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

ALL PROJECTS The Fibrous Souls December 2021- April 2022, Queensland Art Gallery, 10th Asia-Pacific Triennale in Brisbane, Australia Kamruzzaman Shadhin's work 'The Fibrous Souls' commissioned and produced for DAS 2020, was acquired by Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art and was part of the 10th Asia-Pacific Triennale in Brisbane, Australia. Image credit: QAGOMA

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

ALL PROJECTS 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 Kather Nripati at Diriyah Contemporary Art Biennale 20 Feb- 24 May 2024 Dhali Al Mamoon showcased his work 'Kather Nripati' (Wooden Lord) at the second edition of Diriyah Contemporary Art Biennale titled After Rain. The logistics of Dhali Al Mamon’s presentation was supported by the Samdani Art Foundation. Dhali Al Mamoon is an artist whose work engages with the persistence of colonialism as a historical trauma. Al Mamoon's series of kinetic sculptures comprising Kather Nripati (Wooden Lord) derive from traditional palm-leaf puppets that made fun of the flailing movements of the sepoys, the Indian soldiers hired by the British East India Company. Originating around the time of the Sepoy Mutiny (1857-59), the dolls were a subtle form of resistance that temporarily subverted the usual hierarchical order. Life-sized, wooden versions of the toy mounted on plinths rotate periodically. Their arms and legs clatter and flare in all directions, giving them a comical but menacing presence.

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

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

ALL PROJECTS 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.

Visit Dhaka Samdani Art Foundation Level 5, Suites 501 & 502 Shanta Western Tower, 186 Gulshan- Tejgaon Link Road Tejgaon I/A, Dhaka- 1208 Visit Samdani Art Foundation Applying for a VISA The Bangladeshi Government provides a visa-on-arrival (VOA) service for citizens of the following countries: United States of America, Canada, New Zealand, Russian Federation, China (excluding Hong Kong passports), Japan, Singapore, South Korea, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia (KSA), Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Malaysia, and all European countries If applying for a VOA, you will need to provide a photocopy of your passport, two passport-size photographs, a printed copy of your hotel reservation (including a full address and contact number), a copy of your return flight ticket, and a completed arrival card and visa application: copies can be obtained on arrival at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport. The VOA fee is approximately $52 USD (other currencies are accepted) and must be paid in cash (debit and credit cards are NOT accepted). If you need to apply for a visa before you fly, please contact the nearest Bangladesh High Commission/Embassy. For more info, visit the Bangladesh Ministry of Foreign Affairs . Our VIP team is there to assist you with visa letters or any queries. Please contact our VIP team here: vip@dhakaartsummit.org The Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport is served by numerous international and domestic airlines. Flight options from most international destinations are easily searchable through popular travel sites and travel search engines. Getting to Dhaka 01 Samdani Art Foundation is based in the Gulshan-Tejgaon link road, closer to the industrial and commercial are of Dhaka. Dhaka Art Summit, produced by the Samdani Art Foundation take place at the Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy, in Segun Bagicha, Dhaka. Suitable hotels can be found through popular travel sites and hotel search engines. Due to the heavy traffic situation in Dhaka, we recommend international visitors to stay closer to the venue during the Dhaka Art Summit. For hotel options, download the recommended list Accommodation 02 The best way to move around on the streets of Dhaka is in a car. The best way to arrange a rental car is through your hotel concierge. In case, you decide to go and book a rental car by yourself here is what we recommend the followings: App-based ride share: Uber Pathao For pre-booking visit: RentalCarBD Sheba.xyz Bdcabs.com Getting around in Dhaka 03 The official currency in Bangladesh is the Taka: known as Bangladeshi Taka or BDT. The Taka is a restricted currency and you will only be able to obtain cash currency on your arrival in Bangladesh. Taking money out at an ATM is the quickest and easiest means of currency exchange, but don’t forget to tell your bank that you are travelling before you leave. There are also several money exchange available at the airport If you require further assistance, please email info@dhakaartsummit.org For press enquiries, please email press@dhakaartsummit.org or visit our press page Currency Exchange 04

Contact Us Don't hesitate to reach out to us. Use the form below to say hello, ask questions, or share your thoughts. First name Last name Email* Phone Message* Submit Location Tel: +8802 8878784-7 Fax: +8802 887 8204 info@samdani.com.bd Level 5, Suite 501 & 502, Shanta Western Tower, 186 Gulshan – Tejgaon Link Road, Tejgaon I/A, Dhaka-1208, Bangladesh. SAF Office 01 sazzad@samdani.com.bd +8801777763430 Sazzad Hossain Head of Administration Press Contact 02

