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 Expression of Time Curated by Md. Muniruzzaman Expression of Time , curated by Mohammad Muniruzzaman, Director of the Department of Fine Arts, Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy, presents an intergenerational exhibition to show a cross-section of the dynamism of young Bangladesh. To connect the idea of giving space to a younger generation of artists, the exhibition will present early works of now prominent artists who have played important roles in building the infrastructure for contemporary art in Bangladesh through their careers alongside works of a younger generation of artists, whose practices will undoubtedly steer the future of the country’s art history. The exhibition will also explore Bangladeshi visual culture in parallel the diverse practice of urban and folk art of Bangladesh from cinema banner painting to the centuries old tradition of kantha embroider. ARTISTS Abdur Rob Khan Abdus Shakoor Shah Abul Barq Alvi Ahmed Nazir Ahmed Samsuddoha Anisuzzaman Anisuzzaman Sohel A. R. Rumy Azadi Parvin Tuesly Bipasha Hayat Bishwajit Goswami Dhali Al Mamun Dr. Mohammad Iqbal Golam Faruque Bebul Haroon Ar Rashid Tutul Jamal Ahmed Jayanta Sarker John Kalidas Karmakar Maqsudul Iqbal Nipa Md. Tokon Mohammad Eunus Monirul Islam Monsur Ul Karim Mostafizul Haque Naima Haque Nasim Ahmed Nadvi Nasirul Hamid Nikhil Das Nisar Hossain Priti Ali Proddyut Kumar Das Rajiuddin Choudhury Ranjit Das Rashid Amin Rashida Begum Rashedul Huda Rezaun Nabi Rokeya Sultana Ruhul Amin Tareque Sahid Kabir Samarjit Roy Chowdhury Shambhu Acharya Shayamal Sarker Sheikh Afzal Siddharta Talukdar Shishir Bhattacharjee Tarshito Tasaddak Hossain Dulu Tejosh Halder Josh Wakilur Rahman

ALL PROJECTS Soma Surovi Jannat at the Ashmolean Museum University of Oxford Bangladesh-based artist and Samdani Art Award 2020 winner Soma Surovi Jannat’s debut solo exhibition in the UK opened on 28 March 2026 at the Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford. In this exhibition, Surovi presents a new body of work created in dialogue with objects from the museum’s collection. Bringing together around 40 works and artefacts—including works on paper, a 30-foot-long scroll, and an ephemeral wall drawing created directly in the gallery—the exhibition unfolds as a layered conversation across time and material. Her practice reflects on environmental precarity and the interconnectedness of nature and humanity, with a particular focus on Bangladesh. Referencing the fragile ecology of the Sundarbans—the world’s largest mangrove forest and a UNESCO World Heritage Site—her work draws attention to a region that acts as a critical natural barrier against cyclones while supporting rich biodiversity and millions of livelihoods. Increasingly threatened by rising sea levels, salinity, and extreme weather driven by climate change, the Sundarbans becomes a powerful lens through which she examines the entanglement of environmental crisis and social inequality. The Samdani Art Foundation is proud to support this exhibition. The exhibition will run until 1 November 2026.

ALL PROJECTS Displays Of Internationalism | Asia Interfacing with The World Through Exhibitions, 1947-1989 Curated by Amara Antilla and Diana Campbell The history of exhibitions has served an important role in art historical and curatorial research. Yet, even as the history of display has generated renewed scholarly interest, a critical reading of the trans-national function of exhibitions, which feature some of the most important non-Western presentations prior to 1989, has yet to be realised. How did exhibition practices create contact points between artists and thinkers from around the world? How were these transcultural networks indicative of larger political, social, and economic interests? How might exhibition histories in Asia expand our thinking about post-war global art histories? ‘Displays of Internationalism’ invited curators and scholars to examine seminal international or regional exhibitions; revisit major biennials and their role as important zones of exchange for artists, thinkers and cultural workers; and engage in self-reflective dialogues to investigate blind spots and methodological problems facing the field. Paper Presentation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PLpE5N73vV6zBoo2bACI47_4YwFdRLM9JV&v=h1X6dNmuB2I Roots, Basics, Beginnings: The Textual and Curatorial Work of Raymundo Albano by Patrick Flores Session Date: 8 February 2018, 01.15 - 3.00pm Venue: 3rd Floor Auditorium, Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy Raymundo Albano was an artist and curator in Manila. His practice as a curator at the Cultural Center of the Philippines from 1970 to 1985 generated a level of density of both discourse and procedure. In his agenda, roots, basics, beginnings matter (taken from an eponymous exhibition in 1977), Albano constitutes the material through which the process or method takes place. Whatever may be inferred or alluded to, or implicated, emerges from lineage, rudiment, origin. Whether critique comes in to complicate, or relations intervene, the ‘intelligence’ of the material cannot be severed from the ‘integrity’ of the lifeworld from which it is generated and through which such lifeworld is reinvested. Some would call this ‘context,’ others would say it is ‘impulse’ or ‘urge.’ Whatever it is that may be brought to our attentiveness, as that which excites what we broadly reference as art, it should, in the imagination of Albano, stir up a world ‘suddenly turning visible,’ a condition quite akin to Michel Foucault’s ‘sudden vicinity of things.’ This paper introduces research on the relationship between Albano’s textual and curatorial work in the production of both situation and thinking. It dwells on the post-colonial mediation of the local and the international to complicate, or even exceed, the overdeterminations of the Western modern. Patrick Flores is a Professor of Art Studies at the University of the Philippines (which he chaired from 1997 to 2003), Curator of the Vargas Museum in Manila, and Adjunct Curator at the National Art Gallery, Singapore. Among his publications are: Past Peripheral: Curation in Southeast Asia (NUS Museum Singapore, 2008); Remarkable Collection: Art, History, and the National Museum (National Art Gallery - National Museum of the Philippines, 2007); and Painting History: Revisions in Philippine Colonial Art (National Commission for Culture and the Arts, 1998). As a curator he has co-organised, Under Construction: New Dimensions in Asian Art (Japan Foundation Asia Center and Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery (2000) and the Gwangju Biennale (2008). Flores was a grantee of the Asian Cultural Council in 2010, an advisor to the exhibition, The Global Contemporary: Art Worlds After 1989 at the Center for Art and Media in Karlsruhe in 2011, and is a member of the Guggenheim Museum’s Asian Art Council. https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PLpE5N73vV6zBoo2bACI47_4YwFdRLM9JV&v=i3wYbSmHLuA Between the High-Altitude View and The Detail: A Study of ‘Two Decades of American Painting’ by Nancy Adajania Session Date: 8 February 2018, 1.15 - 3.00pm Venue: 3rd Floor Auditorium, Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy Adajania’s paper considers the political circumstances of the Cold War and the global cultural circulations that surrounded the 1960s travelling exhibition, Two Decades of American Painting, organised by the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York, and supported by the Museum’s International Council. A US soft-power initiative, the exhibition toured the world—with support from the US State Department—during a period when the Vietnam War was underway, China’s nuclear ambitions had become clear, and the US-USSR confrontation was being played out in various theatres. Originally intended for presentation in Tokyo and New Delhi, its itinerary was expanded to include Melbourne and Sydney. Reflecting on the reception of Two Decades… in India (1967), Adajania explores how the exhibition challenged Indian artists and art critics to revisit and critically recast their debate, including many key contested themes: cultural identity and artistic autonomy; tradition and modernity; abstraction and counter-abstractionist strategies; the global turn; the creation of a universal canon; the establishment of a national ‘style;’ and canonical medium (modelled on Clement Greenberg’s ‘American-type painting’). Dwelling on the individual figures involved in the exhibition and its Indian reception, the paper engages with personal preoccupations and motivations, and the ground of their agency, as opposed to official scripts of cultural diplomacy or curatorial policy. Nancy Adajania is a cultural theorist and curator based in Bombay. Her book, The Thirteenth Place: Positionality as Critique in the Art of Navjot Altaf (Guild Art Gallery, 2016), goes beyond the mandate of a conventional artist monograph to map the larger histories of the Leftist and feminist movements in India. She recently edited the transdisciplinary anthology Some things that only art can do: A Lexicon of Affective Knowledge (Raza Foundation, 2017). She was Joint Artistic Director of the 9th Gwangju Biennale in 2012, and has curated many exhibitions including: No Parsi is an Island; A Curatorial Re-reading Across 150 Years (National Gallery of Modern Art, Delhi, 2016); Sights and Sounds: Global Film and Video, Jewish Museum, New York (2015); and the hybrid exhibition-publication project Sacred/Scared at Latitude 28/ TAKE on Art magazine, New Delhi (2014). Adajania taught the curatorial practice course at the Salzburg International Summer Academy of Fine Arts (2013/2014) and was a juror for Video/Film/New Media fellowship cycle of the Akademie Schloss Solitude, Stuttgart (2015-2017). https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PLpE5N73vV6zBoo2bACI47_4YwFdRLM9JV&v=4dQs3CCKjSE Revisiting Thai Reflections on American Experiences, Bhirasri Institute of Modern Art, Bangkok, 1986 by Gridthiya Gaweewong Session Date: 8 February 2018, 1.15 - 3.00pm Venue: 3rd Floor Auditorium, Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy Organised by renowned art historian Dr. Piriya Krairiksh at the Bhirasri Institute of Modern Art in Bangkok, Thai Reflections on American Experiences brought together the work of twenty-four artists executed before, during, and after their journeys to the United States. The exhibition, which was funded in part by the United States Information Service, sought to make a fair assessment of the impact that American experiences might have had on the development of Modern Art in Thailand. Although eight artists declined to participate, those who did included Damrong WongUpparat, Santi Isrowuthakul, Apinan Poshyananda, Kamol Phaosavasdi, and Chumpol Apisuk, using the exhibition as a platform to critically examine the hegemony of American art in the twilight of Cold War politics. In conjunction with the exhibition, a seminar was organised where issues of authenticity, appropriation and identity played out among local artists, art historians and critics. The debates continued in local media coverage, and through editorials written by various artists, provoked reaction in embodied discourses around national identity, representation and originality in 1980s. Gridthiya Gaweewong is currently Artistic Director of the Jim Thompson Art Center in Bangkok. Her curatorial projects have addressed the issues of social transformation confronting artists from Thailand and beyond, since the Cold War. In 1996 she founded the arts organisation, Project 304, to support contemporary artistic and cultural activities through art exhibitions and events. Gaweewong has curated exhibitions, and organised events internationally, including: Patani Semasa, MAIIAM Contemporary Art Museum (2017); Unreal Asia, Oberhausen International Short Film Festival (2010); Saigon Open City, Vietnam (2007 - 2006), with Rirkrit Tiravanija; the Bangkok Experimental Film Festival (2007 - 1997), co-founded with Apichatpong Weerasethakul; Politics of Fun, at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin (2005); and Under Construction: New Dimensions in Asian Art (Japan Foundation Asia Center and Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery (2000). https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PLpE5N73vV6zBoo2bACI47_4YwFdRLM9JV&v=28UEApNFSQc From The Dawn of The 1st Asian Art Show to the 3rd Asian Art Show at the Fukuoka Art Museum, 1979-89 by Rina Igarashi Session Date: 8 February 2018, 1.15 - 3.00pm Venue: 3rd Floor Auditorium, Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy A milestone in the exhibition history of Asian art in Japan, the first Asian Art Show (AAS) was organised as the inauguration exhibition of the Fukuoka Art Museum (FAM) in 1979. Subsequent editions of the AAS were held almost every five years until the fourth show in 1994. Based on AASs accumulation of research on Asian Art, the Fukuoka Asian Art Museum opened in 1999. AASs played a pivotal role in connecting Fukuoka with Asian modern and contemporary art up to now. Initially, the American Contemporary Art Show was planned as the inauguration exhibition of FAM but was later cancelled and the new idea on AAS was created. Behind the background of realising AAS, there were two key persons who have strong interests toward Asia: then mayor of Fukuoka city, Shinto Kazuma and then committee member of founding FAM, Koike Shinji. In her paper, Igarashi talks about how the first AAS was prepared in the 1970s, the practice and structure of the 1st - 3rd AASs, the connection between AAS and the policy of Fukuoka city, and how the practice of AASs in the 1980s demonstrates the shift of inter-Asia collaboration and the conflict of defining Asia-ness. Rina Igarashi is a curator at the Fukuoka Asian Art Museum, Japan. She has worked on and curated a number of exhibitions at the FAAM, including Bengali Kantha, Embroidered Quilt: Its past and present (2001); Collecting India: Fascination with Indian Visual Culture in Contemporary Japan (2012); and Freedom in Blossom: Gangaw Village and Experimental Art in 1980s Burma (2012). She has also been the co-curator of 3rd (2005), 4th (2009) and 5th (2014) editions of the Fukuoka Asian Art Triennale. She has been involved in research in Bangladeshi contemporary art and visual cultures since the late 1990s and has recently expanded her research to Myanmar. https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PLpE5N73vV6zBoo2bACI47_4YwFdRLM9JV&v=mBciaFAuAtE Group 1890, Surrounded by Infinity by Atreyee Gupta Session Date: 8 February 2018, 3.30 - 5.00pm Venue: 3rd Floor Auditorium, Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy This paper focuses on the Group 1890, a short-lived artists’ collective established in 1962 by Jagdish Swaminathan, Jeram Patel, Rajesh Mehra, Ambadas Khobragade, Gulammohammed Sheikh, Himmat Shah, Nagji Patel, Reddappa Naidu, Jyoti Bhatt, Eric Bowen, and Raghav Kaneria. The group heralded its presence with just one exhibition, the resonance of which the Mexican poet Octavio Paz described as akin to being ‘surrounded by infinity.’ The use of the word infinity was not purely rhetorical—back in Mexico, Paz had already established an intimate association with non-modern philosophy, and the vibrancy of matter. In India, the artist Jagdish Swaminathan spoke of the numinous image while Jeram Patel affirmed the primal energy of material. The synergy between the Group 1890 artists and Paz, then the Mexican ambassador to India, was significant. However, even as a second exhibition was planned in Mexico, it was never realised, and the group unofficially disbanded around 1969. Given the transitory nature of the enterprise, the Group 1890 has thus far appeared as a mere footnote in South Asia’s art historiography. This paper proposes revisiting the group, not just to unravel the intertwined histories of India and Mexico, but also to draw out a different imagination of globality from the perspective of the Global South. Atreyee Gupta is Assistant Professor, in University of California, Berkeley’s History of Art Department, and was previously the Jane Emison Assistant Curator of South and Southeast Asian Art at the Minneapolis Institute of Art. Her area of specialism focuses on global modernisms and contemporary art, with an emphasis on South and Southeast Asia and its diaspora. Her research and teaching interests cluster around visual and intellectual histories of 20th century art, including: the intersections between the Cold War; the Non-Aligned Movement; art after 1945; new media and experimental cinema; and the question of the global more broadly. Gupta’s essays have appeared in edited volumes, exhibition catalogues, and journals including: Art Journal, Yishu, and Third Text. https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PLpE5N73vV6zBoo2bACI47_4YwFdRLM9JV&v=lnkAr0iSs-Q Museums that Move: Itinerant Solidarity Exhibitions in the 1970s and the case of Japan's Apartheid Non, International Art Festival by Kristine Khouri Session Date: 8 February 2018, 3.30 - 5.00pm Venue: 3rd Floor Auditorium, Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy The 1970s were marked by a number of exhibitions-cum-museum initiatives organised in support of political causes. Culture trains, touring exhibitions, and moving libraries were common practice around the world in mid-20th century, moving information, artworks, and objects around a country to disseminate knowledge and culture—most often by governments—to sites where people wouldn’t necessarily have access to them. In the 1970s and 1980s, these initiatives took a more explicit political turn, exhibiting and touring artworks donated in support of a political causes, creating sites of solidarity where the public engaged with art in a different frame. International collections were built and toured as precursors and in anticipation of future museums, for example, against apartheid in South Africa, in support of Allende's government in Chile, for the people of Nicaragua, and in support of the Palestinian struggle. These alternative museum-making practices were only possible due to the hard work of individuals around the world: artists, writers, gallery owners, governments, and community organisers, among others. This paper addresses a number of case studies from Palestine, Chile and Nicaragua, with a primary focus on the Art Against/Contre Apartheid collection, and its remarkable two-year long tour in Japan from 1988-1990—the longest and most complex tour. Kristine Khouri is an independent researcher and writer whose interests focus on the history of arts circulation and infrastructure in the Arab world. Together with Rasha Salti, she is a co-founder of the History of Arab Modernities in the Visual Arts Study Group: a research platform focused around the social history of art in the Arab world. Their current focus includes the history of the International Art Exhibition in Solidarity with Palestine that opened in Beirut in 1978 and transformed into the exhibition, Past Disquiet: Narratives and Ghosts of the International Art Exhibition for Palestine,1978 at the Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona (2015) and later the Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin (2016). She curated The Founding Years (1969 – 1973): A Selection of Works from the Sultan Gallery Archives at the Sultan Gallery, Kuwait (2012); and co-led a Digitising Archives Workshop with Sabih Ahmed (Asia Art Archive) in Kuwait as part of Art Dubai’s Global Art Forum (2015). https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PLpE5N73vV6zBoo2bACI47_4YwFdRLM9JV&v=yvw6DAsqSgo Diasporic Cosmopolitanism, Making Worlds, Imagining Solidarity by Ming Tiampo Session Date: 8 February 2018, 3.30 - 5.00pm Venue: 3rd Floor Auditorium, Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy Histories of the Global South have a tendency to consider alternative histories that emerge out of South-South contacts and circumvent Western hegemonies. This paper argues that some of the most potent anti-colonial encounters that produced the notion of the Global South inevitably took place in the context of the colonial metropole. Using the history of the magazine Présence Africaine as a starting point to reimagine the metropolis as a site of ‘minor transnational encounter’ (Shih and Lionnet, 2005), this paper examines the role of Rasheed Araeen and the journal Third Text in worlding Asia and creating Afro-Asian solidarities, while retheorising the place of the metropolis in creating an imagined community of the Global South. Ming Tiampo is a Professor of Art History and the Director of the Institute for Comparative Studies in Literature, Art and Culture, Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada. Tiampo has published on Japanese modernism, war art in Japan, globalisation and art, multiculturalism in Canada, and the connections between Inuit and Japanese prints. Tiampo’s book Gutai: Decentering Modernism (University of Chicago Press, 2011) received an honourable mention for the Robert Motherwell Book award, and she later co-edited Art and War in Japan and its Empire: 1931-1960 (Brill Academic Press, 2013). In 2013, she was co-curator of the AICA award-winning Gutai: Splendid Playground, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York. Tiampo is a founding member of the Center for Transnational Cultural Analysis at Carleton University, serves on the advisory boards of the Institute for Cultural Inquiry Berlin, Tate Research Centre Asia, and on the editorial boards of the Archives of Asian Art, the Canadian Art Review (RACAR), and the Journal of Asian Diaspora Visual Culture and the Americas (ADVA). https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PLpE5N73vV6zBoo2bACI47_4YwFdRLM9JV&v=vyHzYSQ3zLo Temporal Exchanges: East and West Pakistan Exhibition Programmes, 1961-77’ by Saira Ansari Session Date: 8 February 2018, 3.30 - 5.00pm Venue: 3rd Floor Auditorium, Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy From 1947 to 1971, Pakistani Modernist artist, patron and gallerist Zubeida Agha (1922-1997) ran the Rawalpindi Art Galleries: Pakistan’s first art gallery since its founding in 1947. Agha worked closely with artists across West and East Pakistan (current day Bangladesh) curating numerous exhibitions in Pakistan and on international platforms. This paper introduces the history of the Rawalpindi Art Galleries, it’s engagement with artists from Bangladesh, and the shared artistic activities between Pakistan and Bangladesh, especially when they were one nation (1947-1971). Examining the role of the gallery through a selection of its exhibitions, printed catalogues and other collected ephemera, this paper seeks to articulate the role of the State in the art world during the early years of Pakistan—when the lines between public and private programming were still blurry—while shedding light on this often-overlooked moment of shared history. Saira Ansari is a researcher and a writer with a focus in South Asian art history. She works in Publications and Research at the Sharjah Art Foundation and is a Contributing Editor for the South Asian literary journal Papercuts. Her curatorial projects include: The importance of staying quiet (Hong Kong, 2014). She was the recipient of the Lahore Biennale Foundation Research Fellowship (2016), granted in conjunction with Asia Art Archive (Hong Kong). Saira has contributed to various international publications including: Art Asia Pacific, The Rio Times, The State, Canvas, Harper’s Bazaar Art Arabia, Khaleej Times, Folio, ArtNow Pakistan, Herald Magazine; with essays in Rupak, Lala Rukh’s commission for Documenta 14, Grey Noise (UAE, 2017), Syntax Freezone: Anthology of Essays on Language and Accent, THE STATE and Maraya Art Centre (UAE, 2015) and Sohbet: Journal of Contemporary Arts and Culture, Vol. 2 (Pakistan, 2011), amongst others. Panel Discussions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PLpE5N73vV6zBoo2bACI47_4YwFdRLM9JV&v=iaLplG1vG0U Imaging Internationalism Moderated by Ming Tiampo (Department of Art History and the Institute for Comparative Studies in Literature, Art and Culture, Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada) With Nancy Adajania (Independent scholar), Patrick Flores (Art Studies Department, University of the Philippines, Manila), Gridthiya Gaweewong (Jim Thompson Art Center, Bangkok), and Rina Igarashi (Fukuoka Asian Art Museum) Session Date: 8 February 2018, 1.15 - 3.00pm Venue: 3rd Floor Auditorium, Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PLpE5N73vV6zBoo2bACI47_4YwFdRLM9JV&v=mQRaQxN6ij8 Displays of Internationalism - Asia and the Global South Moderated by Patrick Flores (Art Studies Department, University of the Philippines, Manila) With Atreyee Gupta (History of Art Department, University of California Berkeley), Ming Tiampo (Department of Art History and the Institute for Comparative Studies in Literature, Art and Culture, Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada), Kristine Khouri (Independent scholar) and Saira Ansari (Sharjah Art Foundation). Session Date: 8 February 2018, 3.30 - 5.00pm Venue: 3rd Floor Auditorium, Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy

ALL PROJECTS Bearing Point 4 - There Once Was A Village Here Curated by Diana Campbell Bearing Point 4 - There Once Was A Village Here There Once was a Village Here was a Bearing Point that considered what anthropologist Jason Cons describes as “sensitive spaces” – spaces that challenge ideas of nation, state, and territory where cultures exist that do not fit the image that the state has for itself. These spaces, which like many villages, are often razed with its people forced to succumb to the state, subue to its needs, or submit to the domination of majority forces. However, the social fabric of a village often remains intact through oral tradition. South Asian artists have been advocating for these “sensitive spaces” for decades, however this Bearing Point differs in the sense that rather than advancing the visibility of internationally acclaimed and highly networked artists, it provides a space for artists from these communities to join these networks and speak for themselves.When the British carved out Pakistan from an independent India in 1947, creating East and West wings, they created a country only united by its common majority religion, Islam, ignoring the plurality found in Islam’s cultures of worship, as well as the vast cultural contributions that Buddhism and Hinduism lent to Bengal, especially from the perspective of village rituals that inspire much of Bangladeshi modern art. The name Bangla Desh means the land where people speak Bangla (Bengali) and Bangladesh was born in 1971 on the back of the Language Movement in the 1950s where people fought for the right to speak, live, and work in their own language. Linguistic lines offer far more room for cultural diversity than religious ones, however there are 42 other languages spoken within this territory. Bangladesh has recently celebrated the 20th anniversary of its peace accord with the Chittagong Hill Tracts and the cultural ministry remains committed to supporting the visibility of the rich cultures present there. While we enter vastly different landscapes while navigating this exhibition from Thailand in the east to Afghanistan in the west, the plight of the minority cultures tied to these lands shares uncanny similarity as development needs of the state, capitalist greed, and religious fundamentalism seek to mine resources from below the ground these people stand on and erase the religious beliefs which they stand for, often tied to cultures of fear and oppression. These artists bear witness to religious and ecological violence unfolding in their locales, and their work often acts as a register for this trauma. Despite carrying the weight of enormous pain, the deeply poetic practices of these artists are able to create spaces of empathy through which new modes of solidarity might be imagined. Artists Amin Taasha (b. 1995, in Bamiyan, Afghanistan, lives and works in Jogjakarta) secret, 2017 Be quiet, 2017 the battle, 2017 no one talks about, 2017 freedom, 2017 Forgiving, 2017 The beginning, 2017 Watercolour, acrylic, silver and gold leaf on paper Commissioned by Samdani Art Foundation for DAS 2018 Courtesy of the artist. Photographer: Noor Photoface Indonesia based artist of Hazara origin Amin Taasha was forced to flee Afghanistan at the age of 18 after being accused of blasphemy resulting from his art practice. He addresses contemporary violence in a region where free passage was once possible via the silk road which stretched from China into his native Bamiyan. Bamiyan was once a bustling centre for Buddhist philosophy, religion and art, as evidenced by the monumental 4th and 5th Century AD Bamiyan Buddha sculptures that were destroyed by the Taliban in 2001 as part of their attempt to remove this history from communal memory. Taasha uses ink techniques that span many Asian influences, from Iran to China, and tries to create landscapes to chronicle memories that risk being forgotten due to growing beliefs in iconoclasm. Taasha uses the scroll format, drawn from Chinese literati painting, in an attempt to imagine a space of co-existence for the many strands of history that create the conflicted identities of his former home. Ayesha Jatoi (b. 1979 in Islamabad, lives and works in Lahore, Pakistan) Residue, 2016/2018 Installation of garments with performance courtesy of the artist and Sabrina Amrani Gallery, Madrid Presented here with additional support from Sabrina Amrani Gallery, Madrid. Photographer: Pablo Batholomew and Noor Photoface A large mound of white garments of all shapes and sizes and for all ages and genders lies conspicuously in the exhibition space. Looking closely, the pile begins to slowly disappear as the artist Ayesha Jatoi takes each piece of clothing and folds and stacks it across the room. White is the color of mourning worn to funerals in many cultures of South Asia, and Jatoi’s performance Residue, 2016/2018 is a metaphorically burdened act in uncertain times of putting away the remnants of love, of longing; trying to make sense of the senseless: of what, or who, has been lost. Gauri Gill (b. 1970 in Chandigarh, lives and works in New Delhi) Rajesh Vangad (b. 1975 in Ganjad, Maharasthra; lives and works in Ganjad) Birth to Death, 2016 Sacred Gods, Revered Things, 2016 Archival ink on pigment print Courtesy of Samdani Art Foundation. Photographer: Noor Photoface Fields of Sight (2013-ongoing) is a moving collaborative project between Rajesh Vangad, a traditionally-trained artist from the Warli community of Maharashtra, and Delhi-based photographer Gauri Gill. The project investigates the idea of the site as formed by variant cultural practices, and how marginalized groups might occupy stolen landscapes. In both Maharashtra and Gujarat, the Warli community has been the target of dispossession to make way for industrial and energy projects. Gill and Vangad bring to question the politics of landscape as the site through which trauma is registered, drawing attention to the mass displacement of indigenous communities in an effort by governments, working with private corporations, to seize natural resources in the lands of these communities. Multiple points of focus are produced within Gill’s portraits of Vangad, and through Vangad's interventions on Gill's portraits, rejecting any unidirectional act of viewing. Layers of violent imperial history in both colonial and post-colonial periods share a continuum in their treatment of indigenous communities in the process of resource control. Hitman Gurung (b.1986 in Lamjung, lives and works in Kathmandu) This is My Home, My Land and My Country...