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 Where Do The Ants Go? at the Horst Arts and Music Festival Brussels Afrah Shafiq collaborated with BC Materials to develop a new outdoor version of her existing work, using earth blocks as the main building material for the Horst Arts and Music Festival in Brussels. The project "Where Do The Ants Go?" is evolving across various geographies and social contexts, involving new participants and bringing fresh cultural perspectives and curatorial insights as it travels from its debut at the 2023 Dhaka Art Summit with curatorial support from Diana Campbell, Fernanda Brenner, Chus Martinez, Daniel Baumann, and Iaroslav Volovod, through the end of 2024 via the To-Gather platform facilitated by the Swiss Arts Council, Pro Helvetia. The anthill changes its form in each iteration, adapting to the unique environment and context of each location. The partnership with Horst was curated by our Artistic Director, Diana Campbell, and is part of the ongoing development of this work. This process began with the original iteration for the Dhaka Art Summit 2023 and continues towards the creation of a permanent outdoor version of the work in Sylhet, our permanent home at Srihatta - the Samdani Art Centre and Sculpture Park in Bangladesh. This pavilion project is co-financed by the VLAIO Living Lab Earth Blocks. Jeremy Waterfield, Bregt Hoppenbrouwers ( @bcmaterials_org ) and Theresa Zschäbitz (BC architects/ Junior Professorship act of building) worked together to translate Shafiq's vision into a structure of compressed earth blocks, reused wood and prefabricated thatch elements in close collaboration with HORST Ateliers, @ vlaio.be and @democogroup . Forty-five students from BC's Junior Professorship act of building have been working on the construction plan since March and built the pavilion together.

ALL PROJECTS MOTHERTONGUE, Australian Center for Contemporary Art 22 April- 18 June 2023, Melbourne, Australia mOTHERTONGUE surveyed the past two decades of Mithu Sen’s compelling art practice, including a series of major new installations. The exhibition was presented as an illuminated mind map. As a constellation of image and word associations that move between visible surfaces and interior states, mOTHERTONGUE charts how language is channelled into forms as diverse as drawing, sculpture, media and performance to create complex artworks which elude definitional categories, institutional power structures and imposed identities related to race, gender, ethnicity and location. Her work 'Batil Kobitaboli (Poems Declined), 2014' from DAS 2014 was also in display. Rather than celebrate her success or importance as a South Asian artist, Mithu Sen used her invitation to DAS 2014 to create a project called Poems Declined that celebrates the work and efforts of poets whose work was not previously given prominence or attention, to those whose work was declined or rejected. In her experience in Dhaka, Sen realized that poetry was not limited to poets, the Bangla language itself was poetry, and poetry itself is a language in Bangladesh, sharing that “In Bangladesh, the language is not Bengali but Poetry.” This exhibition is presented in partnership with Kiran Nadar Museum of Art (KNMA) .

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

ALL PROJECTS Speak, Lokal Kunsthalle Zurich, 4 March – 7 May 2017 Rafiqul Shuvo and Samsul Alam Helal were selected to participate in the group show Speak, Lokal curated by Daniel Baumann, Director of the Kunsthalle Zürich and guest curator for the Samdani Art Award 2016. Samdani Art Foundation supported their participation.

ALL PROJECTS The Six Seasons of the White Peacock The Six Seasons of the White Peacock, by Albanian artist Driant Zeneli, in collaboration with an amazing group of interdisciplinary creative practitioners: Md. Tasnimul Izaz Bhuiyan, Pulak K. Sarkar, Rafi Nur Hamid, Sondip Roy, and Sumaiya Sultana. This unique and poetic collaboration between Bangladesh and Italy reimagines the familiar four seasons of Baroque music through the lens of Bangladesh’s rich cycle of six seasons. The film was developed at Srihatta – the Samdani Art Centre and Sculpture Park – where this beautiful vision came to life. This visionary project brings together the Samdani Art Foundation (Bangladesh), EMΣT – National Museum of Contemporary Art in Athens (Greece), the Art House of Adrian Paci and Melisa Paci in Shkodër (Albania), the Civic Museum of Castelbuono (Italy), and the Museo Castromediano with the Region of Puglia, through the Department of Tourism, Culture, Economy, and Territory Valuation. The film is set to be released in September 2025.

ALL PROJECTS Footnotes For The Future Hosted by Ruxmini Reckvana Q Choudhury As part of Samdani Art Foundation's continued support to work for the country's contemporary artists and architects during the pandemic, we have taken several initiatives, including virtual art programmes like 'Art Around the Table' and 'Footnotes for the Future'. Ruxmini Reckvana Q Choudhury hosted the regular session 'Footnotes for the Future' that takes place at 10 pm on every Thursday. It is a part of the initiative 'Art Around the Table'. Through our social media channels, we brought together various artists, curators and writers to organise various art projects, workshops and discussion meetings. 'Footnotes for the Future' covered topics such as the artists' own work, the role of artists in social and political contexts, their collective works, and future plans. Through zoom, SAF invited various Bengali-speaking artists, gallerists, writers and researchers to join the art sessions and discuss different topics. Creators from around the global joined hands to battle Covid-19 in Bangladesh. They generously donated their honorariums to feed and support the ones in need, through a partnership with the JAAGO Foundation. There were 29 sessions in 7 months.

