance and song developed by Tagore and the experimental practices of mural, sculpture, painting, and drawing developed by India’s great modernist artists affiliated with Santiniketan. O Horizon draws together visual arts, dance, song, music, and recital to assemble a structure of feeling of the Tagorean imagination in the 21st Century. The work also has resonances with Muzharul Islam’s campus of the Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Dhaka, where learning and convening of students unite the indoors and outdoors around circular forms such as the rooftops and ponds. The research-based work of The Otolith Group spans moving image, audio, performance, installation, and curation. These are utilised to explore the temporal anomalies, anthropic inversions, and synthetic alienation of the posthuman, the inhuman, the nonhuman, and the complexity of the ‘environmental conditions of life we all face.’ The Otolith Group also runs a curatorial public platform, The Otolith Collective. Prabhavathi Meppayil b. 1965, Bangalore; lives and works in Bangalore dp/twenty/thirteen, 2019 Copper wire and copper wire embedded in gesso panel dp/twenty/forty eight, 2019 Wood gesso and copper dp/twenty/six, 2019 Thinnam on gesso panel Commissioned for DAS 2020. Courtesy of the artist and Pace. Presented with additional support from Pace Time is rarely subtle. Yet among Prabhavathi Meppayil’s works, one’s gaze is enmeshed in a rare confluence of multiple structures, temporalities and forms that reconfigure our notion of space in and of time. At once archaeological in process and expansive in reading, Meppayil’s multimedia paintings confound for their immediacy and immeasurability. These newly commissioned works observe how Muzharul Islam’s reliance on both social and empirical structures informed the making and occupation of space. For Meppayil, her work shares in a similar layering of ideas; of an intuitive composition of sublime architectures that may be affected by forces such as entropy while at the same time, resistant to present-day desires for immediateness and easy reproduction. In this oscillation between additive and subtractive connotations, of surfaces marked and degraded, Meppayil’s works encourage the generative act of looking closely and seeing beyond. Prabhavathi Meppayil’s practice rests in her meticulous approach to conceiving and executing processes specific to the materials that she uses. Coming from a family of goldsmiths, Meppayil adopts artisan techniques as a means to relocate particular materials as a generator of forms, providing a parallel reading to the way in which western art histories were received in the twentieth century. Through the use of non-traditional tools and often copper wire, she carves, erases and highlights carefully conceived lines and patterns into layers of gesso to underscore the blurring of painting, drawing, and other disciplines while establishing meditative installations. Rana Begum b. 1977, Sylhet; lives and works in London No. 972 Wall Painting, 2019–2020 Ink and fingerprints on wall Commissioned for DAS 2020. Courtesy of the artist and Jhaveri Contemporary. Realised with additional support from Jhaveri Contemporary Many buildings designed by Muzharul Islam carry the marks of their makers. The architect reminded Russian-born American architect Louis I. Kahn that Bangladesh’s most skilled construction workers possessed a refined knowledge of building yet were illiterate, prompting Kahn to consider other ways of translating his vision for building in Bangladesh. In a similar spirit, writer Kazi Nasrul Islam invokes a benediction of indigenous forms of feeling and knowing in his poem Ink on My Face, Ink on my Hands. Inspired by her memories of growing up in Sylhet, Rana Begum creates an immersive participatory installation in the central staircase of DAS 2020, where the fingerprints of the individuals who come together to build DAS form an abstract portrait of the collective energy of the Summit and city. Begum utilises industrial materials such as stainless steel, aluminium, copper, brass, glass, and wood in her minimalist sculptures and reliefs. Her contemplative works explore shifting interactions between geometry, colour, and light, drawing inspiration from both the chance encounters of city life and the intricate patterns of Islamic art and architecture. Seher Shah and Randhir Singh b. 1975, Karachi; lives and works in New Delhi b. 1976, New Delhi; lives and works in New Delhi Dhaka Library (set of 9), 2017–18 Cyanotype prints on Arches aquarelle paper Commissioned and produced by Samdani Art Foundation for DAS 2018. Courtesy of the artist and Nature Morte. Presented with additional support from Nature Morte First presented at DAS 2018, Dhaka Library is part of a collaborative body of work by Seher Shah and Randhir Singh exploring overlapping ideas in architecture, photography, drawing, and printmaking. Cyanotypes were one of the first photographic printmaking processes developed in the 19th century and a precursor to the blueprint, which was an important reproduction method for architectural and engineering drawings well into the 20th century. Working with this printmaking process, Shah and Singh focused on Muzharul Islam’s Dhaka Library (1953–1954), fragmenting its unique architectural components through photographic images. The artists were drawn to Islam’s work due to its aesthetic qualities, including heavy massing, the sculptural use of concrete, and repetitive structural grids, along with a visionary intent driven by a desire to break from the status quo. Seher Shah’s practice uses experiences from the field of art and architecture to question