(I), 2015 Drawing on Digital Print on Archival Fine Art Paper Courtesy of the artist. Photographer: Noor Photoface The act of portraiture becomes one of resistance when state and other actors work to deliberately deny or suppress certain communities or identities. Hitman Gurung’s work This is My Home, My Land, and My Country (2015) addresses the conflicted history between the Tharu indigenous community of the Terai region of southern Nepal and the national government. Like many indigenous people around the world, the Tharu consider that they have been denied equal rights and representation, resulting in widespread protests and demands for independence. Gurung presents a series of portraits of members of the community, holding identity cards, where their faces have been bandaged, visualizing the paradox of being identified by the state, while not being recognized by it. Htein Lin (b. 1966 in Ingapu, lives and works in Yangon) Mangrave, 2017 Iron, Charcoal, Monitor, Video Commissioned and Produced by Samdani Art Foundation for DAS 2018 Courtesy of the Artist and Samdani Art Foundation. Photographer: Noor Photoface Mangrove forests on the coasts of Myanmar and Bangladesh serve as natural bio-guards to the surrounding villages, buffering them against the rising dangers of cyclones and tsunamis in the age of climate change. Mangroves suffer among the highest rate of deforestation in South and Southeast Asia, in part tied to the monoculture of plantations and infrastructure projects such as power plants, but also due to local fuel demands of villages given rising population density. Mangroves are one of the easiest sources of charcoal. In his menacing sculpture crafted from iron and charcoal, Mangrave (2017), Burmese artist Htein Lin warns of impending destruction resulting from making short-term decisions based on convenience and comfort at the grave expense of the environment. Jakkai Siributr (b. 1969 in Bangkok, lives and works in Bangkok) The Outlaw's Flag, 2017 Installation with embroidered found objects and video Courtesy of the artist and H Gallery Bangladesh welcomed over half-a-million Rohingya refugees into its borders in late 2017 who were fleeing years of oppression in Myanmar as Muslim minorities in a place where Buddhist fundamentalism is increasingly accepted. Buddhist fundamentalism is also on the rise in the sangha in Thailand, where the Rohingya refugees migrating eastwards found themselves during the previous crisis of 2015. Jakkai Siributr provides a critical perspective on rising communal tensions and Buddhist-Muslim relations in the region, which have become intensified by the mass movements of populations. Siributr’s The Outlaw’s Flag (2017) consists of subverted flags of imaginary nations, created by a process of embroidering detritus from the beaches of Sittwe in Myanmar and Ranong in Thailand – respectively departure and arrival points of fleeing Rohingya refugees – these flags are hoisted around a video of these seemingly idyllic landscapes. Joydeb Roaja (b. 1973 in Khagrachori, lives and works in Chittagong) Generation-wish-yielding Trees and Atomic Tree, 2017 Pen and ink on paper Courtesy of the artist and Samdani Art Foundation. Photographer: Pablo Bartholomew and Noor Photoface The militarization of the Chittagong Hill Tracts inspires the work of Chittagong based artist Joydeb Roaja who comes from the indigenous Tripura community. His performance practice inspires the seven intricate black and white drawings from the Generation-wish-yielding Trees and Atomic Tree series (2017), which are in turn activated by a performance on the opening day of DAS 2018. The thought, education, art, literature, and sports of the new generation reflect the fact that weapons were introduced to their visual landscape at a very young age. Roaja’s surreal drawings that fuse his indigenous community and its traditions with imported army equipment register the traces of this violence in his mental landscape of the hill tracts, and seek to invent ways of imagining another form of existence. Kanak Chanpa Chakma (b. 1963 in the Rangamati Hill Tracts; lives and works in Dhaka) Soul Piercing, 2014 acrylic and collaged photography on canvas courtesy of the artist Orange painting: The Fall, 2017 Red: And The Prayer, 2017 Blue: The History That Will Remain, 2017 Green painting: Snatched, 2017 Orange: The Burn, 2017 Red: But Life Will Continue, 2017 Acrylic and collaged photography on canvas Commissioned by Samdani Art Foundation for DAS 2018 Courtesy of the artist Photographer: Noor Photoface Bangladesh has layers of Buddhist history and in 2015 airport signage in the Dhaka international airport welcomed visitors to the catch phrase “home of Buddhist culture,” surprising for a country with a 90% Muslim population. While violence against Muslims and Hindus in Buddhist countries such as Sri Lanka and Myanmar is well documented in the international press, there is far less awareness of persecution of Buddhists (and other minorities) in the country. In 2012 in Southern Bangladesh, someone set up a fake Facebook account under a Buddhist name, and posted an image of a burning koran, inciting mob violence where over 25,000 people mobilised against Buddhist communities, destroying 12 Buddhist temples and over 50 houses in the process, now known as the Ramu Incident. Kanak Chanpa Chakma created a series in 2014 that collaged photographic documentation of the incident and newspaper clippings against imagery of the peaceful Buddhist architecture that growing hate and division in society tried to destroy. We invited Kanak to continue this series for DAS 2018, not anticipating that a similar incident would occur later on June 2, 2017 in the village of Longadu, Rangamati, which left the community devastated with over 300 houses torched. Kanak comes from the Buddhist community that was targeted in both of these incidents, and she shares that “my paintings bring to focus the ongoing cycle of intolerance and aggression against Bangladeshis of different faiths or ethnicity. This is, in my rawest form, an urge for peace.” Khadim Ali (b. 1978 in Quetta, lives and works between Sydney and Kabul) The Arrivals 2, 2017 Inkjet, gouache, and gold leaf on hahnemuhle paper courtesy of the artist and Milani Gallery The Arrivals 4, 2017 Inkjet, goache, and gold leaf on hahnemuhle paper courtesy of the artist and Milani Gallery Photographer: Noor Photoface Born of Afghan Hazara parentage now living in Australia, Khadim Ali grew up on the border of Pakistan and Afghanistan and works in the miniature tradition, chronicling the plight of his culture and community who have been oppressed for centuries, even more so recently under the Taliban as a minority and Shia Muslim community. Biographically tied to his family’s experiences as refugees, as well as those of other communities around them, The Arrivals series places Rustom, the hero of the 10th Century epic poem Shahnamah (The Book of Kings) that charts the mythical history of Persia, in the plight of the refugee, placing him in a landscape of limbo adorned with motifs from Australian passport pages. Reflecting on this series, the artist states: War produces innumerable wounds, leaving scars of destruction that are carried through generations. It destroys and deconstructs societies and disrupts the sphere of time. In its displacement by war, the human body becomes the site of trauma and loss. It is exposed to harsh environments and a torrid political atmosphere. This displaced body has a name: refugee. The effects of the refugee’s fragmented journey of displacement differ from person to person. But in almost every case, the inner spirit is numbed, forcing memories to be forgotten. The smell of home, the scent of love, the delicacy of identity and the fluency of language are all erased by the trauma of loss. In our time, political circumstances and misrepresentation has painted these displaced souls as being beyond humanity. Even though they are merely attempting to escape the catastrophe of war, they are portrayed as demons (that is beings other than human) who threaten the social order. In doing this, our society represents the forlorn hope of human beings who have endured the very limits of survival, ignoring that they seek little more than peace. Yet what is at stake in how we treat them is not just their humanity, it is ours. Munem Wasif (b.1983 in Dhaka, lives and works in Dhaka) Seeds Shall Set Us Free, 2016-2018 (ongoing) Cyanotype prints on acid free paper Courtesy of the artist and Project88. Photographer: Pablo Bartholomew and Noor Photoface Munem Wasif seeks to reimagine an indigenous “ecosophical” mode of agriculture, where grain is a companion species to humanity, having names, deities and spirits, around which the village organizes itself. He investigates the cultural history of grain, connected to memories of the 1944 Bengal famine. Seeds Shall Set Us Free (2017) is a series of cyanotype prints of rice seeds, referencing at once both scientific representation and the traditional practice of alpona, the Bengali tradition of creating ritual floor paintings using rice paste. The artist excavates layers of ecological colonialism from the destruction of agricultural ecologies with the introduction of plantation farming and cash crops. Indigo was one such cash crop, alluded to in Wasif’s use of bright blue hues in his cyanotypes. Agriculture moved away from the subsistence needs of the local communities as it was harnessed towards sustaining flows of capital with the introduction not only of crop monocultures, but also of genetically modified seeds, producing cycles of debt that lead to dispossession and displacement. Nilima Sheikh (b. 1954 in New Delhi, lives and works in Baroda) Construction Site, 2009-2010 Casein tempera on canvas Courtesy of Chemould Prescott Road Presented here with additional support from Chemould Prescott Road, Bombay. Photographer: Pablo Batholomew Nilima Sheikh creates an almost magical universe where rivers are woven and leaves clothe the towering figure of Lal Ded, the 14th Century Kashmiri saint and mystical poet whose vakh (spoken poems) occupy a significant space in the construction of a Kashmiri identity across religious lines. Construction Site (2009-2010) examines the layers of cultural history that produce an idea of the landscape of Kashmir. On the front face of the painting, we see a broken city, alluding to the Indian army’s occupation of Srinagar, being reconstructed by its citizens – using imagery drawn from Indian and Persian miniatures that she renders in the muted colours of Kashmiri textiles. She weaves these references together with texts from historical sources such as Kashmir chronicler Kalhana’s 12th Century Rajatarangini and excerpts from Lal Ded’s poetry, found on the back of the painting. Sheikh’s expansive use of washes pays tribute to the adoption of the technique by Abanindranath Tagore (whose work can be seen within Raqib Shaw’s adjacent presentation), whose pan-Asian vision imagined a modernity oriented eastwards. Using the form of the scroll, an oblique reference to Chinese scroll paintings and the patachitra painting of Bengal, Sheikh argues for the performativity of the narration of history. Pablo Bartholomew (b. 1955 in New Delhi, lives and works in New Delhi) Untitled, 2017-2018 (ongoing) Photographs, woven textiles, video Commissioned and Produced by Samdani Art Foundation for DAS 2018 Courtesy of the artist and Samdani Art Foundation. Photographer: Noor Photoface Through several bodies of work created with indigenous communities in Northeast India, Pablo Bartholomew has observed that these communities wear their cultural DNA through their clothing, ornamentation and markings on their bodies; codes that they keep as a form of self identity. With a father hailing from Burma and mother who is of partial Bengali origin, Bartholomew traces in his newly commissioned project (a work in progress as part of a longer ongoing cross-border inquiry) the links between geographically fractured indigenous communities/ethnic minorities in Myanmar, India, and Bangladesh. Working within the Chakma community into which he is related from his mother’s side, he extends the scope of his practice by working with weavers. The artist asked these artisans to use their traditional idioms on back-strap looms (carried on the body through periods of migration) to weave graphic DNA patterns the imagery rendered through scientific testing. Through this project Bartholomew hopes to weave together science, myth, legend and tradition, exploring a cross border ethnic identity. Prabhkakar Pachpute (b. 1986 in Chandrapur, lives and works in Mumbai) The Resistance Movement, 2017 Charcoal and acrylic on canvas Courtesy of Samdani Art Foundation Presented here with additional support from Experimenter, Kolkata. Photographer: Pablo Bartholomew Hailing from the Chandrapur district of Maharashtra, a major site of coal mining in India, and belonging to a family who have worked as miners for generations, Prabhakar Pachpute imagines a landscape where the people of the land can hold onto their own resources and dignity in his surreal charcoal drawings on mill-produced cloth. The use of mill cloth ties Pachpute materially to the history of labour movements in Mumbai led by unions of textile mill workers. In The Resistance Movement, 2017, the artist creates fantastical labouring bodies, alluding to the effects that working in the toxic atmospheres of mines has on these workers, who must invent new modes of living with and inhabiting landscapes. Raqib Shaw (b. 1974 in Calcutta, lives and works in London) Generously supported by White Cube and the Arts Council England. Courtesy of Raqib Shaw, White Cube, Manchester Art Gallery, the Whitworth, the University of Manchester and the Bangladesh National Museum. Co-curated by Diana Campbell, Chief Curator of Dhaka Art Summit and Artistic Director of Samdani Art Foundation, Dr Maria Balshaw, Director of Tate, and the artist. This exhibition is part of the New North and South, a network of eleven arts organisations from across South Asia and the North of England in a three-year programme of co-commissions, exhibitions and intellectual exchanges. The network consists of Dhaka Art Summit (Bangladesh), Colombo Art Biennale, (Sri Lanka), Karachi Biennale and Lahore Biennales (Pakistan), Kochi-Muziris Biennale (India), Manchester Art Gallery, the Whitworth, Manchester Museum, Liverpool Biennial, The Tetley, Leeds (UK) and the British Council. Photographer: Noor Photoface Raqib Shaw’s paintings present a landscape of the imagination, bringing together a remembered Kashmir, his extraordinary studio in Peckham, London, and a passionate engagement with the history of Eastern and Western art. Born in Calcutta to Muslim parents, raised in Kashmir (a historically Buddhist territory), and educated by Hindu teachers at a Christian school, celebration of plurality and difference is core to the artist’s work and to the Kashmiri culture that fundamentalism strives to quash. Shaw’s meticulous attention to detail creates a surface of theatrical extravagance that draws on Renaissance architecture, Japanese prints and Hindu iconography. This complex imaginary space is populated by extreme re-workings of myths, gods, animals and humans as fantasies of excess through which the artist reflects back his own status as post-colonial subject and plays back ‘the oriental’ to both West and East for very different political, sexual and emotional purposes. This is the artist’s first major presentation in South Asia, and the newly commissioned wallpaper speaks to Shaw’s love of fairy tales and his use of motifs of tumbling coins and mythic creatures create an intense domestic disruption in the public spaces of the Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy, where close inspection reveals the lush beauty of the decorative as turbulent and disturbing. Together with his paintings the wallpaper forms the backdrop to the display of historic collections, drawn together by the artist from his own collection, the Whitworth, Bangladesh National Museum, The Collection of Aysha and Shahab Sattar and the Samdani Art Foundation collection. Totemic objects such as the 19th century Kashmir shawl, Japanese woodblock prints, a rose water sprinkler and cloisonné charger map his cultural references and shape a new context in which we can read his work. Ramesh Mario Nithiyendran (b. 1988 in Colombo, lives and works in Sydney) Idols, 2016-2018 Earthenware, Glaze, Bronze, Cotton, Resin, Shells, Rubber Snakes, Human Hair and Concrete Commissioned and Produced by Samdani Art Foundation and Artspace, Sydney for DAS 2018 with support from the Australia Council for the Arts Courtesy of the artist, Samdani