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 Art Around the Table We at the Samdani Art Foundation see our community as a body that is nourished by a constant flow of ideas, provocations, care, debate, and curiosity. For nearly ten years the Samdani Art Foundation has built an intellectual movement, punctuated every two years by a thought-provoking, joyous physical event: The Dhaka Art Summit (DAS). Today we announce the launch of a new programme: Art Around the Table. Via our social media channels, we will serve up activities, things to look, listen and react to, around thousands of literal and figurative tables across Bangladesh and the globe. The diverse group of artists, curators and writers who make this possible have one thing in common: in exchange for their contributions, they have generously agreed that food will be provided in their name to be shared around the tables of people in need in Bangladesh through a partnership with the JAAGO Foundation. Over nine days in February, half a million of us dressed up, went out, and explored together the euphoria of being part of a movement. The Dhaka Art Summit (DAS 2020) may have been one of the last major embodied gatherings of makers and thinkers this year and for some time to come, but its real purpose has always been to set the stage for what comes next. “Unless this kind of wonderful effort is supplemented by another kind of effort [meaning activism outside of the exhibition], we cannot achieve the impossible possibility of a socially just world,” said Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak in her speech at Dhaka Art Summit 2018. We have always sought to sustain the momentum of the fresh thoughts, innovative ideas and new relationships made possible by the Summit; to make sure the thousands of physical interactions and exchanges flourish and grow into actions after everyone has gone home. Working together across the global majority world, we must come up with ways to overcome political and geographical challenges as well as the isolation some of us encounter, often without formal infrastructures. Art Around the Table aims to unite us and to set the table for a more equal world. We have built a school (of thought) and will continue to make sure it prospers because we believe we are all students. We are commissioning new work from which we can all learn. As members of our movement gather round to take part, the JAAGO Foundation, will be using Art Around the Table activities in their schools in Bangladesh, which they run in addition to responding to the Covid-19 crisis. We're hoping the ideas, projects, and further provocations will be as diverse as the tables they pile up on. On Friday 12 June, we launched the first Art Around the Table digital workshop with the Sylhet born artist Rana Begum, who is the first Bangladeshi artist to be a member of the Royal Academy in London. This workshop is available via the social media channels of Samdani Art Foundation and our dedicated Instagram page @artaroundthetable ; new programmes contributed by artists and thinkers from Bangladesh and around the world will be released every Friday. ABOUT JAAGO FOUNDATION The JAAGO Foundation is a registered civil society organization with a vision of eliminating poverty and illiteracy from Bangladesh and rebuilding the nation. JAAGO (founded in April 2007),is among the few organisations which provides free-of-cost schooling exclusively for underprivileged children living in Bangladesh. JAAGO started with only 17 children and a single classroom and overthe past 13 years its platform has grown to accommodate learning for 3500 children currently enrolledin its 11schools all around Bangladesh. JAAGO also works to empower the youth of Bangladesh with its youth development program- Volunteer for Bangladesh. This program was established in 2011 with the purpose to create a platform that would allow youth to raise their voice and come together to reduce social and economic inequalities to build a better Bangladesh. JAAGO Foundation and its team of over 3500 volunteers across Bangladesh have come together to provide needed relief in these challenging Covid-19 times. Through collaborating with various organizations who have been helping out financially, as well as providing food items and transportation