the rational language of architectural drawing. Randhir Singh is an architectural photographer who draws on his education as an architect to focus on ever-changing meanings found within modern architecture and urbanism in South Asia. Over the past few years, they have collaborated on a number of projects to explore the relationships between drawing, photography, and architecture. Shezad Dawood b. 1974, London; lives and works in London University of NonDualism, 2020 Installation with painted textiles and programmed lighting sequence Musical score by patten Commissioned for DAS 2020, generously supported by the Bagri Foundation. Courtesy of the artist and Jhaveri Contemporary University of NonDualism, 2019 Super 8 and HD transferred to digital, 3:27 min Commissioned by Frieze LIVE and DAS 2020, generously supported by the Bagri Foundation. Produced by Miranda Sharp and Sara Thorsen Fredborg for Ubik Productions. Costumes by Priya Ahluwalia / Ahluwalia Studio, musical score by patten, choreography by Adrienne Hart / Neon Dance, dancers Pepa Ubera and Devaraj Thimmaiah, production by Laurie Storey, lighting by Pete Carrier, editing by Sergio Vego Borrego, location Queensrollahouse, London Considering how the body and fabric may become architecture, and where architectural space is always a platform for human performativity, Shezad Dawood’s installation draws on the legacy of Muzharul Islam to create an adaptable stage set. His interior functions somewhere between architecture and tapestry. With the layering of sound, Dawood examines the influence of Bengali polymath Rabindranath Tagore on Muzharul Islam, but also how Tagore informed the later spiritual work of Alice Coltrane. Referencing Islam’s approach to nondualism, the project extends such flows into the space of the exhibition and enacts a series of dynamic collaborations much like the architect who regularly collaborated with artists, poets, and singers. Dawood works across disciplines to deconstruct systems of image, language, site, and narrative. His fascination with architectural modernism in South Asia recurs in several projects, interweaving these histories with those of the Non-Aligned Movement and the Cold War. His practice often involves collaboration, imagining a remapping across geographic borders and communities. Tanya Goel b. 1985, New Delhi; lives and works in New Delhi Tracing Modernity in Dust, 2019–20 Brick-dust paint Commissioned and produced by Samdani Art Foundation for DAS 2020. Courtesy of the artist, Samdani Art Foundation, and Nature Morte. Realised with additional support from Nature Morte and Inlaks Shivdasani Foundation The brick is perhaps the oldest and most ubiquitous building material. Tanya Goel was inspired by the detailed texture found in the brick patterns of buildings by Muzharul Islam. In designing the Faculty of Fine Arts, for example, Islam introduced a subtle geometric pattern on the face of each handmade brick, integrating a modern architectural language with the vernaculars of regional building. The artist traced details of Islam’s ageing buildings in brick dust, protecting them for the next generation through the process of drawing. She juxtaposes these zoomed in details within their wider (material) context by framing them within her photographs of Islam’s Faculty of Fine Arts, National Library, and male dormitory at Jahangirnagar University (as they stand today), paired with paintings she made on fragments of debris collected from these sites. Goel is invested in the afterlife of construction, creating pigments from charcoal, aluminium, concrete, glass, soil, mica, graphite, and foils, all of which are sourced from building sites. Exploring abstraction within her painting practice, Goel works with the concepts of density and complexity inherent to the synthetic repetition of mathematical formulas, balancing unforeseen orders and potential chaos. William Forsythe b. 1949, New York A Volume Within Which it is Not Possible for Certain Classes of Action to Arise, 2015 Scaffolding structure, drywall Courtesy of the artist. The development and international exhibition of Choreographic Objects by William Forsythe is made possible with the generous support of Susanne Klatten ‘Choreography is about organising bodies in space, or you’re organising bodies with other bodies or a body with other bodies in an environment that is organised.’ William Forsythe Politics ‘was the most architectural thing to do.’ Muzharul Islam Both Muzharul Islam and William Forsythe extrapolate the tenets of their respective fields, choreography and architecture, into the realm of the political where these ideas have implications in ‘real life.’ This work is a metaphor for time, for political structures, for any physical or metaphorical barrier that might not allow for certain actions to arise. When Muzharul Islam was building the Faculty of Fine Arts and the National Library, such barriers could have been seen as colonial domination by West Pakistan. What are these barriers today? And how do they persist? This work offers the visitor the possibility of consciously and physically experiencing the loss of a broad degree of freedom, which is incorporated into our daily existence. In a world that is continuously creating impediments to movement, we must invent new strategies of transiting through them. Forsythe is known for his radical innovations in choreography and dance. His deep interest in the fundamental principles of organisation has led him to produce a wide range of projects. Parallel to his career as a choreographer, he creates installations, film works, and interactive sculptures, known as ‘Choreographic Objects.’