Art Foundation, Artspace Sydney, and Sullivan + Strumpf Co-curated by Diana Campbell, Alexie Glass-Kantor, and Michelle Newton Photographer: Noor Photoface Ramesh Mario Nithiyendran fled Sri Lanka at the age of one with his Tamil Hindu father and Christian Burgher mother, escaping religious and ethnic persecution during the civil war. While he himself is not religious, the artist felt naturally drawn to the temple where he learned about a polytheistic view of the world, with multi-gendered gods who could change forms. Nithiyendran noticed that there were not very many public monuments in existence that celebrated non-White or non-Colonial figures, and by considering temple iconography and Brutalist architecture, which captivated his imagination in terms of scale and authority, the artist tried to envision a different kind of way of memorializing people who slip through the cracks of what is considered acceptable. While homosexuality remains illegal in most of South Asia due to draconian British laws, the recognition of multiple genders has gained legal standing due to complex indigenous understandings of gender. Nithiyendran’s work references totems and indigenous clay toys, found in villages around South Asia, attempting to create a mythology of a post-gender world, over which his towering figures preside. In this newly commissioned body of work, Nithiyendran creates 21st Century deities in drag, whose dripping multi-coloured glazes pay homage to the famously colourful festivals of South Asia such as Holi and Pohela Boishakh. Soe Yu Nwe (b. 1989 in Yangon, lives and works in Yangon) On Ghost, 2016 Sagger fired ceramics with sand, salt, underglaze and oxides, cone 10 Courtesy of the artist and Myanm/ Art Photographer: Pablo Bartholomew and Noor Photoface Burmese sculptor Soe Yu Nwe chronicles her own need for protective space in the increasingly repressive environment of Myanmar that embraces Buddhist fundamentalism in her haunting ceramic installation On Ghost, 2016. Referencing the animist traces of Burmese culture found in spirit houses built around sacred trees, the artwork, weighed down by tangles of chains, evokes the violent tension that greed creates between nature, body, and spirit in a sinuous and violent form evoking an ashen sense of loss. Shahid Sajjad (b. 1936 in Muzaffarnagar, British India, d. 2014, Karachi) Hostage II, 1992-1993 Smoked Persian Lilac Courtesy of the Estate of Shahid Sajjad Hostage IV, 1992-1993 Smoked Mulberry Courtesy of Shezi Nackvi Photographer: Pablo Bartholomew The immaculate wood carving technique found in Shahid Sajjad’s Hostage II and Hostage IV (1992-1993) express the fear and state of limbo that indigenous communities have historically endured in the Rangamati Hill Tracts of Bangladesh. The artist lived with indigenous communities in Indonesia to learn carving techniques and later had a profound encounter with Paul Gaugin’s Tahitian body of work while traveling in Paris, experiences which sparked his interest in indigenous modes of representation in South Asia in the 1960s. The artist lived in Rangamati from 1965-67, spending two years working with its native wood species and learning wood smoking techniques from the communities there. Inspired by animist and sufi traditions in the region, Sajjad tried to release the spirit of the wood and draw out its hidden mystic qualities. The Hostage series, made nearly three decades after his life in Rangamati, transforms foreign Persian Lilac and Mulberry wood to further draw out the pain inflicted on indigenous ways of life and nodes of knowledge. This series was exhibited soon after it was made in Bangladesh at the the Third Asian Art Biennale in 1993. Sonia Jabbar (born 1964, in Calcutta; lives and works in Darjeeling) Granted Under Fear, 2009 2 channel video with sound Courtesy of the artist One of the cruelest ways of keeping society “under control” is through the practice of enforced disappearances, where a family lives in suspense not knowing whether their loved one is alive or dead, and forced into submission in hopes of bringing them back. According to the Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons, around 8,000 to 10,000 cases of enforced disappearances have been reported in Jammu and Kashmir since 1989. Artist and activist Sonia Jabbar’s haunting two-channel video Granted Under Fear (2009) places side by side the haunting sound of military bagpipes, an echo from colonial era marching bands, with the frightening image of stomping army boots in a military parade alongside documentation of mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers holding pictures of their missing relatives. Veer Munshi (b. 1955 in Srinagar, lives and works in New Delhi) Leaves like Hands of Flame, 2010 Two channel video with sound Courtesy of the artist and Latitude 28 Veer Munshi’s two-channel video, Leaves Like Hands of Flame (2010) juxtaposes images of the burnt-out houses of Kashmiri pundits in Srinagar, with a video of the artist walking laboriously through the snow. Munshi’s departure from the Kashmir Valley to work in New Delhi coincided with the forced mass exodus of Kashmiri Hindus due to rising communal tensions in the 1990s. The Kashmir valley is one of the most militarized zones in the world today and the Indian government has often been accused of using the trauma of exiled Kashmiri pundits to justify cruel measures of repression against those agitating for an independent Kashmir. Finally able to return home in 2008, Munshi attempts to reclaim this trauma, creating a slow, contemplative space to imagine modes of living with difficult histories as he walks through the desolate snowy landscape to the home he once inhabited, now in ruins.

ALL PROJECTS Charupith Dhaka Art Summit 2020 Many processes of social transformation may contribute to forms of profound structural change in society yet remain relatively invisible before attaining a critical mass. An extraordinary example from Bangladesh is Mangal Shobhajatra, a community procession to celebrate Pohela Boishakh (Bengali New Year) created in 1987 by Jessore-based collective Charupith. Today it attracts massive crowds who carry painted paper masks, crowns, traditional dolls, and large sculptures that integrate folk forms and motifs, and perform music and comedy from Bengali culture in public space across the country. This is not a generations old tradition. It is an initiative started as part of Charupith’s wider practice of drawing inspiration from the plurality of rural culture in Bangladesh and creating a festive atmosphere for people across generations to experience the potential of art to create spaces of freedom. Close to 10,000 young students have graduated from Charupith’s independent school of fine arts. This series of masks was created by senior artists with a long-term engagement in the festival, speaking to the role that artists in Bangladesh play in embodying secular values. Charupith lead a mask-making workshops for Dhaka school children on the children’s days of DAS.

ALL PROJECTS Voice Against Reason Museum of Modern & Contemporary Art in Nusantara, Jakarta Samdani Art Foundation supported the transportation of Kamruzzaman Shadhin's 'Pathraj Chronicles 2023' from Bangladesh to Indonesia for the exhibition Voice Against Reason, at museum MACAN in Jakarta. To learn more about the exhibition, please visit: https://www.museummacan.org/exhibition/voice-against-reason

ALL PROJECTS A beast, a god, and a line Curated by Cosmin Costinas A beast, a god, and a line was woven by connections and circulations of ideas across a geography with Bengal at its core. This geography - arbitrary as any mapping - is commonly called the Asia-Pacific, but it could also be defined by several other definitions, which this exhibition explored and untangled. The issues summoned aimed to mark the current historical moment. Perhaps the most visible among these is the development and spread of politicised religion and its structures: Salafi Islam across several countries, extremist Buddhism in Myanmar, Sri Lanka, and Thailand, Hindu ethno-fascism in India, and revivalist Christianity among many indigenous communities in the Philippines, to name just a few examples in the region. In close connection to politicised religion is the rising tide of populism and nationalism across continents. These are all intimately connected to a generalised loss of confidence in the ideals and certainties of Western liberal democracy, and to rising alternatives and challenges to the liberal consensus, often based on various attempts to create parallel narratives to Western modernity. Western hegemony was also challenged from a fundamentally different premise, that of unfinished processes of decolonisation and resurgent Indigenous identities, which were reflected both in the subject matter and in the aesthetic choices of several exhibited artists. Throughout the exhibition, artists investigated 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. These broad stories circulate across South and Southeast Asia on routes going back several historical eras, the first being the early Austronesian world that has woven a maritime universe surpassed in scale only by European colonialism, from the Pacific to Madagascar, with Taiwan as its origin and Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines at its core – which was taken as the speculative and approximate geographical perimeter of this exhibition. These historical journeys also served as an introduction to a major political reality that defines many contexts today and is often manipulated by the rising nationalist discourses: the contemporary waves of migration and refugee crises. This exhibition questioned how we should negotiate common ground in the context of the overall political and ideological fragmentation discussed above. How can an aesthetic basis for the language of contemporary art be maintained if the ideological bases of contemporary art are questioned? How can positions that claim disparate and conflicting genealogies sit together in a shared exhibition space? One tenuous leading line across the different aspects of this exhibition were 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. While this exhibition included artists and practices of various historical, cultural, and geographical contexts, it was not based on an ethos of discovering or introducing artists from presumably marginalised regions, but worked within the premise of an already fragmentary and decentralised art world. Ampannee Satoh (b. 1983 in Pattani; lives and works in Bangkok, Thailand) Lost Motherland (2016) Pigment print on paper Courtesy of the artist The work addresses the recent history of forced migrations of Muslims, from Myanmar and Syria to the artist’s native Pattani, a Muslim majority region in Southern Thailand, where an insurgency has been taken place for more than a decade. Satoh attempts to capture the sense of displacement and alienation that accompanies exile, imbuing her photographs with a feeling of loss. The figures in her photographs seem gathered to mourn a collective pain, standing as mute witnesses to tragedy. Anand Patwardhan (b.1950 in Mumbai, India; lives and works in Mumbai) We Are Not Your Monkeys (1997) Video Courtesy of the artist This music video was jointly composed by the filmmaker along with renowned poets Daya Pawar and poet-singer Sambhaji Bhagat, giving a Dalit/indigenous perspective to the Hindu epic Ramayana. After German indologists in the 19th century created the myth of an Aryan invasion of the Indian sub-continent by a superior race and hailed the Vedic (Brahminical) period as representing a Golden Era in Indian history, many upper caste Indians felt proud to be considered the racial equivalent of the white man. At the same time those who questioned both race and caste began looking at what may have existed in the region before the Aryans supposedly arrived. The Ramayana itself, composed in the ancient Brahminic period in praise of Lord Rama, depicts characters who reveal traces of a pre-Aryan culture that was subjugated. The song and the film We Are Not Your Monkeys is a subaltern reading of history that uses poetic license (like the Ramayana did) to turn the Ramayana epic on its head. Anida Yoeu Ali (b.1974 in Battambang, lives and works in Phnom Penh, Cambodia) From right to left: Secret Lagoon (2014) Coconut Road (2012) Campus Dining (2012) Roll Call (2014) Sun-dried Landing #1 (2014) On the River (2013) From the Buddhist Bug Series Digital c-print Courtesy of the artist The work is an ongoing project encompassing performance and photography, mapping interfaith relations between the Muslim minority to which the artist belongs and the Buddhist majority in her native Cambodia, against the background of the rise of Buddhist fundamentalism in Southeast Asia. Ali devises a seemingly magical creature (alluding to the religious myths of Islam, Buddhism, as well as the traditional animistic beliefs of the region) that occupies spaces of community gatherings, such as canteens and sites of prayer, rendering these ordinary activities surreal. Apichatpong Weerasethakul (b. 1970 in Bangkok, lives and works in Chiang Mai, Thailand) Chai Siris (b. 1983 in Bangkok, lives and works in Chiang Mai, Thailand) Dilbar (2013) Single-Channel Video Installation, suspended glass pane Courtesy of the artist and the Sharjah Art Foundation Commissioned by the Sharjah Art Foundation The work is an affectionate portrait of Dilbar, a Bangladeshi construction worker in the UAE, whose name means 'full of hearts’. Throughout the work he is seen to be asleep, while the viewer is mesmerised by the pace of the video and its light spilling over the edges of the screen. His sleeping is a gentle yet clear act of defiance to the logic of workers exploitation. There are over two million Bangladeshi workers currently living in the Gulf countries. Apichatpong Weerasethakul (b. 1970 in Bangkok, lives and works in Chiang Mai, Thailand) Photophobia 1-4 (2013) Photo etching and Chine-collé Courtesy of the artist The work is based on photographs documenting scenes of violence taken during the Takbai Incident in Thailand’s restive South in 2004. Around 1,500 demonstrators had gathered before the local police station to protest the detention of six men, only to be brutally repressed, resulting in 85 deaths. The photographs reveal the violence with which the Thai government has been handling insurgents and civilians alike in its Muslim-majority southern provinces. Art Labor Collective Thao-Nguyen Phan (b. 1987 in Ho Chih Minh City, lives and works in Ho Chih Minh City, Vietnam) Truong Cong Tung (b.1986 in Dak Lak, lives and works in Ho Chih Minh City, Vietnam) Arlette Quynh-Anh Tran (b.1987 in Berlin, lives and works in Ho Chih Minh City) In collaboration with Rocham Djeh, Rolan Loh, Siu Lon, Rahlan Aleo, Kpuih Gloh and Rocham Jeh Jrai Dew Sculpture Garden (2016-ongoing) Wood sculptures, mural Commissioned by the Samdani Art Foundation, Para Site and Muzeum Sztuki Nowoczesnej w Warszawie. Art Labor Collective works within different communities, bringing in practitioners from diverse disciplines such as medicine, film-making, education, to bring to questions ideas of labour and social practice. The Jrai Dew Sculpture Garden is part of an ongoing series of sculptural presentations realized in collaboration with the Jrai Dew community of the highlands of central Vietnam, where Art Labor collective member Cong Tung hails from. The project takes inspiration from Jrai spiritual beliefs of the transfiguration of the human after death. In the Jrai philosophy, humans go through many cycles of existence, where the final stage is to transform into dew (ia ngôm in Jrai language) evaporating into the environment – the state of non-being –signaling the beginning particles of new existence. Charles Lim (b. 1973 in Singapore, lives and works in Singapore) Stealing the Trapeze (2016) Video installation, books Courtesy of the artist With support of National Arts Council Singapore Catamarans were seldom constructed in the temperate West before the 19th century, but they were in wide use as early as the 5th century CE in what is today Southern India. The word ‘catamaran’ is derived