ALL PROJECTS Bearing Point 3 - An Amphibious Sun Curated by Diana Campbell Bearing Point 3 - An Amphibious Sun The Bay of Bengal once supported an amphibious life. Water was not a force to keep at bay, but an entity to live with, and through. In Ursula Biemann’s film Deep Weather , mud connects the ends of the Earth: Alberta, Canada and the Sundarbans Delta of Bangladesh that has soaked in the sea of the Bay of Bengal for centuries. Mud complicates the relationship to liquid, which is no longer delineated, discrete. The attempt to extract oil from the muddy sands of Alberta by multinational corporations leads to displacement: of indigenous people in the Athabasca basin in Canada, and of local populations in southern Bangladesh who have been transformed into climate refugees as a result of the resulting effects of global warming. Only lines of sacks filled with mud stand between these people, and the sea that swells with rising global temperatures, as global capitalism churns the insides of the earth to burn the remains of long-dead life forms. Rotating around the same sun, Canada and Bangladesh, as well as everywhere else on the globe, are linked by the oceans and atmospheres connecting them; a catastrophe on one hemisphere inevitably impacts the other. With colonialism came the attempted erasure of muddiness as condition – amorphous zones became hardened into coastlines; lines were even drawn in the muddy space between the human and the non-human. The time of stones, of tides, of swamp, of earth, became subsumed to the relentless measure of the clock. Omer Wasim and Saira Sheikh’s drawings and text in The Impossibility of Loving a Stone (2017) reconstitutes the human in geological time, where the present stretches back two million years – they soil the skin between the Earth and us, slowly moving us like shifting mud through the present. Ho Tzu Nyen restages the first recorded colonial encounter between a white man and a Malayan tiger in Singapore which occurred in 1835, harnessing CGI technology to bring the story into the 21st century. He transforms the historical tiger attack into a metaphor for resistance against colonial exploitation of past and present; the 19th century colonial surveyor morphs into today’s corporations that are exploiting nearly the same forests. The human, animal, spirit, and machine become entangled in the suspended moments of this haunting essay film. Moving further away from the generation of knowledge as mere data, Neha Choksi turns her attention to the sun, both as planetary sustenance and a point of reference for dialogue across generations and within the self through multiple modes of narration. The artist’s obsession with the sun is related to her long-standing interests in absence, loss, memory and nature. Choksi invited ten Bangladeshi children to embody a fictive dream of a child obsessively drawing suns, and to consider the multiplicity of the sun as a powerful magic orb and a cursed ball of fire, both energising and overheating life on earth. They considered the sun’s power from their point of view as children, but also from the vantage point of other human and non-human entities. They imagine how the sun might consider us within its dominion of power as it shines down on our planet. Each day of the Dhaka Art Summit 2018, Choksi invited a different adult professional to interact with the now-embodied dream child through the lens of their skill sets as an archaeologist or a meteorologist, among others. The psychological process of animating nature drawing the visitor back to their primal yearning to reconnect with the cosmos across species and generations as they morph from atoms into beings and back. Artists Ho Tzu Nyen (b. 1976 in Singapore, lives and works in Singapore) 2 or 3 Tigers, 2015 2 Channel CGI Video, 10-channel sound courtesy of the artist and Edouard Malingue Gallery Technology supported by Sharjah Art Foundation. Presented here with additional support from the National Art Council Singapore and Edouard Malingue Gallery, Hong Kong/Shanghai Taking inspiration from 19th Century wood engraving, Ho Tzu Nyen restages the first recorded colonial encounter between a white man and a Malayan tiger in Singapore which occurred in 1835, harnessing CGI technology to bring the story into the 21st Century. The wood engraving chronicles the story of George Dromgoole Coleman, the then Government Superintendent of Public Works in Singapore who was surprised by a tiger who was determined to attack not Coleman and his entourage of convict laborers, but rather the theodolite (surveying instrument) they were using to conduct a survey on the unexplored forests of Singapore. Post-colonial historians have noted that the imperial methods of data collection, through census reports, and land surveys, were directed at the control of the lands and bodies of subjugated populations. The creation of these data sets belied the complex inter-relationship between human and non-human inhabitants of a place. Village folklore from South and Southeast Asia describes a symbiotic relationship between humans and tigers, where tigers assume roles of ancestors, gods, protectors, and even estranged brothers of man. The powerful figure of the were-tiger, or a person who can become tigers, and a tiger who can become a person and live in the village, points to the strong bond between man and animal. Contemporary versions of these tales often use the trope of the colonial census taker who asks about the number of tigers in a particular area. In myths such as that of Haru’r Pishima (Haru’s grand-aunt) in the Sunderbans and of Tsaricho in Nagaland, the villagers respond “sometimes 5, and sometimes 6”, alluding to the presence of the were-tiger in their midst, to the bafflement of the census taker. Producing confusion through untranslatable knowledge becomes a weapon of resistance against colonial control. Introducing the were-tiger into Coleman’s story, Ho Tzu Nyen transforms