services, JAAGO Foundation has been able to reach out to a vast number of people through its network. JAAGO’s school venues are being utilized as hubs to distribute packages of food (containing rice, flour, pulses, potatoes, salt, soap, and other needed supplies) to people in need in locations including Dhaka, Chittagong, Rangpur, Dinajpur, Gaibandha, Madaripur, Rajshahi, Habiganj, Bandarban and Teknaf. JAAGO and its collaborators are working to keep families in Bangladesh from facing the crisis of hunger while ensuring the safety of its volunteers through social distancing. Artists' contributions to Art Around the Table The first artistic contribution to #artaroundthetable is by the Swiss based design non profit common interest who designed our logo. Learn more about it below: Rana Begum Our first family artmaking workshop as part of our new initiative 'Art Around the Table' is presented by Rana Begum. Habiba Nowrose Bangladeshi artist Habiba Nowrose inspires us to consider our leftover food and the potential found in waste. Gidree Bawlee Our third video workshop comes all the way from Balia village in Thakurgaon, Bangladesh and is our first workshop in Bangla (with english subtitles). Led by seven amazing children, the workshop inspires to make puppets out of objects found in nature - like leaves and seeds. Gisela McDaniel Our fourth video for Art Around the Table is presented by Detroit based artist Gisela McDaniel. Soma Surovi Jannat Our fifth video for Art Around the Table is presented by winner of the Samdani Art Award 2020, Soma Surovi Jannat. Tsherin Sherpa Our 6th Art Around the Table video workshop is presented by Tsherin Sherpa. Tsherin Sherpa presents us one of his drawings from the 'Protector' series to fill the colour out and make one-of-a-kind piece in collaboration with Tsherin Sherpa. Yasmin Jahan Nupur Our 7th Art Around the Table video is presented by Bangladeshi artist Yasmin Jahan Nupur. Yasmin Jahan Nupur has also arranged a virtual tea party through a performative process. Joydeb Roaja Our 7th Art Around the Table video workshop is presented by Bangladeshi artist Joydeb Roaja. In the video he shows the how he uses natural materials from his surrounding in his performance. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTXyONdQwIY Tahia Farhin Haque Our 8th Art Around the Table is presented by Bangladeshi artist Tahia Farhin Haque. Tahia Farhin Haque’s work shatters traditional stereotypes about women, specifically in Islamic countries, by bringing women’s unique perspectives to the forefront of her photography practice. She hopes to lend a voice to issues that are unheard of and unseen in the rest of the world, while making her viewers question their paradigms on a personal level. Dr. Nurur Rahman Khan This #artaroundthetable session brings in a lecture presented by architect, educator and researcher Dr. Nurur Rahman Khan on 'Architect Muzharul Islam: Politics and Architecture'. https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PLt3ughj96MGtkQyoR3mN_NZgFd2RPoVqg&v=XVuh1ySEH6U Najmun Nahar Keya Samdani Art Award 2020 shortlisted artist Najmun Nahar Keya is a multidisciplinary artist who employs old photographs, gold gilding, drawing and printmaking in her work - which she juxtaposes to create nostalgic settings. Grace Grace Grace Our fourteenth Art Around the Table is presented by Grace Grace Grace featuring Bangladeshi famous singer Momtaz! Grace Grace Grace is a collective of artists who focus on the politics of everyday life, gender and ageing through their performance. Their newest piece CLUB addresses gender and ageing which involves sequins, movement and the disconnect of older women clubbing, owning/taking up space ON THE DANCE FLOOR. Diana Campbell As the Artistic Director of the Samdani Art Foundation and Chief Curator of the Dhaka Art Summit since 2014, Diana shares the transformation of Dhaka Art Summit as a South Asian event to a platform that connects global art with Bangladesh in this session of Art Around the Table. https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PLt3ughj96MGtkQyoR3mN_NZgFd2RPoVqg&v=1pgWVEQk-zs Bishwajit Goswami, Tania Sultana Bristy and Barisho Dhora This Art Around the Table is presented by artists-trio Bishwajit Goswami, Tania Sultana Bristy and their daughter, Barisho Dhora.