from the Tamil language (from kattu ‘to tie’ and maram ‘wood, tree’). In England, one of the earliest mentions of the ‘catamaran’ is made by the 17th century adventurer Willian Dampier who encountered this peculiar manner of relating to water when he reached south-eastern India during this first circumnavigation of the globe. The outrigger and catamaran was prevalent from equatorial South to Southeast Asia (including the artist’s native Singapore) and well into the Pacific as a design solution to stabilise and allow for narrow hull shapes which drew shall drafts. They were the primary vehicles that made the first migrations of Austronesian people to the islands of the Pacific possible. Today, the catamaran is raced in the America’s Cup. The artist, a former Olympic sailor, recounts how in his studies years he came across the autobiographical accounts by one Peter Scott about the circumstances surrounding the invention of the sailing trapeze. Scott claims that he and his fellow sailors invented the trapeze in 1938 along the Thames River in England. Peter Scott was the son of Robert Falcon Scott (the explorer who perished in the Antarctic) and sculpture Kathleen Scott. In his last letter to his wife, Robert Scott is said to have written, “make the boy interested in natural history if you can; it is better than the game”. Cian Dayrit (b. 1989 in Manila, lives and works in Manila, Philippines) Feudal Fields (2018) Mixed media and embroidery on canvas Courtesy of the artist Mapa de la Isla de Buglas (2017) Mixed media and embroidery on canvas Courtesy of the artist and Tin-aw Art Gallery Taking as the point of departure the 2004 Hacienda Luisita Massacre, when protesting farmers and workers of the sugar estate were killed by agents of the Cojuangco family, these tapestry maps look into the role of sugar production in the country’s colonial past up to the neocolonial and neoliberal present as well as the country’s part in the global market as producers of raw material and consumer of excess goods including culture and education. Addressing feudalism and landlessness by pointing out ownership via imperialist interests and bureaucrat capitalist landlords within the format of a fabric map which functioned historically as nomadic murals brought to one colonized state to another by warrior-kings. Daniel Boyd (b. 1982 in Cairns, Queensland, lives and works in Sydney, Australia) WTEIA2 (2017) Oil, archival glue on canvas Courtesy of the artist and Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney WTEIA2 (2017) Oil, archival glue on canvas Courtesy of the artist and Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney WTEIA3 (2017) Oil, oil pastel, archival glue on linen Courtesy of the artist and Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney These paintings reference the stick-charts of the Marshall Islands, which were used by indigenous communities to navigate the sea by mapping the positions of islands as well as patterns of swell and disturbance in the water. These charts were not taken aboard during voyages, but rather memorized in advance by the sailors. Boyd, who is of Australian indigenous heritage, as well as a descendant of a Vanuatu slave forcibly taken to Australia, alludes through these paintings to the many modes of navigating land and sea that existed in the Pacific region. These forms of navigational knowledge were erased by colonialism, and replaced with the unidirectional model of the map, used primarily as an instrument of control. Dilara Begum Jolly (b. 1960 in Chittagong, lives and works in Chittagong, Bangladesh) The War that Never Went Away (2016-2017) Pierced photographs Courtesy of the artist The work revisits traumatic histories of the Bangladesh War of Liberation in 1971. The artist pierces holes in photographs of the Physical Training College of Dhaka, which was used as a site of torture of Bangladeshi freedom fighters by the Pakistani army during the conflict. Through this work, she traces histories of trauma, examining what she terms the haunting of history in the present. Garima Gupta (b. 1985 in New Delhi, lives and works in Bengaluru, India) Cabinets of Curiosity (2017) Home 02 (2017) Lesser Bird of Paradise in a Vitrine (2017) Hunting Implements from Huon Peninsula, Papua New Guinea (2017) Twelve-wired Bird of Paradise (2017) Hunting Implements from Arfak Mountains, West Papua (2017) Home 01 (2017) Kombayorong Dance (2017) Two Studies of a Broken Mountain (2017) Magnificent Riflebird (2017) Giclee print on cotton paper Courtesy of the artist and Tarq, Mumbai Jakarta Markets (2017) Red Bird of Paradise (2017) Lesser Bird of Paradise (2017) Chinese Taro (2017) Giclee print on cotton paper Courtesy of the artist and Tarq, Mumbai Hamas? (2017) Charcoal on Manjar-Pat cotton cloth Courtesy of the artist and Tarq, Mumbai The work is an ongoing journalistic and archival research in the island of New Guinea,examining the wildlife trade in Southeast Asia and its effects on the communities and ecology of the island. The core focus of this body of work is the Bird of Paradise, an avian species endemic to New Guinea with a long history as the embodiment of the exotic in European colonial imagination. The research casts light on the socio-economic history of the erstwhile trade which spanned from New Guinea to Europe and traces its effect on the contemporary state of wildlife trafficking in Southeast Asia. Idas Losin (b. 1976, in Taiwan; lives and works in Taipei, Taiwan) Traveler (2014) Rano Raraku (2014) Moai (2014) Island (2014) Ku (2017) Oil on canvas Courtesy of the artist The artist’s background, belonging to the Truku and Atayal aboriginal people of Taiwan is an an important aspect of her work. The Austronesian community originated among the Aboriginal people in Taiwan, from which this language family extended through sea migrations over the past millennia, reaching as far away places as Easter Island, Hawaii, New Zealand, Philippines, Indonesia, and Madagascar where related languages are still spoken, making this migration the most extensive expansion of a linguistic group outside Western colonialism. The artist’s work is part of an effort to reconnect with her roots and contribute to a shaping of contemporary Taiwanese indigenous identity, after several waves of colonialism and cultural oppression, when one of the most significant aspects of Taiwanese history, being the original homeland of hundreds of millions of people spread across a third of the world’s surface, was ignored. She decided to travel to the furthest points of the Austronesian speaking world and paint her impressions, in a subversion of the position of the European explorer. Presented here are paintings she did in Easter Island and Hawaii. Ines Doujak (b. 1959 in Austria, lives and works between London, UK and Vienna, Austria) Loomshuttles, Warpaths (2010-2018) Mixed media Courtesy of the artist This project was produced in cooperation with Phileas – A Fund for Contemporary Art. The work started life as a collection of 48 Andean textiles, tools, and accessories, and developed as an eccentric archive. Its world, in which textile culture reached exceptional levels of sophistication and significance, was battered and distorted by the European invasions of the early 16th century. It survived, but the impact of those invasions remain as dirty footprints in the production and trade of the ’globalized’ world. The archive traces workers' fights against exploitation through time and geographies, and looks at how types of cloth, dyes, and colour are tied up with the history of colonialisms, revealing both their beauty and their ugly. To stay grounded, the modern figure of the Investigator travelled the Andean region, and in the belief that items of the collection can talk, posters have been created in response to them, inviting people, both close and far away from the Andes, to communicate with them. Fires: The War Against the Poor (2012-2013) Mixed media Courtesy of the artist This project was produced in cooperation with Phileas – A Fund for Contemporary Art. The silkscreen printed cloth is a fresco from the global war against the poor, who are often locked in with overloaded electricity circuits, living under threat of death and horrible injury by fire while fulfilling skin-tight clothing contracts. It directly refers to several incidents of the past years, in Pakistan and Bangladesh, which have brought little improvement to working conditions. Jakrawal Nilthamrong (b. 1977 in Lopburi, lives and works in Bangkok, Thailand) Zero Gravity (2013) Single channel video Courtesy of the artist The film journeys in the borderland between Thailand and Burma, and the borderland between fiction and truth, past and present. Set in Ratchaburi, not far from Bangkok, it follows a man on a journey into the history of that place. Ratchaburi Hospital was the site of a 2000 incident, when the hospital was occupied and staff taken hostage by the Karen Christian militia "God's Army" from neighboring Burma, lead by two 12-year old twins, Johnny and Luther Htoo. Jamdani Jamdani is one of the fifinest textiles of Bengal, produced in the region of Dhaka for centuries, and was originally known as Dhakai (a name still common for the fabric in India). The historic production of Jamdani was patronized by imperial warrants of the Mughal emperors, under which the Persian term Jamdani came to be in popular use, since it was the court language. Under British colonialism, the Bengali jamdani, and the similar, albeit fifiner, muslin industries rapidly declined due to colonial import policies favoring industrially manufactured textiles from Britain. In more recent years, the production of jamdani has witnessed a revival in Bangladesh, using traditional techniques and often natural dyes. However, muslin, one of the most coveted fabrics in Europe in the 19th century, widely depicted in the academic portraiture of the time, was decimated by British economic policy to the point of biological extinction of the cotton subspecies used for making muslin. Jamdani is the closest version that remains of the famed muslin. The traditional art of weaving jamdani has been declared by UNESCO as an Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. Jimmy Ong (b. 1964 in Singapore; lives and works in Singapore and Vermont, USA) Seamstress Rafflffleses #7 – Mr. Florent (2016) Cotton and Dacron stuffiffing Courtesy of the artist and FOST Gallery Test Batik #1 , Printed Test Batik #2 , Test Batik #3 and Printed Batik #4 Textile Courtesy of the artist and FOST Gallery Sketches for Fallen Tiger Batik motifs Watercolour on paper Courtesy of the artist and FOST Gallery The work refers to the figure of Thomas Stamford Raffles, one of the most infamous British colonial figures in South East Asia, who nevertheless remain largely revered in Singapore. His crimes are well remembered in Indonesia, which has suffered from Raffles' invasion of Java in 1812. He is also the author of "The History of Java", containing the chapter "Ethics of Javan", from which the artist quotes: "A caterpillar has its poison in its head, a scorpion in its tail and a snake in its teeth, but it is unknown in what part of the body the poison of man is concealed: a bad man is therefore considered poisonous in his whole-frame.” The textiles shown here replicate the batik technique of cloth painting, a technique which has become associated with Java and has reflected in its development the many layers of colonialism and occupation of the island in the last centuries. Jiun-Yang Li (b. 1967 in Taitung, lives and works in Taichung, Taiwan) Get the Sword (2006) The Magical Performance (2009) Forcing Me to Leave (2000) The Immortal Kid (2014) The Golden Immortals (2014) The Stinky-Headed Kid (1996) Black and White Impermanence - The Deities of the Two Paths (2005) Ink on paper Courtesy of the artist Fairy-Fairy-Fairy 35 (2011) Acrylic on canvas Courtesy of the artist The Immortal White Ape of the Snow Mountain (2016) The Yin and Yang Swordsmith God (1995-2017) The Knight of Black Flowers (1998-2017) Wood, fabric Courtesy of the artist The Playground of Childhood Dreams (2008) Wood Courtesy of the artist The selection of works is representative for the artist’s distinct practice, engaging with traditional Taiwanese art forms, diverse religious representations and vernacular culture on the island. The son of a movie posters painter, Li has himself worked on movie posters, temple painting, calligraphy, Taiwanese glove puppets, as well as multimedia installations. Hailing from Southern Taiwan, where a distinctive cultural environment, influenced by Taiwanese indigenous people and Hoklo (descendants of the first Chinese migrants on the island, speaking the Minnan variety of Chinese languages), is the basis for promoting a Taiwanese identity distinct from the Chinese Nationalist idea that sees Taiwan as part of the Chinese cultural world. Joël Andrianomearisoa (b. 1977 in Antananarivo, Madagascar, lives and works between Antananarivo, Madagascar and Paris, France) Duration: continuous loop (2016) Remember Iarivo (2016) Yesterday. Repeat (2016) Your eyes tell me stories of Paris (2016) Where have you been? (2016) Do you remember? (2016) Repeat. (2016) Last Year in Antananarivo, 2016 Inkjet print on Hahnemühle paper Courtesy of the artist and Sabrina Amrani Gallery, Madrid Last Year in Antananarivo takes as its point of departure a series of photographs of a ball held by the French colonials in 1900 in Antananarivo. In the images, Malagasy aristocrats are dressed in elaborate costumes reflecting the colonialists’ idea of a ‘civilised’ people. The work points to the ambivalent position of colonized elites in the process of imperialism, oscillating between complicity and resistance. The colonial ball was used by the imperialists to register their dominance over the bodies of the colonized elites, rendering the Empire as spectacle, another notable example being the infamous Delhi Durbar of 1911, staged while the Bengal Famine ravaged populations elsewhere in the country. When the day belongs to the night I, II and III (2016) Textiles Courtesy of the artist and Sabrina Amrani Gallery, Madrid The triptych is part of the artist’s practice of reinterpreting and recomposing fabrics into abstract and seductive compositions, which nevertheless bare the traces of their making and the stories of their makers and traders. The works presented here combine remains of cloth purchased in a market in the artist’s native Madagascar and of saris from Jodhpur in India's Rajasthan. The artist is interested in connections between people, places, and objects, in flows that often avoid the normative paths. While his native Madagascar has ancient connections to Asia, as the westernmost point of Austronesian expansion, Malagasy language being a close relative of languages spoken in Borneo, more recent connections between the island and India are evoked in this work. Gujarati traders, once a leading group of merchants throughout the ports of the Indian Ocean have settled in Madagascar since the 19th century and 70,000 descendants of African slaves and mercenaries, the Siddis, still live in India. Joydeb Roaja (b. 1973 in Khagrachori, lives and works in Chittagong, Bangladesh) Searching My Roots (2017) Pen and ink on paper Courtesy of the artist The series draws from the artist’s performance practice, and the beliefs of his native Tripura community in Chittagong Hill Tracts, to inquire into the possibilities of the survival of indigenous knowledge systems in the face of violent modernities. The artist, referencing painful memories of growing up in a region that has seen many conflicts, moves like an uprooted tree, walking through a landscape devoid of any markers of place, speaking to a sense of dislocated identity. Limbs become branches and sprout leaves, drawing from the traditional spiritual practices of the indigenous group to which he belongs, where the forest plays a central role in acts of becoming. Lantian Xie (b. 1988 in the UAE , lives and works in Dubai, United Arab Emirates) Taxidermy Peacock (2014) Taxidermy Peacock Courtesy of the artist and Grey Noise, Dubai Peacock Tiles (2016) Mahjong Tiles Courtesy of the Jameel Art Centre Collection