ALL PROJECTS Bearing Point 5 - Residence Time Curated by Diana Campbell Bearing Point 5 - Residence Tim e Standing in the air on scaffolding, laying telecommunications cables while submerged under the sea, or manning call centres while suspended on a foreign time zone– the toiling bodies of the over 20 million migrant South Asian workers around the globe are mostly invisible, and yet instrumental in creating many of the world’s most picturesque cityscapes as well as to the simultaneous socioeconomic development of South Asia through the money they send home. Bangladeshis are moving beyond the countries geopolitically comprising South Asia, further west to the UAE, Qatar and Saudi Arabia and further east to Thailand, Malaysia, and Singapore. These people are often treated as bodies without souls, having no culture of their own beyond their otherness. They are often written out of the narratives of the very nations they help to build, as reflected by the sparse South Asian cultural discourse in Southeast Asia. Works by Subas Tamang, Gan Chin Lee, Liu Xiaodong and Shahidul Alam attempt to humanise this issue through technique of portraiture. South Asian culture is present all over the world via complex relationships of labour, and this Bearing Point serves to reorient our thinking about South Asia away from land-bound definitions - no longer sufficient markers of where a culture lives. Even if you watch a Hollywood 3-D film such as Harry Potter, the film was post-produced via a global assembly line running from Los Angeles through Bombay and beyond, capitalizing on low labour costs and government subsidies to supply the painstaking work going into each frame of a film. These digital networks are beautifully captured in the work of Lucy Raven and Anoka Faruqee, and the diversity and complexity of these interwoven movements can be seen Nabil Rahman, Yasmin Jahan Nupur and Pratchaya Phinthong’s work.Overseas workers often inhabit a suspended condition of statelessness, literally going underground as in Charles Lim’s haunting video or being forced to cross unfamiliar black waters as in Andrew Ananda Voogel’s chronicle of the pain of indentured labour. Bangladesh has its own migrant labour situation now that over half a million Rohingya refugees have entered Bangladesh. Just as there are instances of Bangladeshi workers being trafficked or falsely enticed into exploitative labour contracts in Southeast Asia, there are also cases of Rohingyas being trafficked in Bangladesh as a cheap labour source as chronicled in Kamruzzaman Shahdin’s monumental quilt made from material traces of displacement.We build the world around us through our labour, and it is important to remember that the post-industrial economies in which many of us participate are built on the backs of cheap, often coerced, migrant labour in the Global South. Transnational flows of labour create new cultural economies, which need to respected and celebrated as having as much legitimacy as national narratives. Artists Andrew Ananda Voogel (b. 1983 in Los Angeles, lives and works in Taipei) Kalapani: The Jahaji’s Middle Passage (2014) Video installation Courtesy of the artist Andrew Ananda Voogel chronicles the legacies of longing from exile in his work, much of which explores the history of the Jahaji’s of Guyana. Through a new form of debt-bound slavery termed indenture, about 3.5 million South Asian workers (primarily from Bengal), including Voogel’s great-grandmother, were tricked, forced, or manipulated by the British before being loaded on boats and sent to Britain’s 19 colonies including Fiji, Mauritius, Ceylon, Trinidad, Guyana, Malaysia, Uganda, Kenya and South Africa between 1834 and the end of World War II. As our eyes adjust to the darkness of the room in Kalapani: The Jahaji’s Middle Passage (2014), we enter a state of uncertainty about the ground we stand on, thrust into the trauma of being separated from loved ones on alien lands across the “black waters.” Anoka Faruqee (b. 1972 in Ann Arbor, lives and works in New Haven) 2016P-08 (Wave), 2016 2017P-08 (Wave), 2017 2017P-10, 2017 2017P-27 (Circle), 2018 2017P-05, 2017 2017P-11, 2017 acrylic on linen on panel Courtesy of the artist and Koenig and Clinton. Photographer: Pablo Bartholomew Anoka Faruqee’s hypnotic technicolour paintings create uncanny surfaces reminiscent of digital screens. The glitches and bruises break the illusion, speaking to the imperfect and unpredictable translations from the virtual to the physical, and the role of the human hand in this translation. In the context of Bangladesh, Faruqee’s patterns and motifs also call to mind the histories of the textile industry, where it is said the fear of superior craftsmanship lead British administrators to cut off the thumbs of weavers; today, this once venerated industry feeds a global cycle of cheap fast fashion and accelerated consumption. Faruqee creates delicate topologies in her hand-combed paintings, where the imperfection, or glitch, plays a crucial role in the formation of otherwise smooth-milled surfaces. Charles Lim Yi Yong (b. 1973 in Singapore, lives and works in Singapore) Sea State VI, Phase I, 2015 Single Channel HD digital video, 7 minutes, sound Courtesy of the artist Presented here with additional support from National Arts Council Singapore and technology support of Sharjah Art Foundation Singapore continues to grow, both above and under the sea. The Jurong Rock Caverns are Southeast Asia’s first underground liquid hydrocarbon storage facility. Located