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

ALL PROJECTS La Biennale di Venezia - 56th International Art Exhibition 9th May - 22nd November 2015 Dhaka Art Summit 2014 Solo Project Bangladeshi artist Naeem Mohaiemen and Indian artist group Raqs Media Collective were selected to show their works in the centre pavilion, supported by the Samdani Art Foundation.

ALL PROJECTS Planetary Planning Curated by Devika Singh In 1969 visionary architect and designer Buckminster Fuller delivered the Nehru memorial lecture, entitled ‘Planetary Planning’, in which he claimed that South Asia could be conceived as a form of axis-mundi and a cradle for all humanity. Using Fuller’s lecture as a point of departure, this exhibition explored notions of world-making that have been articulated in and from South Asia by three generations of international artists since the 1940s. Planetary thinking, pensée-monde, and worldliness are some of the concepts that have been put forward to describe globalisation as a historical process and the worldview that accompanies it. Sometimes folded into more specific geographical units (Asia, South Asia, and the Indian Ocean), trade, empire, and economic exchanges, as well as scientific innovations, have been some of its crucial vectors. Against this complex and historically unequal canvas of exchanges, but also of imaginary ‘immobile movement’ to use Edouard Glissant’s term, artists have projected alternative, at times utopian thinking, and located themselves within it. By including the works of artists whose trajectory has been marked by travel and migration, this exhibition explored how artistic itinerancy has challenged fixed identities and their inherent hierarchies. Reflecting on trade connections and aesthetic networks, the lines of transfer drawn in this exhibition examined the historical junctures and disjunctures of South Asia. They also looked back at cross-regional exchanges, for example between Bangladesh and Japan, the United States and India, from the 1940s until now. The point is one of convergence. The works that result reflect on the interconnection of geographical spaces. Some of the artists in this exhibition have sustained close relationships, while others were juxtaposed for the first time. Yet they all belong to different stages of an aesthetic exploration on line and architecture. Many exhibited artists conceive of architecture both as a bearer of place and as a language holding the possibility of worldly affiliations. Through the descriptive potential of drawing, photography and film, they probe how architectural imagination can be the repository of cultural memory and planetary planning from South Asia- ARTISTS Amie Siegel Ayesha Sultana Buckminster Fuller Desmond Lazaro Hera Büyüktaşçıyan Isamu Noguchi Lala Rukh Mohammad Kibria Muzharul Islam Novera Ahmed Seher Shah Zarina Hashmi

ALL PROJECTS ACTIONS. THE IMAGE OF THE WORLD CAN BE DIFFERENT KETTLE'S YARD, CAMBRIDGE | RANA BEGUM | FEBRUARY - APRIL 2018 The Samdani Art Foundation was pleased to support the production of British-Bangladeshi artist Rana Begum's work No. 764 Baskets (2017-18), included in Kettle's Yard exhibition, Actions. The image of the world can be different .

ALL PROJECTS Monika Sosnowska at Zachęta – National Gallery of Art 24 July - 25 Oct 2020, Warsaw, Poland Monika Sosnowska's first extensive monographic exhibition in Poland at Zachęta – National Gallery of Art in Warsaw includes works inspired by her multiple visits to Bangladesh from 2017-2020, contextualized within her ongoing interest in deconstructing and reconstructing diverse histories of architecture across the world. We facilitated her research visit for the Dhaka Art Summit 2020 and her commission 'Concrete River' 2020 at the Srihatta: Samdani Art Centre and Sculpture Park which encouraged her to create new works for the summit as well as her solo exhibition at Zachęta. Monika Sosnowska's sculpture draws from the modernist architecture of Dhaka, in that particular case the inspiration comes from Muzharul Islam’s faculty of Fine Arts and the spiral staircase that he designed. Sosnowska transforms, modifies and distorts basic architectural elements. She deforms metal constructions, guardrails, staircases, beams and angle profiles, giving them unusual shapes. Deprives them of their original function and rescales them, creating expressive sculptures. These architectonic installations are meant to affect our senses, distort our sense of gravity, weight and hardness of matter, and instill anxiety with their rescaled forms, unnatural deformation. Image: Monika Sosnowska, Stairs, concrete and painted steel, 110 x 185 x 150 cm, 2020. Courtesy of the Foksal Gallery Foundation.