the historical tiger attack into a metaphor for resistance against colonial exploitation of past and present; the Coleman of the 19th Century morphs into today’s corporations exploiting nearly the same forests. The human, animal, spirit, and machine become entangled in the suspended moments of this essay film. Ghosts and spirits can often move easily across lines drawn by man, and by transfiguring the agent of colonialism (Coleman), the tiger collapses the gap it attempts to create between man and nature. Neha Choksi (b. 1973 in New Jersey, lives and works in Mumbai and Los Angeles) Every Kind of Sun, 2017-2018 Installation activated with daily live performance involving 10 children and 10 adults Interaction from 1-2pm on February 2, 6:30-7:30pm daily Commissioned and Produced by Samdani Art Foundation for DAS 2018 Courtesy of the artist, Samdani Art Foundation, and Project 88 Neha Choksi’s obsession with the sun is related to her long-standing interests in absence, loss, memory and nature. Her latest salutation to the sun, Every Kind of Sun (2017-2018) debuts as a Solo Project, bringing to life her emotional piece of short fiction, which starts: Now and then…I have a repeating dream of me as a child coming home from school and sitting down to draw. And I draw suns. I use every crayon in the box. I draw every type of sun…A rainbow sun, a hollow sun, a scared sun, a new sun, a neat sun, a dirty sun, a magic sun, a spinning sun, a poem sun, a danger sun, a boss sun, an open sun, a tired sun, a breathing sun, a clapping sun, a mirror sun, a funny sun, a sour sun. Choksi invites ten Bangladeshi children to embody these dreams, drawing suns daily in the exhibition space, considering the multiplicity of the sun as a powerful magic orb and a cursed ball of fire, both energising and overheating life on earth. They consider the sun’s power from their point of view as children, but also from the vantage point of other human and non-human entities (such as a rock, the wind, or even a lizard). They also imagine how the sun might consider us within its dominion of power as it shines down on our planet. Venturing deeper into the fictive dream that inspires this work, the mother worries about the obsessive nature of her child’s drawings, and consults an ayurvedic doctor to interpret the meaning of these stacks of suns. Choksi invites a different adult professional each day to interact with the now-embodied dream child through the lens of their skill sets as an archaeologist or a meteorologist, among others. The psychological process of animating nature draws us back to our primal yearning to reconnect with the cosmos across species and generations as we morph from atoms into beings and back. Omer Wasim (b. 1988 in Karachi lives and works in Karachi ) & Saira Sheikh (b. 1975 in Karachi, d. 2017 in Karachi) The Impossibility of Loving a Stone 2017 Drawings on paper Courtesy of the artists This work situates the makers amidst the changing peripheries of the ocean. Once porous, continuous, the coastline—carved over millions of years by the love of water for land and stone—is ravaged, pushed out, to make room for concrete. The mother—sea and adjoining land—and/or bearer is continuously mined for animate and inanimate beings. Hence, The Impossibility of Loving a Stone is indeed, or signals, the impossibility of loving the land, water, and other beings, hinting at colonial and neocolonial modes of knowledge construction and production, value, consumption, and bio-power. The desire to decipher, to fully understand, to grapple with the physicality of the stone is also informed by the need to get closer to the father—a geologist, a displaced body. His didactic words directed at deconstructing the physicality of the stone, allow the makers to traverse through boundaries, both permeable and impermeable, and make them visible on paper. And in this manifestation, with the original text next to its Bangla translation, the work comes full circle. A little part of the father returns home, albeit only as words and lines on paper for a short while. The father in this work is also a biographical reference, as Wasim’s father is a geologist and was born in Bangladesh. He lived there until November 1971—and has not been able to go back since. Ursula Biemann (b. 1955, Zurich; lives and works in Zurich) Deep Weather, 2013 Video Essay Courtesy of the artist Presented here with additional support from Pro Helvetia - Swiss Arts Council In Ursula Biemann’s film Deep Weather (2013), mud connects the ends of the Earth: Alberta, Canada and the Sundarbans- the deltaic regions of Bangladesh that have soaked in the sea of the Bay of Bengal for centuries. The attempt to conjure oil from the muddy sands of Alberta by multinational corporations leads to massive displacement: of indigenous people in the Athabasca basin in Canada, and of local populations in southern Bangladesh who have been transformed into climate refugees. Only lines of sacks filled with mud stand between these people, and the sea that swells with rising global temperatures, as global capitalism churns the very insides of the earth to burn the remains of long-dead life forms. Rotating around the same sun, Canada and Bangladesh, as well as everywhere else on the globe, are linked by the oceans and atmospheres connecting them and naturally environmental catastrophes on one side of the earth impact the other.

ALL PROJECTS Performance Workshop Tour by Myriam Lefkowitz 20 - 21 March 2015 Myriam Lefkowitz continued her Walk, Hands, Eyes (Vilnius), a performance project she has been doing for more than seven years, but in the form of a workshop. The performance project is a perceptive experience, weaving a relation between walking, seeing, and touching, for one person at a time, lasting one hour, in a city. Over the course of two days in March of 2015, sixteen participant artists took this guided tour with Lefkowitz through Old Dhaka and University of Dhaka.