of mahjong tiles, each from a different set. Each set is made up of 144 tiles, among which is one Bamboo #1 tile, or ‘peacock tile’, often featuring a depiction of a peacock, or sometimes a sparrow, crane, or other bird. Meridian (2014) Two 1950s lithographs by John Fabreau from 1920s drawings by Danial G. Elliot Courtesy of the artist and Grey Noise, Dubai The work is based on 1950s lithographs by John Fabreau from 1920s drawings by Daniel G. Elliot. The hallways of Le Meridien Hotel in Garhoud, Dubai are filled with depictions of thirty six different pheasants, among which is this same Golden Pheasant. Dubai’s rise as a shining metropolis at the crossroads of the global neoliberal era’s new trade routes continues the old cycle of metropolitan cultural capital accumulation seen throughout history. Lavanya Mani (b. 1977 in Hyderabad, India, lives and works in Vadodara, India) Travellers Tales – Blueprints (2014) Natural dye, pigment paint, applique and cyanotype on cotton fabric Courtesy of the artist and Chemould Prescott Road This series of paintings on cotton cloth evoke the sails of ships and remind of the complex role that textiles and dyes played in the history of colonialism in South Asia. They are realised using the kalamkari technique of cloth painting, the popularity of which, under the name of chintz, in 17th century Europe was such that French and English governments outlawed it to protect local mills. Inserted into the paintings are the texts of letters written by Western travellers to India who attempted to decode kalamkari and other techniques in order to replicate them back in Europe. Also used in these works is cyanotype, an early photographic medium which, when applied on cloth and exposed to light, produces blue colour, evocative of both the ocean and indigo - a dye that was a coveted commodity in the Indian Ocean trade and later colonial extraction from India - the origin of indigo’s name in Europe from ancient Greek times. Malala Andrialavidrazana (b. 1971 in Madagascar, lives and works in Paris, France) Figures 1816, Der Südliche Gestirnte Himmel vs Planiglob der Antipoden (2015) Figures 1862, Le Monde – Principales Découvertes (2015) Figures 1899, Weltverkehrs und Kolonialbesitzen (2016) Figures Figures 1889, Planisferio (2015) Figures 1817, Eslam or the Countries which have professed the Faith of Mohamet (2016) Figures 1838, Atlas Elémentaire (2015) Figures 1853, Kolonien in Afrika und in der Süd-See (2016) Pigment Print on Hahnemühle Cotton Rag Courtesy of the artist The artist creates complex collages of 19th century European maps, products of the Age of Western Imperialism and fragments of banknotes from around the world, illustrating the vision of whatever ideology those countries nurture on the ideal society, its citizens, and their struggles. Maps themselves are hardly accurate representations of places but rather the product of hegemonic ideas about the world, drawn to control and posses. These stunning compositions become a reflection of the myths and illusions, as well as the upheavals, clashes, and transformations of the world in the age of colonialism and its aftermath. Manish Nai (b. 1980 in Gujarat, lives and works in Mumbai, India) Untitled (2017) Synthetic indigo-dyed burlap Courtesy of the artist and Nature Morte The artist references the material histories of indigo in the subcontinent, tied to colonialism and the institution of debt-based slavery. British colonialists wrecked social and ecological havoc on the population of Bengal by forcing farmers to cultivate indigo instead of the food crops they required for their survival, and charged huge rates of interests to farmers on loans for indigo farming. This eventually lead to the Indigo Revolt of 1859, where indentured indigo farmers from Burdhwan, Birbhum, and Jessore rose up against the ruling colonial and land-owning classes, before being brutally suppressed, as chronicled in Dinabandhu Mitra’s play Nil Darpan, published in Dhaka the same year. Nai’s work layers these histories of labour, anti-imperialist struggle, and the materiality of culture in his sculptural installation. Ming Wong (b. 1971 in Singapore, lives and works in Berlin, Germany) Bloody Mary's - Song of the South Seas (2018) Mixed media installation, single channel video Courtesy of the artist The work is part of the artist’s practice of using fragments from and references to popular culture and cinema, often impersonating in his works different characters from original films, irrespective of gender or racial background. "Bali Ha'i" is a show tune from the 1949 musical South Pacific, made into a 1958 movie by the same title from which the artist extracted the footage. The name refers to a mystical island, an exotic paradise, visible on the horizon but not reachable, and was originally inspired by the sight of Ambae island from neighboring Espiritu Santo in Vanuatu, where author James Michener was stationed in World War II. The matriarch of Bali Ha’i, Bloody Mary, sings her mysterious song "Bali Ha’i", with its haunting orchestral accompaniment, as an enticement to the American troops. The scene, as well as the entire film, exemplifies the construction of the exotic - often woven together with sexual desire - crucial instruments in the process of Western colonialism. Bloody Mary, a caricatural non-specific Pacific Island character, was played in the original film by the pioneering African-American actress Juanita Hall, who appears in this work intermittently with Ming Wong’s impersonation of her. Moelyono (b. 1957 in Tulungagung, lives and works in Tulungagung, East Java, Indonesia) Benang Benang (diptych) (2016) Acrylic on canvas Courtesy of the artist and Ark Galerie Noken Noken (2016) Noken bag Courtesy of the artist and Ark Galerie The artist, known for his pioneering social practice, has been working in West Papua, Indonesia for more than a decade, in social activities mainly based on education, engaging with communities of women in the region’s villages. From them, he studied the history and philosophy of Noken (the traditional woven bag of Papua), and how it became an important part in the narrative of women's struggles in Papua, within a complex social and political situation. Moelyono realized his works through collaborations and meetings with Papuan communities on their native island as well as the ones settled in Java, facing a distinct set of issues as migrants, often subjected to discrimination. He does not see his works as illustrations of the "Noken" or the struggles of the people of Papua. They are a way to tell the story of encounter, learning, friendship, and movements with his communities in Papua. Mrinalini Mukherjee (b. 1949 in Bombay, d. 2015 in New Delhi, India) Kamal (1985) Hemp Courtesy of the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art Presented here with additional support from the Mrinalini Mukherjee Foundation Mrinalini Mukherjee’s sculptural work references traditional idol-making practices of Bengal, whose sensuous iconicity she alludes to. Mukherjee began working with knotted hemp while studying under the artist KG Subramanyam who organized the Fine Arts Fair of the Faculty of Fine Arts, Baroda, which focused on revisiting and learning from traditional art practices, during which time she made small toys and other works with hemp. She continued her dialogue with the material, expanding it to the monumental scale we see here. Kamal (Lotus) presents a form that seems to be at once a deity and a carnivorous plant, referencing the complex relationship between the sacred and the forest in the religious practices of South Asia. Munem Wasif (b.1983 in Dhaka, lives and works in Dhaka, Bangladesh) Machine Matters (2017) Single channel video Courtesy of the artist and Project88, Mumbai Assistant Cinematographer: Ferdous Ahmad & Joe Paul Cyriac Sound Design: Saddul Islam Production: Kauser Haider The artist maps shifting histories of labour in the production of jute in Bengal, through the colonial, post-colonial, and neoliberal periods. Wasif’s film focuses on now-defunct machines of a jute mill in Bangladesh, speaking to the country’s transformation from a producer of textiles to a site of assembly of cheap, mainly polyester, garments as part of a globalized, out-sourced supply chain. The proverbial ‘silencing of the looms of Bengal’ by the British, who devastated the textile manufacturing during the Raj to the point of biological extinction of the muslin producing cotton sub-species, echoes in Wasif’s film, which speaks to the subtle insidious violence of an unfulfilled modernity. Nabil Ahmed (b. 1978 in Dhaka; lives and works in London, UK) INTERPRET (2018) Installation Courtesy of the artist Commissioned by Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary (TBA21)–Academy. Nguyen Trinh Thi (b. 1973; lives and works in Hanoi, Vietnam) Letters from Panduranga (2015) Single channel video Courtesy of the artist The essay film is an experimentation between documentary and fiction portraying a Cham community in Vietnam, living on the most southern and last surviving territory of Champa, an ancient kingdom dating back nearly two thousand years and conquered by Vietnam in 1832. The film, made in the form of a letter exchange between two filmmakers, was triggered by the Vietnamese government’s plans to build Vietnam’s first two nuclear power plants in Ninh Thuan, right at the spiritual heart of the Cham people, threatening the survival of this ancient matriarchal Hindu culture. Public discussions regarding the project have been largely absent in Vietnam due to strict government controls over public speech and media, and local communities have also been excluded from consultations. The film also alludes to the legacy of colonialism and war, including the United States’ destructive and deliberate bombing of cultural heritage during the Vietnam War and the perspectives of ethnography and of artifacts from colonial exhibitions and art collections. Nontawat Numbenchapol (b. 1983 in Bangkok, lives and works in Bangkok, Thailand) Mr. Shadow (2016-2018) Inkjet print on paper Courtesy of the artist Assisted by Korn and Chan; post-produced by Nutcha Pajareya In the middle of a mountain range at the border between Shan State in Myanmar and Northern Thailand, in the buffer zone where many Shan refugees live, a motorcycle moves along the steep and winding path. The dust from the red dirt road kicks up behind the motorcycle, ridden by a young man in an all green army suit. The warm sunshine illuminates the dusk and the breeze blows gently as the young man parks his motorcycle at a spot from which he can see the terrain below the mountains. They stretch to infinity, toward the horizon tinged with the vibrant hues of the setting sun. The young man slowly removes his hat, but there is no head underneath, nothing, not a face. He then removes his shirt but his body is transparent. The clothes come off piece by piece until his body completely disappears. All that remains are the mountains and the setting sun as they welcome the darkness of the night. Norberto Rolodan (b. 1953 in Bacolod, lives and works in Manila, Philippines) Himagsikan (2018) Tapestry/banner with embroideries, old Catholic vestment (humeral veil), and metal amulets and chains Courtesy of the artist and Silverlens Gallery Kalayaan (2018) Tapestry/banner with embroideries, old Catholic vestment (humeral veil), and metal amulets and chains Courtesy of the artist and Silverlens Gallery Erehes (2017) Old Catholic vestment (cape) with embroideries and soft amulets Courtesy of the artist and Silverlens Gallery This series of pseudo-religious banners revisits the Philippine Revolution against Spain. The uprising began in 1896 after Spanish authorities discovered the Katipunan, the underground organisation that served as catalyst of the independence revolutionary movement. As an underground organisation, it made use of different strategies to expand its influence and gain support from the people. Among these was operating behind the infrastructure of the Catholic church that was under the Spanish hierarchy. By practicing as Christian converts and becoming part of the laity, Filipinos aided the insurrection unsuspected. Himagsikan (revolution) and Kalayaan (independence) are banners that made use of parts of Catholic ceremonial vestments re-embroidered and re-embellished with symbols of the uprising. They mimic and subvert the pompous display of colonial power. Signifying made-up churches like Iglesia de la Revolution, and Iglesia de la Independencia, the banners are likened to battle flags rallying resistance against Spain. Paul Pfeiffer (b. 1966 in Honolulu, Hawaii, lives and works in New York, USA) Incarnator (2018) Video and installation Courtesy of the artist Supported by Bellas Artes Projects, Philippines Encarnador (Incarnator) is the old Spanish term for the carver of Santos, or devotional images of the Catholic saints that is particularly revered in the former Spanish colony of the Philippines, which also has a pre-colonial and still surviving tradition of sacred wooden figures. Encarnador particularly refers to the craftsperson specializing in the final step of Santo production in which the image is finished with a skin of paint, turning carved wood into human flesh. The video hones in on a particular workshop of wood carvers from the town of Paete, the centuries-old center of Santo production in the Philippines. The repetitive gestures of the carvers at work are explored visually in relation to the surrounding landscape, where the rice-planting season is underway. Timeworn traditions of manual labor are recast as a metaphor for the production and consumption of images in today’s global marketplace. Justin Bieber is treated as a modern day incarnation of the Santo Nino or Infant Jesus, embodying the complex relationship between innocence and complicity, the sacred and profane in the perverse spaces and temporalities of global capitalism. Praneet Soi (b. 1971 in Kolkata, lives and works between Amsterdam and Kolkata) Footpaths: Srinagar 2018 (2018) 9 hand-painted papier-mache tiles, 16 images on paper, looped video, 4 tables, LCD screen Courtesy of the artist Commissioned by the Samdani Art Foundation, Para Site and Muzeum Sztuki Nowoczesnej w Warszawie. The work, resulted from a collaboration between the artist and the workshop of craftsman Fayaz Jan in Srinagar is part of Soi's ongoing process of engagement with craftsmen in the troubled Indian state of Kashmir and of researching the recent political situation there. The 9 interlocking papier-mache tiles are drawn with floral details whose forms are reminiscent of the many cultural influences that have layered in Kashmir over the centuries. The craft of papier mache that Kashmir is renowned for was itself introduced to the region by the Sufifi preacher Saha Hamdani in the 13th century. The tiles are accompanied by research materials, sketches, and drafts produced by the artist within this project, including a study of the tomb of the mother of Ghiyas-ud-Din Zain-ul-Abidin, built in 1430 CE. Its unique architecture points to the many connections and exchanges between South and Central Asia which often crossed through Kashmir. A large optical diagram related to the phenomena of anamorphoses reflects Soi’s intention to personalise the depiction of political uncertainty – a process that is underlined within the video that is part of the installation. Raja Umbu (lives and works in Kampung Uma Bara, Sumba) Skirt with Kadu motif (2010) Textile Raja Umbu, a traditional weaver and member of the royal (raja) family of Uma Bara village on Sumba island in Indonesia weaves an ancestral story of migration to Sumba, a collective foundational myth that continues to be reconstructed on the island amid rapid cultural change. The languages of Sumba, as well as the majority of languages in Indonesia, including Bahasa Indonesia, belong to the Austronesian language family. Her native eastern part of Sumba is known for its unique dyeing and ikat techniques. Rashid Choudhury (b. 1932 in Faridpur, British India; d. in 1986, in Dhaka, Bangladesh) Untitled (1980) Untitled (Allah Hu) (1981) Untitled (year unknown) Tapestry Courtesy of the Samdani