ALL PROJECTS Art Mediation Programme Workshop A BRIEF REVIEW OF THE PREPARATORY ART MEDIATION WORKSHOPS FOR DHAKA ART SUMMIT 2018 by Dr. Rachel Mader, Head of the Competence Centre for Art and Design in Public Space, HSLU in Lucerne, Switzerland Most, if not all of the participants of the workshop on art mediation in Dhaka were hearing this term for the first time. Their persistent questioning of what exactly the term art mediation meant, was therefore not only an expression of a deep interest in the subject, but proved to be a fruitful start to discussing how art mediation could be practiced in a context like the Dhaka Art Summit. The point of departure for our workshop wasn’t to explain or clarify what art mediation is, or should be - although we obviously intended to initiate a couple of discussions on what it could be. Our discussions were primarily based around insights into practical experiences on a variety of chosen tools already existing, tested and adopted during our first workshop on art mediation, implemented during the Kochi Muziris Biennale 2016. The intention of the tools developed were not to teach people about art, or specific art works, but to enable and foster each individual's perspective. This approach was not obvious to the participants at first, and took some time to communicate, but when we were concerned with trying to situate our attitude, which obviously is nurtured by a critique on traditional formats of art mediation (e.g. guided tours), the participants began to get more of an idea of what should (and could) be mediated. The participants came from very different professional backgrounds, which composed a multi-vocal set of ideas, and nourished the debate and activities in a most fruitful way. With a total of 25 participants, the group was rather big, but this made the discussions lively and every once in a while, a little bit wild. The enthusiasm about the idea of offering the Summit's visitors the possibility of engaging with the exhibited works in a more direct and individual way was overwhelming. Quite a few of the participants formulated proposals on how they could adopt art mediation strategies within their professional contexts. It was this kind of engagement, not at all limited to performing as an art mediator during the art summit, but re-appropriating the exchange for all different kinds of activities, which was an inspiring experience and an aspect of our time in Dhaka that I will include in future initiatives on art mediation. This series of workshops was collaboratively organised by Lena Eriksson (Lucerne), Ruxmini Choudhury (Dhaka), Rachel Mader (Lucerne). SKETCH ESSAY: DAS 2018 ART MEDIATION TRAINING WORKSHOP by Lena Eriksson, Lecturer, Lucerne School of Art and Design, and DAS 2018 Art Mediation Workshop Leader In September 2017, the Samdani Art Foundation placed an open call for Bangladeshi art enthusiasts (over 22 years old) to apply for the opportunity to participate in a unique art mediation programme. The idea of Art Mediation was very new to Bangladesh, but from a pool of 65 applicants, 25 art mediators were selected from a diversity of backgrounds, to be trained as art mediators by Dr. Rachel Mader and Lena Eriksson in a series of workshops between the 2 - 6 October 2017. The Art Mediators were selected on the basis of their interest in art and culture, availability, and commitment, for the duration of the Dhaka Art Summit 2018, rather than their academic background. Dr. Rachel Mader and Lena Eriksson arrived in Dhaka on 1 October 2017 and began their 5-day long intensive workshop on the 2 October 2017 in the Seminar Room of the National Gallery, Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy. Below is an illustrated essay of their time in Dhaka, during, and outside of the workshops they led. On the first day, Rachel and I arrive half an hour late. The room has already been set up for our workshop. All the participants are waiting. On the second day we arrive on time, but most of the participants turn up late. On the third day, we agree that we will henceforth start with the programme exactly half an hour after its announcement – one way or another, a sort of punctuality. I have imported: 2kg potatoes, 900g pasta, 1.2kg cheese from the Swiss mountains, 8 medium onions, 3.6kg apples, 5 sticks of cinnamon, one can of pear syrup, 1 litre of cider, and 25 pinches of dried alpine flowers. On the first evening we all cook, Alpine Herders Macaroni. At least this is concrete. Rachel has imported: 25 fondue forks, 2 fondue pans and 2.5kg of dark chocolate. The fruit she buys from the dealer near the hotel. The artist and workshop-participant Tarana has succeeded in negotiating a good price for her – which Rachel says, is very tough. The chocolate fondue brings joy to everyone. Dhaka Art Summit expects about 35,000 visitors per day. I notice that many visit the exhibitions like they would a park. Only, instead of trees, bushes and flowers, they are looking at art. One can be as organized as possible, use all the foresight one has, plan everything to the last detail – but in the end, it is the traffic that dictates the agenda and the beat. Tarana reveals that, in the mornings, it takes her two hours to get to work. In the evenings, it can take twice as long for her to get home. In Bangladesh, ‘Art Mediation’ is not a common term. At night, merchants throw a tarpaulin over their booth and their goods, and tie them up together. I am amazed that this is adequate protections from theft. On the last day of our workshop, the seminar room is occupied, so we move into one of the vacant gallery spaces. The improvised setting makes communication more difficult. To sit on the floor is bad for the bones. Everything is strenuous, everything is more chaotic. Nonetheless, the discussions are animated. On the way back to the airport, our taxi travels along the railway line. I see people travelling on the roof of a train, and I ask myself why on earth they do that. I have so much more to understand about this country.