at a depth of 130 metres beneath the Banyan Basin on Jurong Island, the Caverns provide infrastructural support to the petrochemical industry that operates on Singapore’s Jurong Island, a cluster of islets reclaimed into one major island and connected to the mainland in the 1980s. Opened in September 2014, Phase 1 of the caverns holds some 1.47 million cubic metres of oil storage tanks. This is about the size of 600 Olympic swimming pools. The volume of undersea rocks excavated from Phase 1 equals 1.8 million cubic metres, enough to fill 1,400 Olympic swimming pools. The SEA STATE, which exists as the frontier of a climatic and ecological complex, takes us to places that were until recently only a thing of oneiric theory. This place is occupied by submerged migrant workers from Bangladesh whose labour here contributes to the residual climactic effects plaguing their country back home. Gan Chin Lee (b. 1977 in Kuala Lumpur, lives and works in Kuala Lumpur) No Place for Diaspora, 2015 Oil on linen Private collection, Kuala Lumpur Post-Colonial Encounter, 2015 Oil on jute Private collection, Kuala Lumpur Photographer: Pablo Bartholomew and Noor Photoface Gan Chin Lee’s paintings grapple with the changing urban landscapes of Malaysia, tracing demographic and cultural shifts that accompany the influx of international labour and capital. He examines the lives of diasporic South Asian communities, tracing their occupation of already-existing urban infrastructures and creating new spaces of cultural hybridity. The patterns evoked in these mesmerizing paintings also call to mind batik fabric techniques which carry histories from South Asia, Southeast Asia, East Asia, and also Africa, speaking to the wealth of existing cultural memory found in these hybrid spaces reactivated by the movement of labour. Labour and conditions of precarity, where the circumstances of citizenship often become murky, become the basis of the invention of new ways of living together. Kamruzzaman Shadhin (b. 1974 in Thakurgaon, lives and works in Dhaka) Haven is Elsewhere, 2017-2018 Used clothing, embroidery, video Commissioned by Samdani Art Foundation for DAS 2018 Produced by the artist and Samdani Art Foundation Courtesy of the artist. Photographer: Noor Photoface Kamruzzaman Shadhin’s work Haven is Elsewhere (2017-2018), the newest iteration of an ongoing community project, embodies the common quest of most migrants and refugees: the search for a “safe haven.” In Kamruzzaman's work, internally migrated people in Thakurgaon in Northwest Bangladesh, create a quilt from the used clothes of displaced people from Southern Bangladesh - the border demarcating South and Southeast Asia. Many of these clothes and narratives of displaced people were collected over a period of a year and a half by the artist from people who were illegally trafficked as forced labourers into Thailand and Malaysia, some of these were abandoned by the newly arrived Rohingya refugees who accepted new clothes given by local people in Bangladesh and NGOs. These are then sewn together by the internal migrant community in Thakurgaon and embellished with the traditional Bengali kantha embroidery techniques through a therapeutic ritual. These monumental quilts form a projection surface for video documentation that attempts to capture the stories of displacement through these once-used clothes. This quest for freedom often continues as the new migrants and refugees become targets for illegal trade and trafficking, continuing a cycle where the safe haven shifts its axis further and further out of reach. Liu Xiaodong (b. 1963 in Jincheng, lives and works in Beijing) Steel 8, 2016 Oil on canvas, diptych Courtesy the artist and Massimo De Carlo, Milan/London/Hong Kong Refugees 7, 2016 Oil on canvas Courtesy the artist and Massimo De Carlo, Milan/London/Hong Kong Refugees 8, 2016 Oil on canvas Courtesy the artist and Massimo De Carlo, Milan/London/Hong Kong Photographer: Pablo Bartholomew Liu Xiaodong’s portraits of refugee and migrant workers from South Asia in Europe intervene in the narrative of what is often termed “the refugee crisis” – of the “non-Western Other” arriving in droves on the shores of “Fortress Europe”. He produces intimate encounters that disrupt the dehumanisation of these men, where often the only self-image allowed to them are stamp-sized photographs on identity documents that no longer hold validity in the countries where they have arrived. Secrecy often surrounds the sites where migrant labourers live and work. Chinese migrant workers are a growing force in Bangladesh with heavy Chinese investment in infrastructure projects. In 2016, Xiaodong created hopeful portraits of Bangladeshi workers at infamous ship-breaking yards in Chittagong, encountering difficulty in the process as his presence as a Chinese artist created a sense of heightened tension in the workplace in an industry fearful of being shut down. Lucy Raven (b. 1977 in Tucson, lives and works in New York City) Curtains, 2014 Anaglyph video installation, 5.1 sound, 50 min looped. Courtesy of the artist Technology supported by Sharjah Art Foundation In Hollywood, the incredibly labor-intensive process of creating visual effects for our 21st-century cinema is called “post-production.” But the industry still relies on 20th-century modes of industrial production: its global assembly lines run from Los Angeles through Bombay, Beijing, London, Vancouver and Toronto, capitalizing on cheap labor and government subsidies to supply the countless hours