Art Foundation Rashid Choudhury began working with tapestries after his return to Bangladesh in 1964 following studies in Paris. The works here were made quite late in his career, after he had established the first single loom tapestry factory in Chittagong. Choudhury referenced folk narratives from Bengal in his works, drawing equally from Hindu, Buddhist, and Islamic sources. Many of his tapestries began as watercolours or paintings, growing into woven forms. While he references Islamic calligraphy in this work, we see none of the geometric abstraction typically associated with it; instead Chaudhury creates a vibrant image that seems to reference ecstatic Sufi and Fakiri forms of devotion. Sarat Mala Chakma (b. 1932 in Rangamati, Bangladesh; lives and works in Bangladesh) Sarat Mala Chakma is a master weaver belonging to the Chakma community who was awarded the Master Craftspersons Lifetime Award in 2016. Presented here is the textile which won her the National Award in 1998, which uses traditional motifs from the repertoire of Chakma textile culture, upon which she innovates to produce this magnificent work. Additionally, other textiles from the Chittagong Hill Tracts are presented, courtesy of Rani Yan Yan. They include the black Pinon-Haadi, which is part of the traditional attire of the Chakma community, woven on a handloom known as bein, and the red and white head band from the Tanchangya community. Traditional textiles from the Chittagong Hill Tracts have many points in common in terms of materials, dyes, techniques, and motifs with textiles produced in a broad contiguous mountain area spreading to Myanmar, India, South-West China, Thailand, Laos, and Vietnam, revealing the many cultural connections that have existed before and in parallel to the modern nation-states. Sawangwongse Yawnghwe (b. 1971 in Shan State, lives and works between Berlin, Germany; Amsterdam, Netherlands; and Chiang Mai, Thailand) Rohingya Boat Portrait (2015) Oil on paper Courtesy the artist Supported by Canada Art Council There Were Light Bulbs So We Could See Them (2012) Oil on paper Courtesy of the artist They Were Buried In The Mud Anther The Bridge (2012) Oil on paper Courtesy the artist He Was Also Shot In The Head (2012) Oil on paper Courtesy the artist Untitled (2015) Oil on silk Courtesy the artist Supported by Canada Art Council The artist, descendent of a prominent family leading the struggle for the rights of the Shan people in Eastern Myanmar, is committed to expose the hidden and repressed histories of violence and oppression in his country. He critiques dominant Bamar-centric artistic and historical narratives by presenting a personal, counter-historiography, often in solidarity with other oppressed or excluded communities in Myanmar. The works in this exhibition include portraits of Rohingya as well as a mass grave of bodies, based on eye-witness accounts of Rohingya refugees. The works resonate with the poem "The Earth Is Closing on Us", by Mahmoud Darwish: The earth is closing on us, pushing us through the last passage, and we tear off our limbs to pass through. The earth is squeezing us. I wish we were its wheat so we could die and live again. I wish the earth was our mother So she’d be kind to us. I wish we were pictures on the rocks for our dreams to carry as mirrors. We saw the faces of those to be killed by the last of us in the last defense of the soul. We cried over their children’s feast. We saw the faces of those who’ll throw our children Out of the windows of the last space. Our star will hang up in mirrors. Where should we go after the last frontiers? Where should the birds fly after the last sky? Where should the plants sleep after the last breath of air? We will write our names with scarlet steam. We will cut off the head of the song to be finished by our flesh. We will die here, here in the last passage. Here and here our blood will plant its olive tree. Sheela Gowda (b. 1957 in Bhadravati, Karnataka, lives and works in Bangalore, India) Of Becoming (2018) Installation Courtesy of the artist Commissioned by the Samdani Art Foundation, Para Site and Muzeum Sztuki Nowoczesnej w Warszawie. The newly created work inscribes in the artist’s long standing explorations into the field of materiality and space, offering nuanced and vibrant means of understanding the world. She is interested in the power that objects and forms carry in capturing aspects of reality, with its social and cultural narratives, that are otherwise unseen by and unspeakable through other languages of representation and analysis. Materials for Gowda can be at the same time complex metaphors and ends in themselves, forgetful of their many cultural and spiritual investments attributed by human practice, but charged with a potential spiritual tension of their own. Her vocabulary is constantly discovered and invented in the things that surround her and that she respells into her works, like the gamcha, the ubiquitous towel cloth in Bangladesh and throughout South Asia, which form the basis of this work. Sheelasha Rajbhandari (b. 1988 in Kathmandu, lives and works in Kathmandu, Nepal) My Great-Great-Grandmother’s Shawl (2017) Photographs, recreated hand-printed muslin ‘Damber Kumari’ shawl, counterfeit and original clothing tags The artist traces socio-political changes in her native Nepal through changes in cultures of clothing in her family. She references her maternal great- great- grandmother’s traditional Damber Kumari shawl, which contained pieces of fabric from Nepal and Varanasi, and imitated textiles from Dhaka. Adding to these layered histories, she embroiders real and counterfeited brand tags from cheap mass-produced clothes from India and China, juxtaposing these with images of her grandmother wearing the shawl. Rajbhandari raises questions of authenticity and copying that go into the production of culturally significant items, producing an artifact for the contemporary moment, where diverse textile cultures are being flattened out by mass-production. Simon Soon (b.1985; lives and works in Kuala Lumpur) King Kalakaua's Hawaiian Travels (2018) Wood Courtesy of the artist In collaboration with RJ Camacho, Antonia Aguilar, Lauro Penamante, Arnold Flores, Joseph de Ramos Supported by Bellas Artes Projects, Philippines Melayu Pono’i In 1881, the last King of Hawai’i, Kalakaua, embarked on a round the world trip to encourage the importation of contract labor for plantations and brought the small island nation to the attention of world leaders. King Kalakaua was also fired by the concept of the Malay race and its political future, or in the words of the U.S. Consul 'inflamed by the idea of gathering all the cognate races of the Islands of the Pacific into a great Polynesian Confederacy’. This series of four carved panels capture four incidents across the Asia Pacific rim.They recount episodes of diplomatic exchanges premised on political recognition and imagined kinship loosely based on William Armstrong's Around the World with a King (1904). These episodes follow the travel of King Kalakaua to San Francisco, Japan, Siam and Johore. The creation of the reliefs was also a relay of sorts, from idea to conception. The idea was a long standing interest of writer Simon Soon, who provided research details and mood boards. These materials were then passed on to illustrator RJ Camacho, who decided to base his design on Filipino modernist painter Carlos ‘Botong’ Francisco’s theatrical tableaux that elevates the folkinto national consciousness. Finally, the carving is executed by Ka Celing, a master woodcarver from Paeta, Laguna. Besides being adept at carving religious statuary, Paeta craftsmen had also produced one of the most iconic diorama of Filipino history at the Ayala Museum. By collaborating with a Filipino illustrator and craftsman, the relief panels take poetic license in connecting the political ambition of King Kalakaua to the fifirst political uprising in Asia, the Philippine revolution.In this instance the stylistic reference to both an art and craft history connected to nation-building is deliberate. One might speculate if Filipino novelist and patriot Jose Rizal’s imagined community of Malay races owes part of its imagination to King Kalakaua’s desire to establish Pan-Polynerian confederacy? Panel 1 During his time in San Francisco, King Kalakaua was feted to a lavish Chinese banquet in Hang Fen Lou restaurant,San Francisco. The banquet was hosted by the Consul-General of China in recognition of Kalakaua's kind treatment of Chinese workers in Hawai'i. Panel 2 While in Japan, Kalakaua visited a Shinto temple of Shiba. In a moment of tranquility, he drew the Japanese Emperor aside and suggested, ‘Not only are Japanese Emperors descended from the Sun Goddess, so are the Hawai'ian kings.’ Panel 3 When it was time to depart Siam, King Kalakaua and his party were driven to the landing. They were then seated in the royal barge, with the stately movements of its twenty-four oars, that carried them to a steamer called ‘Bangkok’. Kneeling Buddhist monks were invited yo give a blessing to the ship and all aboard her as the ship set sail for Singapore. Panel 4 In Johore, the setting is a reception hall of the Istana. The valet of King Kalakaua is made to wear the ceremonial feathered cloak. The Sultan of Johore and the King of Hawai’i greeted each other warmly. For they recognised each other as 'long lost brothers'. To commemorate the renewal of kinship, King Kalakaua received a green and gold Koran. Simryn Gill (b. 1959 in Singapore, lives and works between, Sydney, Australia and Port Dickson, Malaysia) Pressing In (2016) Relief prints on butterflfly paper Courtesy of the artist and Jhaveri Contemporary Pressing In (2016) Relief prints on ledger paper Courtesy of the artist and Jhaveri Contemporary Pressing In (2016) Relief prints on ledger paper Courtesy of the artist and Jhaveri Contemporary Sweet Chariot (2015) Silver Gelatin Print Courtesy of the artist and Jhaveri Contemporary The artist creates a series of prints using collected lumber washed up from the sea at Port Dickson, Malaysia. Weathered and degraded by exposure to the sea and the sun, they bear traces of their origins, as parts of oars, or ships, and of their journey, becoming part of the ecosystem of the waves, encrusted with organisms and microbes that eat away at it. Gill presses these pieces of found wood onto a collection of papers, including wage records, star charts, accounting ledgers and reference books sourced in junk shops, markets, and online. In doing so, she entangles the drift of these pieces of wood which trace the rise and fall of markets, human and celestial movements to create images of histories adrift. Su Yu-Hsien (b. 1982 in Tainan, lives and works in Tainan, Taiwan) Hua-Shan-Qiang (2013) Colour video with sound; Giclee prints Courtesy of the artist and TKG+ In collaboration with Rajiuddin Choudhury (b. 1963 in Dinajpur, lives and works in Dinajpur) Beast (2018) Paper mask Courtesy of the artist Taloi Havini (b. 1981 in Arawa, Autonomous Region of Bougainville, lives and works in Sydney) Kapkaps (Pendants) from the Mysterious Isles of Melanesia (2015) Porcelain, copper and gold lustre Courtesy of the artist and Andrew Baker Art Dealer The artist references in this work histories of colonialism, and the use of museological display within it. Consisting of four kapkaps, hand-carved, shallow relief porcelain disks, with gold lustre and copper glazes, it mimics the customary clamshell and tortoise shell inlay. Kapkaps were articles of signifificant cultural and sacred value in the Hakö practices of Bougainville island in which Havini was raised in, and were obtained by force or by trade across the Moananui by colonists, and locked away in glass cabinets such as the one seen here in museums in Europe. She challenges the inaccessibility of these spaces and objects to the very people they were wrested from and honors the generations of ecological and cultural trauma whose trace they now bear. Than Sok (b. 1984 in Takeo, Cambodia; lives and works in Phnom Penh) Srie Bun (2016) Installation of five clerical garments (cotton, chemical dye), five garment hooks Courtesy of the artist and MAIIAM Contemporary Art Museum Five Buddhist clerical garments hang on the wall at the same height. The different colors belong to two sects within Cambodia’s Theravada Buddhist system and signify ranks within each sect: three orange colors of Maha Nikaya and darker maroon and ochre colors of Thammayut. The Buddhist monk, wearing robes, is believed to delineate a merit field comparable to the fertile rice field, where seeds are sown for reaping. The word veal srie in the Khmer language means rice field, and bun refers to merit making, which the artist notes is increasingly synonymous with monetary and this-world offerings. The robe’s rectilinear form and seams imitate those of the rice field: paddies framed by dikes. In Srie Bun, the artist has carefully cut away measured fields of fabric, revealing deliberate holes. His gesture questions the robe’s symbolic power atop mortal male bodies, and if peace can be advanced when hierarchical notions of sect and rank remain at the moral core of society. Thao-Nguyen Phan (born 1987 in Ho Chih Minh City; lives and works in Ho Chih Minh City) Man Looking Towards Darkness (2014) Curtain made from Indigo dyed jute fabric, silk, hand embroidery, framed Courtesy of the artist The work engages with the history of jute cultivation and manufacture in Vietnam. During the Japanese occupation of Vietnam from 1940-1945, the Dai Nam jute factory was built and industrial plantation campaigns to “uproot rice, grow jute” were implemented, resulting in the horrific famine of 1945 that killed 2 million Vietnamese. The artist presents an indigo dyeing jute curtain woven by Tay women using traditional methods. Next to it lies a photograph of three stones under an ancient banyan tree, which were used to detach jute fiber for factory use. Today, these stones lie undisturbed under the tree, carrying within them the painful material histories of occupation and forced labour. Untitled (Heads) (2013) Dried shredded jute (hemp) fifiber and jute stalks, bronze, thread Courtesy of the artist The work locates the jute plant as both the cause and witness of a tragic event, when Vietnamese farmers were forced to grow jute instead of rice during the Japanese occupation of then French Indochina from 1940-1945, which lead to large scale famine and the death of 2 million Vietnamese. The form of the sculpture is inspired by the Ma Mot tree, a totemic tree constructed by Tai minorities in Northern Vietnam for religious purposes where objects such as animal bones and amulets are hung, representing a dead or evil spirit. The artist reincarnates the jute plant as a Ma Mot tree, hanging on its drooping branches portraits of farmers whom she interviewed during the course of her research, in an attempt to create a ritual yet individualized space of healing from painful histories. Voyages de Rhodes N No. 1, No. 36, No. 38, No. 103 and No. 116 (2014-17) Watercolour on found book Courtesy of the Samdani Art Foundation Voyages de Rhodes No. 9, No. 30, No. 34, No. 35, No. 40, No. 42 , No. 76, No. 124 (2014-17) Watercolour on found book Courtesy of the artist and the Factory Contemporary Arts Centre, Saigon Thảo Nguyên Phan poetically traces the origin and adoption of the Vietnamese Romanized script called chu quoc ngu through the work of the French Jesuit missionary, Alexandre de Rhodes who wrote the first trilingual Vietnamese-Portuguese-Latin dictionary, the Dictionarium Annamiticum Lusitanum et Latinum in 1651. Phan uses Rhodes’ travelogue Rhodes of Vietnam: The Travels and Missions of Father Alexandre de Rhodes in China and Other Kingdoms of the Orient (originally published in 1966) as the canvas for her watercolours. Drawing occasionally from episodes in the story, Phan uses the surface of the text to speculate on cultural hybridities, which bears traces of layers of violence and subjugation. The imposition of a writing system affects cultural violence, rendering knowledge inaccessible to many: having nowhere to go, stories burst out of limbs like trees. Trevor Yeung (b. 1988 in