ALL PROJECTS Cinema Banner Painting Workshop A week-long art workshop on Cinema Banner Painting took place from 5 October 2019 at Jothashilpa Studio in the Adabor area of Dhaka, organized by Jothashilpa (A Centre for Traditional and Contemporary Arts) in cooperation with the Samdani Artists Led Initiatives Forum (SALIF). Cinema Banner painting is one of the most popular visual art languages in the South Asia. It was initiated as a publicity medium located at the movie theaters. Henceforth, its inception and evolution is heavily shaped by the growth of cinema industry in this region. To understand the origin of Cinema Banner painting, one could trace back to Raja Ravi Varma’s paintings and popular prints of 19th century, which were based on western academic style. In the field of cinema banner painting, non-academic painters had played the major role to develop its unique style in the Indian subcontinent. A distinct visual aesthetics emerged which was molded by a larger than life manifestation of cinema. A week-long art workshop on Cinema Banner Painting took place from 5 October 2019 at Jothashilpa Studio in the Adabor area of Dhaka, organized by Jothashilpa (A Centre for Traditional and Contemporary Arts) in cooperation with the Samdani Artists Led Initiatives Forum (SALIF). Master artist of traditional cinema banner painting Mohammad Shoaib conducted the workshop as a mentor, while artist and researcher Shawon Akand curated the workshop. Five participating artists from different parts of Bangladesh joined this second edition of the cinema banner painting workshop. They were Rezaur Rahman, Imtiaz Nasir, Rafiqa Majumdar, Muntasib Rahman Anan, and Hemahyet Himu. This workshop took place at Jothashilpa Studio (House 819, Road 5, Baitul Aman Housing, Adabor) from 5 to 11 October 2019. The last day of the art workshop (11 October 2019, 4 PM to 8 PM) featured an Open Studio Day for all viewers to see the artworks and meet the artists at the workshop site in Adabor, Dhaka. The goal of this workshop was to understand and exchange the special skill and visual aesthetics to produce large-scale paintings in line with the cinema banner painting style and technique. The organizers hoped that this would contribute to contemporary art practice in Bangladesh by finding a new way of visual language based on popular culture. Visit Jotha Shilpa’s website or Facebook page for more details

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 The River Remembers at Islamic Arts Biennale 2023 Jeddah Kamruzzaman Shadhin was commissioned to show his new project The River Remembers (2023), for the Islamic Arts Biennale 2023, curated by DAS 2023 artist Sumayya Vally. Samdani Art Foundation has supported the transportation of the project.

ALL PROJECTS Akāliko and Jatiwangi Dhaka Art Summit 2020 Akāliko means ‘timelessness’ in Pali, the language of the Buddhist scriptures, reflecting the group’s belief that musical forms have always been present in everyday life in society. The promotion of electronic and experimental music is at the heart of Akāliko’s activities and they collaborate with artists and professionals who make digital and sound art. Born out of Dhaka’s electronica scene, the group was originally established in 2012 as an independent music production label set up to address the need for a common platform to promote the work of ‘bedroom’ music producers. They collaborate with like-minded performance artists, writers, choreographers/dancers, communication specialists, psychologists, and, most recently, sound artists, while at the same time maintaining their label. Their compositions are streamed online and can be experienced in this listening station. Jatiwangi Art Factory in Indonesia, located in the rural district of Jatiwangi that includes 16 villages, has been developing new community-based practices that take as their point of departure the local material of clay, particularly drawing on histories of roof tile production. Activities have ranged from tasting, chemically testing and cooking local clay to developing a Ceramic Music Festival using clay-based instruments to reanimate ceramic production. The elemental matter of clay makes more complex our relationship to the earth and calls up widespread mythological stories of humans being shaped from this. A listening station within the exhibition connects visitors with the sounds this collective creates that emerge from the ground of Indonesia. Through a mini-residency catalysed through DAS, Akaliko and Jatiwangi have explored parallels between the clay-based visual cultures as well as sonic qualities of Indonesia and Bangladesh. Looking out the window into the garden outside, visitors can see collaborative instruments created in Bangladesh which will be activated through several jam sessions on the closing 3 days of DAS from 4–8pm. Jatiwangi’s travel to DAS 2020 was generously supported by the Indonesian Embassy of Bangladesh. Image by Noor Photoface