of painstaking work going into each frame of a film. Viewed with anaglyph 3D glasses, Lucy Raven’s video installation Curtains explores the digital creation of location and space insofar as they relate to contemporary movie-making. The work brings real-world geographies (and real workers) back into the computer-generated virtual spaces today’s moviegoers inhabit. Nabil Rahman (b. 1988 in Sylhet, lives and works in Dhaka) Old Bond Street, 2017 Found cigarette foils from Bangladesh Commissioned by Samdani Art Foundation for DAS 2018 Courtesy of the artist Richmond, 2017 Found cigarette foils from the Philippines Commissioned by Samdani Art Foundation for DAS 2018 Courtesy of the artist and Bellas Artes Projects. Photographer: Noor Photoface During a residency at Bellas Artes Projects in the Philippines in 2017, Nabil Rahman was surprised to learn that several of the artisans with whom he was collaborating spoke a few words of Bengali due to their time as migrant workers in Dubai, during which time they had Bangladeshi friends. The artist has woven together found cigarette foils from both countries into two sculptural forms reminiscent of emergency blankets. Cigarette foils are gleaming golden motifs that indicate the depth of colonial traces in Bangladesh and the Subcontinent, stamped with subtle symbols on their surfaces such as the Benson & Hedges (a British Tobacco company) logo. The patterns proliferate in terms of psychological preference to foreign branded products, even if the tobacco itself is grown locally. Nicotine is consumed during breaks- so whether working for foreign companies abroad or smoking foreign tobacco – there exists a problematic addictive cycle, manipulating human behavior rather than selling an actual product. Pratchaya Phinthong (1974 in Ubon Ratchathani, lives and works in Bangkok) Untitled (Jeans), 2016-2018 Jeans, performers Courtesy of the artist and gb agency Produced by the Bétonsalon, Paris for the exhibition Anywhere But Here (2016) In Untitled (Jeans), Pratchaya Phinthong questions ideas of value, localizing transnational flows of workers and capital by producing a participatory system of exchange. The artist borrowed pairs of jeans from two migrant Cambodian construction workers residing illegally in Thailand. They had purchased these jeans at the Bangkok weekend market, known for selling items stolen or cheaply bought from the stocks of clothing donated by charity organizations in the West to NGOs in Cambodia. Much of the clothing for sale had previously been intercepted by middlemen, who sell them to Western tourists and local workers alike for profit. These jeans purchased in Thailand were sent to Paris to be worn by the staff of the exhibition Anywhere But Here (2016) at the Bétonsalon, Paris, which originally commissioned the work this work was originally commissioned. In return, Phinthong used the production budget of that exhibition to buy bicycles for the workers back in Thailand, as they had requested. These jeans are now worn by DAS staff working as art mediators in Bearing Point 5. Jeans are a powerful symbol of the networks which we are forced to participate in everyday in a global economy, and carry the material history of denim’s association with industrial capitalism, including with Indigo in Bengal. The Levi’s jeans used in this work are themselves knock-offs, alluding to out-sourced assembly-lines, where garment workers in countries such as Thailand, Bangladesh and Mexico, work to produce cheap clothing which feeds the international demand for fast fashion. Bangladesh alone produces one of every seven pairs of Levi’s jeans, so it may be speculated that the jeans were originally produced here. Knock-offs feed a parallel economy of needs, where items such as Levi’s jeans are status symbols, despite being unaffordable to many who want them, particularly those from the very class that produces them. By introducing these knock-off jeans into the space of an exhibition, Phinthong raises the question of the value of copying, particularly in the context of contemporary art, where the idea of originals still holds considerable importance. Through this process-driven artwork, the artist brings to the surface the already-existing entanglement between two unregulated spaces of labour – of the migrant labourer and the cultural worker, both frequently working contract-to-contract jobs, with no fixed working hours – and the precarious conditions within which they operate. The work becomes a system through which both sides are able to imagine possibilities for their own parallel economies of exchange. Shahidul Alam (b. 1955 in Dhaka, lives and works in Dhaka) The night before a migrant is about to depart, his family members pray for his safe return, 1988 A woman bids goodbye to her man, unsure of whether they will meet again, 1996 Workers and relatives wave at each other unaware that they are too small to be visible, 1996 Giclée prints on Hahnemühle Digital Fine Art Paper Courtesy of the artist. Photographer: Noor Photoface Shahidul Alam chronicles the moment before the departure of Bangladeshi migrant workers, in the suspended state of Dhaka’s international airport. Migration is often a collective experience, where entire villages contribute to raising the funds necessary to pay the recruiting agencies, and extended family and friends accompany the to-be migrants to the airport. He unpacks the almost ritualized gestures that accompany this journey, in the moments before dislocation, as men are herded through the