Guangdong Province, China, lives and works in Hong Kong) Acanthus Medallion (Bangladesh) (2018) Plaster, Pigment, Metal, Cotton, Porcelain Courtesy of the artist White Tower (Ceiling Medallion) (2018) Plaster Ceiling Medallion, Wood, Cotton Fabric, Silicone, Epoxy, Work Table Courtesy of the artist Commissioned by the Samdani Art Foundation, Para Site and Muzeum Sztuki Nowoczesnej w Warszawie The works are part of an ongoing research on acanthus, a relatively obscure plant in its living form that is nevertheless the source of one of the most prominent motifs used in art and architecture throughout different geographies and eras, including the Greco-Roman, Classical Islamic, Greco- Buddhist, and Mughal worlds, as well as in contemporary vernacular decorations across the globe. The plant is not native to South Asia, but the ornament referring to its leaf entered the region in several distinct waves. The Victorian era style plaster used, among others, in ceiling medallions, is still commonly used - often adapted and combined with other aesthetic references - in interior decorations in Bangladesh, in a complicated relationship with its colonial past. The work references these hybrid medallions, and adds a white porcelain cast of an actual acanthus leaf on the decorative leaves which carry in their shapes the many historical and cultural layers of interpreting this motif. Supported by the Hong Kong Arts Development Council. Hong Kong Arts Development Council fully supports freedom of artistic expression. The views and opinions expressed in this project do not represent the stand of the Council. Truong Cong Tung (b.1986,Dak Lak, Vietnam; lives and works in Ho Chih Minh City, Vietnam) Blind Map (2013) Canvas, eaten by termites Courtesy of the artist and the Factory Contemporary Arts Centre, Saigon Truong Cong Tung engages with the traditional spiritual practices of Vietnam, some of which are also influenced by Buddhism, to investigate modes of being with non-humans, including plants, insects, and spirits, which emerge within these traditions. In Blind Map, he invites a colony of Termites occupy a length of canvas, and present to us the traces of their vigorous activity. Through this process, a transfiguration takes place where the artist becomes termite, and the termite becomes a painter, creating a space of indistinction of identity across species. Tuguldur Yondonjamts (b. 1977 in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, lives and works between Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia and New York, USA) Smuggled landscape #09 , #10 and #13 (2015) Charcoal on paper Courtesy of the artist Antipode Suit #4 (2017) Textile Courtesy of the artist and Richard Taittinger Gallery Inspired by his training in Buddhist thangka painting, the drawings embody the Buddhist idea of maya—or modes of shifting perspectives. The painstakingly drawn territory is created using a technique of shading that forms illusions of snow-covered mountains and deep valleys. On closer inspection, they reveal semblances of many images at once, faces of monsters, animals or possible mythological figures and, above all, immense, uninhabitable, and seemingly dangerous frozen expanses. These abstractions illustrate the Mongolian struggle after the end of communism in 1990, retrieving repressed shamanistic practices and mythological history. In addition, fossils and mummies found embedded in the Mongolian permafrost have reignited links to the vast steppes of Eurasia and older histories of migratory and temporary dominance over their trade routes. More recently, the unlikely discovery by scientists of the remains of an alligator in the frozen Altai Mountains bordering Mongolia have greatly impacted the artist’s imagination. Yajnopaveeta Thread The yajnopaveeta or janeu is a white thread worn exclusively by the Brahmin caste in Hinduism, always from the left shoulder to waist. It is a sacred object conferred through specific ceremonies and it has become the recognisable marker of the upper caste in traditional Hindu society. Cast remains a leading factor in the stratification of society in India and cast related violence has increased in recent years. Zamthingla Ruivah (b. 1966 in Manipur, lives and works in Imphal, Manipur) Luingamla Kashan (1990 - ongoing) Textile Courtesy of the artist Mazui Kashan Textile Courtesy of the artist Phor-Re Textile Courtesy of the artist Zamthingla Ruivah created the Luingamla Kashan in memory of Ms. Luingamla of Ngainga village who was shot dead while resisting rape by two officers of the Indian army on 24 January 1986. Using motifs from the weaving traditions of the Tangkhul, she wove a kashan (a traditional garment) that pays tribute to Luingamla, and the spirit of a community ravaged by state violence. Nagaland has been under the Armed Forces Special Powers Act since 1958, when Naga separatist groups attempted to secede from India; since then it has been abused by security personnel to shield themselves from prosecution for crimes committed against the populace. Today, many members of the Tangkhul community wear the Luingamla Kashan as a symbol of solidarity.

ALL PROJECTS Khoj International Workshop 2017 Goa, India Dhaka Art Summit 2016 featured artist Marzia Farhana was selected to be part of the two-month long Khoj International Workshop in 2017, held in Goa, India and supported by the Samdani Art Foundation.

ALL PROJECTS Breathe In Breathe Out: Susan Philipsz Pathshala South Asian Media Institute & Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy, 10 - 11 April 2017 As part of the Samdani Seminars 2017, Susan Philipsz conducted an open seminar for everyone to learn about her practice using sound and architecture at the Pathshala South Asian Media Institute. She then ran a half-day closed-door workshop along with her partner Eoghan James Mctigue at the Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy. The project was a collaboration between the Samdani Art Foundation and Goethe Institut, Dhaka. Through the seminar and workshop, Susan Philipsz explored acoustic properties of sounds and the relationship between sound and architecture. The workshop concentrated on sounds we make with our own bodies with a particular focus on breath as a metaphor for life and mortality. Breathing is a fundamental part of living, and it is something that unites us all. In classical music, wind instruments require the human breath to activate them. Philipsz wanted to develop a workshop where we use everyday objects to produce sound with our own breath. The workshop was conducted in two parts: PART I: BREATHE IN: INTERNAL SPACE, INTIMATE, CLOSENESS, DARK, QUIET, SOFT, LUNGS, THE BODY. During the workshop, the participants began by focusing on their own breath: how their diaphragm shifts as they expel air from the lungs, making each aware of his/her inner body space. The physicality of producing sound is particularly emphasised when people sing, and Philipsz chose to focus on sound as a sculptural experience. When sound is projected out into the room, the participants defined the space with sound, drawing attention to the architecture while heightening their sense of self within the space. PART II: BREATHE OUT: EXTERNAL SPACE, PUBLIC, OPEN, LIGHT, ARCHITECTURE, DISTANCE, IMMENSITY. The participants explored potential locations in their near-by surroundings with temporary play-back devices. They chose sites that have interesting architecture and acoustics such as corridors and stairwells. Everyone discussed each other's work in-situ and developed the workshop as a group. PARTNERS: Samdani Art FoundationGoethe Institut, Dhaka VENUE PARTNERS: Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy Pathshala South Asian Media Institute SUSAN PHILIPSZ Susan Philipsz has explored the psychological and sculptural potential of sound. She uses recordings, predominantly with her own voice. Creating immersive environments of architecture and song that intensify the audience’s interaction with their surroundings while allowing for insightful introspection. Philipsz often selects music ranging from sixteenth century ballads or Irish folk tunes to David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust . The music is selected and responds to the space where the work is installed. While the works remain unique, all explores familiar themes of loss, longing, hope, and return. This creates a narrative that encourages personal reactions and also bridges gaps between the individual and the collective as well as interior and exterior spaces. Philipsz was born in 1965 in Glasgow and currently lives and works in Berlin. She received a BFA in Sculpture from Duncan of Jordanstone College in Dundee, Scotland in 1993, and an MFA from the University of Ulster in Belfast in 1994. In 2000, she completed a fellowship at MoMA P.S.1. in New York. She was the recipient of the 2010 Turner Prize and was shortlisted for the Glenfiddich Spirit of Scotland Award the same year. Philipsz's work has been exhibited globally at a number of institutions and venues. In 2012, she debuted a major work at dOCUMENTA (13) entitled Study for Strings , which was later featured at the Museum for Modern Art as a part of the group exhibition, Soundings: A Contemporary Score (2013). Philipsz has presented a number of solo exhibitions at institutions to include Museum Ludwig (2009), Cologne, Germany; Wexner Center for the Arts at Ohio State (2009-10) Columbus, OH; Aspen Art Museum (2010-11) in Aspen, Colorado; Museum of Contemporary Art (2011), Chicago; K21 Standehaus Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen (2013), Dusseldorf, Germany; the Carnegie Museum of Art (2013), Pittsburgh; and Hamburger Bahnhof (2014), Berlin. She has separately created installations for the 2007 Skulptur Projekte in Muenster, Germany and for the Carnegie Museum of Art’s 55th Carnegie International in 2008. Major commissions include Turner Prize-winning work for Glasgow International (2010); SURROUND ME: A Song Cycle for the City of London a public project organised by Artangel (2010-11) London; Day is Done , a permanent installation organised by the Trust for Governors Island that opened on Governors Island in New York (2014), and a project for the Grace Farms Foundation (2015) in New Canaan. Philipsz’s work can be found in the collections of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; The Tate, London; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid; Baltimore Museum of Art; Museum Ludwig, Cologne, Germany; Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh; Castello di Rivoli, Italy; and the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis.

ALL PROJECTS Illustrated Lectures | Imagery, Ideas, Personae, And Sites Across South Asia Curated by Beth Citron And Diana Campbell Betancourt Artists Lucy Raven, The Otolith Group (Anjalika Sagar and Kodwo Eshun), Matti Braun, and Amie Siegel presented illustrated lectures concerning the contemporary circulation of traditional and modernist imagery, ideas, personae, and sites across South Asia. Specifically, and respectively, these included sculptural reliefs at Ellora, Rabindranath Tagore’s art school at Santiniketan, the vision of physicist Vikram Sarabhai, and the global circulation of modernist furniture from Le Corbusier’s Chandigarh. Building on their individual presentations, the artists gathered with curators Beth Citron and Diana Campbell Betancourt in the Education Pavilion on February 4th for a critical discussion of the form of the ‘illustrated lecture’ or ‘lecture performance.’ As an artistic discipline that has often seemed to blur boundaries among art, research, and discourse, the workshop examined different approaches to the lecture performance, as well as the limits of this form and the language used to circumscribe it. Taking historical examples of lecture performances by Chris Burden, Yvonne Rainer, Robert Morris, and Joseph Beuys into consideration, one question this workshop hoped to answer was how the ‘lecture performance’ differs from other types of live works and talks delivered by artists today. This form has been defined rather loosely globally, and comparatively been less studied and practiced in South Asia. This programme sought to address both the global, and local implications of this form. THE OTOLITH GROUP NOTES TOWARDS A FILM ON SANTINIKETAN “Trees are the earth’s endless effort to speak to the listening cosmos.”Rabindranath Tagore, Fireflies, 1928 Since 2012, The Otolith Group have been developing a work that engages with what Gayatri Spivak calls the ‘aesthetic education’ of Visva Bharati University, Shantineketan. This lecture performance presented scenes from the aesthetic sociality engendered in, and by, Kala Bhavana at Visva Bharati. The Otolith Group’s encounters with the pedagogy of ‘tree schooling’ developed by Tagore at Visva Bharati opens onto an engagement with improvisational practices of desegregation and dealienation. The encounters with these practices subtend the ongoing implications of Tagore’s aesthetico-political ecology of nature into a rethinking of the shape of learning in the future of the present. Such a rethinking feeds into an improvisation in and with cinema. What emerges from these experiments with aesthetic education are a series of scenes from a Neo-Tagorean cinema. A cinema conceived as a practice of image making that is shaped by the multiple frames and links of network realism and the geography of the hyperlocal. MATTI BRAUN VIKRAM SARABHAI This illustrated lecture took its point of departure from the biography of Vikram Sarabhai (1919-1971), father of the Indian space programme. It showed how his work intersected major cultural developments in 20th century India and revealed interactions with international modernist figures including Le Corbusier, John Cage, and Henri Cartier-Bresson as they engaged with him and members of his influential family of patrons in their home city of Ahmedabad.This lecture was supported by the Goethe-Institut. AMIE SIEGEL BACKSTORY An associative talk on the speculative, imitative and extractive actions within design, art and auctions in connection to India— on Chandigarh and Le Corbusier, on Pierre Jeanneret, John Pawson and Donald Judd, on modernism, minimalism and marketing—how these iconographies, and the behaviours of design and art markets, both mask and disclose the flow of capital. This talk accompanied the artist’s film presentation in the exhibition Planetary Planning. LUCY RAVEN LOW RELIEF Low Relief connected research into bas-relief sculpture in both India and the United States to the illusion of depth created in stereoscopic 3D lms, and the globally-connected, labour-intensive processes of post-production involved.

ALL PROJECTS Stepping Softly on the Earth Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art Gidree Bawlee and Kamruzzaman Shadhin’s collaborative project ‘Kaal’ explored how we perceive time, our place within its tapestry, and how these rhythms manifest in our narratives and practices. Informed by rituals, beliefs, and mythologies that persist across generations, the community-engaged project ‘Kaal’ is a study of our surroundings where past and present intertwine, and a dialogue between our shared history and the unfolding present. It’s a journey through time’s knotted and unraveled threads, seeking the enduring connections that bind us all. The first iteration of ‘Kaal’ is ‘Pala,’ showcasing at the Stepping Softly on the Earth exhibition curated by Irene Aristizábal and Kinnari Saraiya. Pala seven intricately woven jute figures echoing the ‘Bishahari Pala’ performance, which blurs the lines between human and non-human realities. Woven by the village community in a collaborative spirit, the work captures the collective essence of participation and shared narratives. This exhibition is supported by Pro Helvetia, Jhaveri Contemporary, and Samdani Art Foundation. Stepping Softly on the Earth evolved from Baltic’s Research and Development project Cosmovisions on Land and Entangled Futures . With additional support from the British Council through an International Collaboration Project Grant towards the research and development project titled Cosmovisions on Land and Entangled Futures.