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. Soma Surovi Jannat b. 1990 in Dhaka, lives and works in Dhaka, Bangladesh WINNER Soma Surovi Jannat works with illustration, drawing and painting. Her work bridges different stimuli from her surroundings, aiming to depict what often are grim circumstances through an optimistic lens. Jannat transforms her two-dimensional works into installations, developing a visual language that allows the viewer to perceive the presence and correlation of different elements across varied circumstances. Numerous facets with individual storylines are joined to present a dominant narrative, which allows for the experience of a complex visual illusion. Interaction, collaboration and social engagement are characteristic of her working process. Samdani Art Award 2020 The 2020 Samdani Art Award was curated by Philippe Pirotte, supported by Goethe Institut. The winner was selected by a jury chaired by Aaron Cezar of Delfina Foundation with Adrián Villar Rojas, Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, Julie Mehretu, and Sunjung Kim. The 2020 Samdani Art Award was curated by Philippe Pirrote and the winner was Soma Surovi Jannat. This was also the first time a Jury Award was provided to Promiti Hossain. Promiti Hossain b. 1991 in Dhaka, lives and works between Dhaka, Bangladesh and Shantiniketon, India JURY AWARD WINNER Promiti Hossain’s artistic practice is comprised of drawing, painting and collage. Her work addresses her private experience as well as the subjectivity of gender. The constant news stories of gender-based violence against women and children, which she comes across daily, inspire her to draw attention to the struggles women face in the world. Her anatomic-style ink drawings of insects, flowers, and the female body allow marks and mistakes to represent the challenges women face in society. SAMDANI ART AWARD 2020 SHORTLIST Zihan Karim Zihan Karim, Last Five Minutes of Xiluo Theatre, 2016–2020, video Installation b. 1984 in Chattogram, lives and works in Chattogram, Bangladesh Tahia Farhin Haque ahia Farhin Haque, Shadows of A Wooden House, 2019–ongoing, photography. b. 1996 in Dhaka, lives and works in Dhaka, Bangladesh Sumana Akter Sumana Akhter, Look Back – Part 2, 2018–2020, clay b. 1983 in Narayanganj, lives and works in Narayanganj, Bangladesh Sounak Das Networking Realm, 2018–2020. mixed media installation b. 1993 in Dhaka, lives and works in Dhaka, Bangladesh Palash Bhattacharjee Palash Bhattacharjee, Pass, 2019 Two channel video, installation b. 1983 in Chattogram, lives and works in Chattogram, Bangladesh Najmun Nahar Keya Najmun Nahar Keya, The Spell Song, 2019, handwoven Tangail Sari b. 1980 in Dhaka, lives and works in Dhaka, Bangladesh Habiba Nowrose Habiba Nowrose, Life of Venus, 2019–ongoing, photography b. 1989 in Sirajganj, lives and works in Dhaka, Bangladesh Faiham Ebna Sharif Faiham Ebna Sharif, Cha Chakra: Tea Tales Of Bangladesh, 2016–ongoing, photography b. 1985 in Dhaka, lives and works in Dhaka, Bangladesh Ashfika Rahman Ashfika Rahman, Redeem, 2019, mixed media installation b.1988, Dhaka, lives and works in Dhaka, Bangladesh Ariful Kabir Ariful Kabir, 3.5 seconds, 2020, performance and installation, mixed media b. 1990 in Chattogram, lives and works in Besancon, France 2023 2020 2018 2016 2014 2012 Award Archive