theatre of airport security, and these families reconfigure the in-between space of the airport to act as spaces of intimacy, of prayer, of hope. Subas Tamang (b. 1990 in Amardaha, lives and works in Kathmandu) I Want to Die in My Own House, 2017 Carved slate with metal armature Commissioned and produced with support from Samdani Art Foundation for DAS 2018 Courtesy of the artist and Samdani Art Foundation. Photographer: Noor Photoface Subas Tamang’s work I Want To Die In My Own House (2017) uses the traditional form of a slate roof – a motif of vernacular architecture formerly prominent in his native Nepal and elsewhere in South Asia – when immortalizing his parent’s labour and dreams by carving their image into stone. This is an autobiographical commentary on the dreams of thousands of family members in Nepal who move from small villages to bigger towns and cities or even abroad in the search of a better life. When people move, they usually rent a room as part of the struggle for survival. The continuous challenges of securing their daily needs and a decent livelihood for their families while nursing a hope to have a permanent roof above their heads, often traps such families in an unending cycle of struggle. The money that overseas Nepali workers send home keeps the country afloat, and the dreams of one day being homeowners help them to endure adversity. Yasmin Jahan Nupur (b. 1979 in Chittagong, lives and works in Dhaka) The Long Way Home, 2011 Fabric with embroidered maps Courtesy of the artist and Exhibit320. Photographer: Pablo Bartholomew and Noor Photoface Yasmin Jahan Nupur is inspired by multicultural connections forged across linguistic barriers in spaces created by the transnational flow of labour. Nupur spent six months immersed in the community of migrant workers in Mauritius, which was once of the destinations for debt-bound labourers during the British colonial period from 1833-1920 when about 3.5 million South Asians were transported to Africa, the Caribbean, and islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. In the miserable housing conditions Nupur encountered, occupied today mostly by Chinese and Bangladeshi migrant workers, the artist found that strong community bonds formed when people from different countries were forced to occupy a single small room , leaving them no choice but to find ways to survive together. In the suspended fabric sculpture The Long Way Home (2011), Nupur sewed and embroidered the routes of connections that forged this vast network of friendships.

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

ALL PROJECTS Bearing Point 2 - Dozakh-I-Puri N'imat (An Inferno Bearing Gifts) Curated by Diana Campbell Bearing Point 2 - Dozakh-I-Puri N'imat (An Inferno Bearing Gifts) The 14th century Moroccan scholar Ibn Batuta’s description of Bengal reads as Dozakh-i-puri n'imat – an inferno bearing gifts. This Bearing Point descended into this inferno, considering the interwoven histories of Bengal to face the coming storms of ecological catastrophe and rising ethno-nationalism. Muzharul Islam once said that “independence brings in the greatest opportunity for a nation to express its thoughts, talent, and energy.” Islam designed the campus of Chittagong University, which was the birthplace of the 13-panel mural, Abahoman Bangla Bangali (The Flows of Bengal and the Bengali), painted in 1972 by members of Chittagong-based collective Oti Shamprotik Amra. These panels narrated a history of Bengal up until the birth of Bangladesh in 1971, and were part of the Bangladesh India Friendship Fest, the first exhibition of Bangladeshi art abroad in 1972 in Calcutta, which included artists, musicians and performers. The first panel is titled Ruposhi Bangla (Beautiful Bengal) after the seminal collection of poems by Jibanananda Das (1899-1954), which served as a major point of inspiration for the nationalists of the Language Movement from 1952. Music and oral performance were key in the Bangladeshi Liberation War when radio stations deemed illegal by the Pakistani government disseminated nationalist Bengali songs and troupes of performers travelled to far ends of the country to produce citizenship through music. The Bengali musicians’ collective Mohiner Ghoraguli also draws its name from a Das’s poem. Zihan Karim takes one of their songs as a point of departure to reimagine the metaphor of the body as the architecture for the soul. His 3D video installation examines what is lost when people try to erase difficult pasts, using a lens of social critique offered by the song to engage with centuries of history. Music also played a significant role in the emergence of Bangladesh into international consciousness through the 1971 Concert for Bangladesh organised by Ravi Shankar and George Harrison. The early leaders of Bangladesh were cognizant of the impoverished image of their country in the world’s eyes. Muzharul Islam once remarked: “In the 2,000 years of our history, we have been poor for only 250 years and that too, because of colonisation. If we do suffer from poverty, we suffer only from one kind of poverty– economic.” Student movements have paved the way for revolutions across history, including in Bangladesh, speaking to the role of education as a form of de-colonial practice and a vehicle for changing the course of history. One of the most radical institutions for education was Rabindranath Tagore’s Shantiniketan, where the poet and his contemporaries created an institution that focused on community-based aesthetically-oriented learning. The Otolith Group revisits Tagore’s pedagogical and aesthetic philosophy in their lecture performance which opens DAS’s talks and education programmes. Speaking to the centrality of the spoken word in the production of the law, Zuleikha Chaudhuri’s Rehearsing the Witness revisited a legal case where the identity of the presumed dead Kumar of Bhawal was disputed for over 16 years in the courts of Dhaka, Calcutta, and London. These works activated archives and oral histories, to create contexts that investigate the production of identity as a performed practice. Artists Oti Samprotik Amra (1968-mid 1970s) Sabih-ul-Alam, Tajul Islam, Syed Enayet Hossain, Safiqul Islam, Abul Monsur, Chandra Shekhar Dey, Mohammad Shawkat Haider Eternal Bangla Bangali, 1972 Locally produced paint on board Titles: 1. Beautiful Bengal 2. Strayed worshipper 3. Wisdom’s flare in hand 4. Dark Skies 5. Home searching traveler 6. Sovereign power, sovereign wrath 7. Death’s index 8. Ravenous Strike 9. Voice of resistance 10. Spectrum of life 11. Horrors of 71 12. Victory all courtesy of the Chittagong University Museum Collection Oti Samprotik Amra (We, the Contemporary) was a progressive cultural group founded by the students of the Chittagong University in 1968. Their activity included organizing theatrical shows and various cultural programmes within the university. They were responsible for the first international exhibition of Bangladeshi art (after the liberation war in 1971), held in Kolkata in 1972, which celebrated the triumph of Bengali culture. The group invited seven artists, mostly students of Chittagongian origin (Sabih-ul-Alam, Tajul Islam, Syed Enayet Hossain, Safiqul Islam, Abul Monsur, Chandra Shekhar Dey and Mohammad Shawkat Haider) to create a mural 104 ft long for the Bangladesh-India Friendship Fair which was held in Gorer Math (now known as Maidan or Brigade Parade Ground) in March 1972. This recently re-discovered 13-panel mural (of which we are only able to display 12, due to deteriorated condition of the final work) that chronicles different chapters of the country’s history was collected by the Chittagong University Museum in 1976 when the group slowly ceased to exist. These panels were reunited and reexhibited at Chittagong University Museum in 2017 as part of Dhaka Art Summit’s research initiatives, and we are honoured to exhibit this important historical marker of Bangladeshi independence and artist-led initiatives at DAS 2018. Zihan Karim (b. 1984 in Chittagong, lives and works in Chittagong Various Ways of Departure, 2017-2018 4 channel video with sound courtesy of the artist Music and oral performance were key in the Bangladeshi Liberation War when radio stations deemed illegal by the Pakistani government disseminated nationalist Bengali songs and troupes of performers traveled to far ends of the country to produce citizenship through music. Soon after Bangladeshi independence the Bengali musicians’ collective, which some call India’s rock music collective, Mohiner Ghoraguli (founded in 1975), continued in this tradition and created music deeply connected to the student movements of the 1970s-80s. Inspired by the Mohiner Ghoraguli song Saattala Bari (Seven Storied House), Chittagong based artist Zihan Karim reimagines the metaphor of the body as the architecture for the soul – an idea present across Bengali, Baul, and Sufi traditions. Karim’s resulting video installation Various Ways of Departure (2017-2018) uses this spiritual framework, viewed through lens of social critique offered by the song, to survey two historically significant seven-storied buildings in Chittagong – the Adalat Bhaban (the Courthouse) and the P.K Sen Bhaban– both of which were under threat of demolition. Karim engages with centuries of history through a poetic lens, examining what is lost when people try to erase difficult pasts, using techniques of 3D imaging to show the many layers that build up the composite image we see now. Zuliekha Chaudhuri (b. 1973 in Mumbai, lives and works in New Delhi) with Anita Rahaman Ghazi, Jyotirmoy Barua, Aneek R. Haque, Shahidul Alam, Dr Nandini Chatterjee, Rahaab Allana, Ahona Palchoudhuri, Samina Luthfa, Oroon Das and Arup Rahee Rehearsing the Witness: The Bhawal Court Case (2016-2018) Live performance, archival photographs Commissioned and produced by the Samdani Art Foundation Additional support from the Alkzazi Foundation of Photography and Brown University Courtesy of the artist and the Alkazi Foundation of Photography, New Delhi Photographs courtesy : The Alkazi Collection of Photography, New Delhi Both theatre and citizenship are performed practices; one’s performance as a citizen is either applauded or fails to live up-to expectations. To live with these conditions is to always be on trial and to know that in the eyes of the examining authority one is always an imposter unless proved otherwise. Zuleikha Chaudhuri’s Rehearsing the Witness: The Bhawal Court Case, revisits the historical court case around the Bhawal zamindari estate in Dhaka which ran between 1930-1946. She has staged previous iterations of the work at the Mumbai Art Room, as a “‘rehearsal as exhibition' ', and at the Kochi-Muziris Biennale, focusing on the production of a portrait by an actor. The performance at DAS at 10am on February 3rd in the auditorium takes the form of a trial using some of the original evidence from the case. This project pulls together strands of thought from the previous iterations when moving to the “scene of the crime” in Dhaka, drawing a relationship between re-enactment and retrial; the complex tension between forensic evidence, the act of speculation/imagination and truth finding and truth making. The Bhawal Court Case takes as its point of departure a trial which revolved around the identity of a sanyasi (or Hindu religious ascetic) claiming to be the second Kumar of Bhawal (the heir of one of the last large zamindari estates in Dhaka), who was presumed dead a decade earlier. The claim was contested by the British Court of Wards and by the widow of Ramendra Narayan Roy (the second Kumar of Bhawal) Bibhabati Devi. Over the course of sixteen years, the physical attributes, birthmarks, portraits and testimony were collated as forensic evidence to establish the claimant/sanyasi’s identity as being the Kumar. Hundreds of witnesses, including doctors, photographers, artists, prostitutes, peasants, revenue collectors, tenants, holy men, magistrates, handwriting experts, relatives and passers-‐by were deposed. The case went from the District Court in Dhaka to the High Court of Calcutta to the Privy Council in London, finally ending in 1946 with a victory for the plaintiff, who died a few days after the verdict. Rehearsing the Witness: The Bhawal Court Case uses this trial about a possible impostor to re-examine the enormous archive that the case produced, through performance as a means to reconsider notions of evidence, the archive and identity. Both the domains of the law and theatre/acting frame larger questions that pertain to the production of truth and reality, assumptions of stable, consistent and believable identities and the construction of a credible narrative. It examines how identity is written into history and emerges in the domain of the law, often in opposition to the actual complexity of lived-experiences and relationships. The manner in which the State, here the British Court of Wards, one of the parties in the Bhawal case, considers identity is a central question, explored through the testimony of expert witnesses on the body as evidence (and as the site where identity is played out), in comparison to where the individual locates it. Cast Judge: Anita Rahaman Ghazi Lawyer: Jyotirmoy Barua Lawyer: Aneek R. Haque Expert Witness 1: Shahidul Alam (Artist and Writer) as J. L. Winterton (Artist and Photographer. Plaintiff's Witness No.778) Expert Witness 2: Dr Nandini Chatterjee, (Senior Lecturer in history, University of Exeter, UK.) as J.H. Lindsay (Retired ICS, Secretary of the School of Oriental Studies in London, and former Collector of Dacca. Defendant’s witness, taken on commission) Expert Witness 3: Rahaab Allana (Curator, Alkazi Foundation for the Arts, New Delhi) as Percy Brown (Artist, Secretary and Curator of the Victoria Memorial Hall, Calcutta. Defendant’s witness No.8) Expert Witness 4: Ahona Palchoudhuri (Department of Anthropology, Brown University) as Bawa Dharam Das (Defendant’s witness No 327). Expert Witness 5: Samina Luthfa (Sociologist and actor) as Bibhabati Debi (Defendant No. 1. Widow of the second Kumar of Bhawal) Expert Witness 6: Oroon Das (Actor) and Arup Rahee (Performer, activist, and writer with The Centre for Bangladesh Studies) as Kumar Ramendra Narayan Roy (Plaintiff) the second of the three Kumars, married to Bibhabati Debi.

ALL PROJECTS Dog Eye Kunsthalle Münster, 3 Sept - 22 Nov 2020 Produced in Bangladesh with the Samdani Art Foundation, Daniel Steegmann Mangrané’s narrative film Fog Dog and photographs produced from the artist's Bangladesh experience inform the ghostly narratives found in his solo exhibition at the Kunsthalle Muenster, Dog Eye. Watch the work and an interview with the artist here: www.artbasel.com Watch Daniel Steegmann Mangrané’s ‘Fog Dog’ A horror film from the point of view of Dhaka's street dogs

ALL PROJECTS Mining Warm Data Curated by Diana Campbell “ A warm data body is a portrait, not a profile; when a warm data body is erased, the real body remains intact. Warm data is easiest to define in opposition to what it is not: warm data is the opposite of cold, hard facts. Warm data is subjective; it cannot be proved or disproved, and it can never be held against you in acourt of law. Warm data is specific and personal, never abstract. Warm databases are public,not secret. However, warm data can only be collected voluntarily, not by force; the respondent always has a choice — whether to answer or not, which questions to answer, on what terms she will answer, and if her answers will be anonymous. A warm database is distinguished from a corporate or government database not primarily by its interface or its underlying structure, but by the way its data is collected .” Mariam Ghani Mining Warm Data is a group exhibition of sculpture, installation, film and photography with roots in Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Afghanistan, India, Pakistan, Tibet, Nepal and Bangladesh. This show is inspired by the eleven-year collaboration making up Mariam Ghani and Chitra Ganesh’s Index of the Disappeared , whose newest chapter inhabits the central chamber of the show and brings the Index to South Asia for the first time. The works in this exhibition variously consider how an individual’s profile is defined through fantasy and subjectivity, beyond the traditional and clinical methods applied by statistical analyses, biometrics, government data agencies, economic interests, community interests, or even dictatorial censorship – “Assessment Work” to use mining terminology. Mariam Ghani’s definition of warm data is the central point on which these works revolve. Warm bodies, cold bodies, and metamorphic bodies transitioning between these states challenge the viewer in this exhibition, which seeks to give agency to the spectator’s imagination rather than reduce the artworks to their often disturbing political implications. Some of the imagery in the show is viscerally disturbing such as the decomposing “body” Lost and Found (2012) by Huma Mulji; Minds to Lose (2008-2011) documenting Neha Choksi’s removal of warm mind from cold body by means of anesthetic; and the final writings of self-immolating monks in Last Words (2015) by Ritu Sarin and Tenzing Sonam. However, the works have not been selected for their shock value, rather they raise the emotional temperature in the space to enable us to feel the pulse of warm data, rather than the cold encounter of slickly packaged statistics. Except for deliberately suppressed material, such as that investigated by Amar Kanwar, shocking imagery circulates in the media to the point that it risks desensitising the viewer - how does this confrontation translate when this imagery confronts us in the emotional space that is art? What is considered “true” depends on the story told rather than the evidence available, and data can be manipulated to tell different or even contradictory stories. Statistical data can be corrupted and skewed and statistical arguments can be used to assert falsehoods, something that warm data does not seek to do. We cannot ignore power dynamics within systems and, while in warm data we openly recognise biases, datasets have biases too, and statisticians work to remove the outliers (also known as bad actors, deviants, and contaminants) to prove their points. This statistical terminology also implies cold hostility to “points” that do not fit into the algorithm. Some statistical terms actually sound threatening: control group, finite population control, breakdown point, class boundary, rejection region... to name only a few. A person is more than the sum of the data points collected about them, although digital marketers trolling through the Internet might think otherwise. Participating artists include Lida Abdul, Gazi Nafis Ahmed, Pablo Bartholomew, Neha Choksi, Hasan Elahi, Chitra Ganesh, Mariam Ghani, Hitman Gurung, S. Hanusha, Maryam Jafri, Dilara Begum Jolly, Amar Kanwar, Huma Mulji, Nge Lay, Nortse, Tenzing Rigdol, Menika van der Poorten and Ritu Sarin & Tenzing Sonam. Tenzing Rigdol Tenzing Rigdol, Monologue, 2014, courtesy of the artist and Rossi and Rossi. Photo courtesy of the Dhaka Art Summit and Samdani Art Foundation. Photo: Jenni Carter (from Mining Warm Data) S. Hanusha S. Hanusha, Installation view, 2015. Courtesy the artist and Saskia Fernando Gallery. Photo courtesy of the Dhaka Art Summit and Samdani Art Foundation. Photo: Jenni Carter (from Mining Warm Data) Ritu Sarin and Tenzing Sonam Mining Warm Data, Ritu Sarin and Tenzing Sonam, Last Words, 2015, courtesy of the artists. Photo courtesy of the Dhaka Art Summit and Samdani Art Foundation. Photo: Jenni Carter (from Mining Warm Data) Huma Mulji Huma Mulji, Lost and Found, 2012, courtesy of the artist and the Samdani Art Foundation. Photo courtesy of the Dhaka Art Summit and Samdani Art Foundation. Photo: Jenni Carter (from Mining Warm Data) Chitra Ganesh Chitra Ganesh, Black Sites I: The Seen Unseen, 2015-16, Installation shot of watercolour works. Courtesy of the artist and Gallery Espace, New Delhi. Photo courtesy of the Dhaka Art Summit and Samdani Art Foundation. Photo credit: Jenni Carter Menika van der Poorten Menika van der Poorten, The Real and the Imagined, 2015-2016. Courtesy of the artist. Photo courtesy of the Dhaka Art Summit and Samdani Art Foundation. Photo: Jenni Carter (from Mining Warm Data) Amar Kanwar Amar Kanwar, The Face, 2004/ Thet Win Aung, 2004/ Ma Win Maw Oo, 2004 (from The Torn First Pages, 2004–08), courtesy of the artist and Marian Goodman Gallery. Photo courtesy of the Dhaka Art Summit and Samdani Art Foundation. Photo: Jenni Carter (from Mining Warm Data) Maryam Jafri Maryam Jafri, Death with Friends, 2010, courtesy of the artist and Giorgio Persano Gallery. Photo courtesy of the Dhaka Art Summit and Samdani Art Foundation. Photo: Jenni Carter. (from Mining Warm Data) Dilara Begum Jolly Dilara Begum Jolly, Tazreen Nama, 2013, courtesy of the artist. Photo courtesy of the Dhaka Art Summit and Samdani Art Foundation. Photo: Jenni Carter. (from Mining Warm Data) Hitman Gurung and Nortse Hitman Gurung (left), I Have to Feed Myself, my Family and my Country (series), Collage of printed currency, 2013 courtesy of the artist and private collection, Heidelberg / Nortse (right), Prayer Wheel, Big Brother, Automan, 2007, courtesy of the artist and Rossi and Rossi. Photo courtesy of the Dhaka Art Summit and Samdani Art Foundation. Photo: Jenni Carter. (from Mining Warm Data) Installation views Maryam Jafri Maryam Jafri, Installation view, 2012, Photo courtesy of the Dhaka Art Summit and Samdani Art Foundation. Photo credit: Jenni Carter (from Mining Warm Data) Mariam Ghani and Chitra Ganesh Mariam Ghani and Chitra Ganesh, Black Sites I: The Seen Unseen, 2015-16. Commissioned and produced by Creative Time Reports, the Juncture Initiative at Yale Law School and Samdani Art Foundation for the Dhaka Art Summit 2016. Courtesy of the artists, Creative Time Reports, the Juncture Initiative at Yale Law School, Dhaka Art Summit and Samdani Art Foundation. Photo credit: Jenni Carter (from Mining Warm Data)