ALL PROJECTS AFIELD Study #3 Let's Share! Documenta Fifteen, Kassel AFIELD Study #3 Let's Share! at documenta fifteen by Elisa Cuccinelli https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8VgP1397j4 AFIELD Study is a series of co-learning programs led by members of the network on different topics. Based on closed sessions and public workshops, it seeks to nurture synergies between like-minded practitioners, allowing for mutual exchange of skills and knowledge. AFIELD Study #3 was structured around the meeting between two groups: grassroots initiatives that experiment with alternative support structures, and individuals who critically reflected on their role as collectors, patrons or philanthropists. It is often difficult to think about the big picture and the long term when struggling to ideate in “survival mode”. Our convening hopes to contribute to current debates on resource sharing from a wide array of experiences that allow us to think together about the use of networks such as AFIELD to elaborate sustainable sharing infrastructure. This reunion was the first one where a number of AFIELD members met “in real life” to celebrate and think together after 3 years of meeting online. Samdani Art Foundation supported the travel of Bangladeshi initiatives to participate in this edition of AFIELD Study.

ALL PROJECTS Let me get you a nice cup of tea Tate, London Yasmin Jahan Nupur’s work "Let me get you a nice cup of tea' 2019-2020 acquired by Tate, is currently on display at the Tate Modern. While she joins a great group of Bangladeshi artists in the collection, she is the first Bangladeshi artist whose work is being displayed at Tate as part of their permanent collection. This is a historic moment we are proud to be a part of - especially when it comes to mediums like performance which are not always the most simple works to collect. SAF worked on this project curatorially to support Yasmin Jahan Nupur from the start of an idea as one of the first DAS 2020 commissions to a presentation in our Artisitc Director Diana Campbell’s Frieze London program for Frieze LIVE in 2019 developed in partnership with a research residency DAS facilitated with Peabody Essex, further working with the artist as her ideas expanded into what was experienced at DAS 2020. Exhibit320 supported the initial presentation in London and so many people from around the world contributed to the development of this live piece through sharing their research knowledge.

ALL PROJECTS Modern Art Histories in and across South Africa & South Asia Asia Art Archive, Hong Kong, 12 - 21 Aug 2019 The Dhaka Art Summit, Institute for Comparative Modernities(ICM) at Cornell University, and Asia Art Archive, with support from the Getty Foundation’s Connecting Art Histories initiative, launched a new research project entitled Modern Art Histories in and across Africa, South and Southeast Asia. The project began by convening 21 emerging scholars and 5 faculty members in Hong Kong in August 2019 to begin an ongoing research project connecting art histories outside of western frameworks. This group later reconvened at DAS 2020.

ALL PROJECTS Manifesto of fragility, 16th Biennale de Lyon 14 September - 31 December 2022, Lyon, France Munem Wasif's works were shown extensively across three venues: The Fagor Factory, Guimet Museum, and the Musée d’art contemporain de Lyon at the 16th Biennale de Lyon. Mostly comprising photographs, videos and sound installations, Munem Wasif’s oeuvre reflects a long-term engagement with the places and stories of his home country. The Machine Matter installation evokes the demise of the jute industry in Bangladesh following the transfer of power in East Bengal to Pakistan after the Partition of India in 1947, the widespread use of artificial materials, and the container and cargo-ship boom. Alternating long shots and close-ups, Wasif moves through an abandoned jute factory, amid immobile people. The echo of birdsong, the drip-drip of water and the rays of sunshine create an illusory sense of life in a space reduced to silence. The weight of memories, machinery and bodies underscores the fragility of the economy in post-colonial Bangladesh. The exhibition is supported by the Samdani Art Foundation & Project 88. Image courtesy Munem Wasif

ALL PROJECTS রিক্সা শিল্পীদের পাশে In partnership with Britto Arts Trust Part of the Samdani Art Foundation’s ongoing work was supporting research into pre-colonial knowledge of South Asia and blurring boundaries between art and life by empowering Bangladeshi artist-led initiatives. Artists from around the world often took motifs from vernacular artistic practices, and through our initiatives, we partnered with artists and artist-led initiatives to support the practices of artists who often did not have the privileges of resources and mobility found in “the art world,” such as Cinema Banner painters, Rickshaw painters, weavers, and other talented artisans who created the vibrant visual culture of Bangladesh. Dhaka Art Summit was a platform that realized Bangladesh’s largest cinema banner painting in collaboration with Jothashilpa, SAVVY Contemporary in Berlin, and the Goethe Institut, and kantha stitched renditions of Bangladesh’s six seasons were realized in collaboration with Art Pro and were recently acquired by the Whitworth Museum in Manchester after their display at Dhaka Art Summit 2020. Protecting the heritage of Bangladeshi traditional arts also meant supporting the people behind these arts in their daily lives, so they could continue their practice once the world healed from the Covid-19 pandemic. Samdani Art Foundation is proud to have partnered with Britto Arts Trust to support 23 Rickshaw painters and Cinema Banner painters to produce each producing an artwork that highlighted the unique talent of each maker, while also financially supporting this at-risk community in a time when there were few opportunities for them to continue their work animating public spaces of Dhaka. The artist community forming Britto Art Trust had been working with Rickshaw painters and Cinema Banner painters for a long time. They had exhibited the works of the painters in Paris at Palais de Tokyo, and at other leading institutional platforms in Bangladesh and abroad. Britto Arts Trust had generously lent their talent and infrastructure to help bring 23 artists into the fold of Britto and gave them a platform to share their work with the world during this difficult time. The artists had painted on cut-outs representing parts of the human body, speaking to the fact that together, we were one collective body as residents and contributors to life in Dhaka. “The mission of samdani art foundation is to empower artists and to make art available for everyone to enjoy. It was a pleasure to support these wonderful artists during this difficult time, and we invite you to join us in this mission to show these artists how much the city of Dhaka values their talent and imagination. I am a proud collector of works from this project myself.” nadia samdani “Bangladeshi art owes a lot to the inspiration of its cinema banner painters and rickshaw painters, who we have worked with closely in our own artistic journeys in bangladesh and abroad. We are proud to share their work with you and look forward to these works finding permanent homes in offices and residences across Bangladesh, including our own.” Tayeba Begum Lipi and Mahbubur Rahman

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

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

ALL PROJECTS Untitled | 2017-2018 (Ongoing) Pablo Bartholomew 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 MARKING ON THEIR BODIES; CODES THAT THEY KEEP AS A FORM OF SELF IDENTITY. The Dhaka Art Summit featured Pablo Bartholomew from February 2-10, 2018. The exhibition later toured as part of the exhibition "A Beast, a God, and a Line," curated by Cosmin Costinas. 17 MARCH - 20 MAY 2018 | PARA SITE, HONG KONG 6-24 JUNE 2018 | TS1, YANGON 20 JULY - 7 OCTOBER 2018 | MUSEUM OF MODERN ART IN WARSAW With a father hailing from Burma and mother who is of partial Bengali origin, Pablo 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 weaves together science, myth, legend and tradition, exploring a cross-border ethnic identity. Commissioned and Produced by Samdani Art Foundation for DAS 2018. Courtesy of the artist and Samdani Art 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 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 Spatial Movements Curated by Diana Campbell Universes exist within us and universes exist beyond us. We inhabit our bodies; our bodies inhabit dwellings; and our imaginations inhabit limitless realms free from our mortal limitations. The artists in this movement explore the spaces that we move through (physical, social, political, discursive) and the ways we are able to transmit stories and knowledge across (life)times, building bridges from past to present to future. These stories and the belief and value systems embedded in them often speak to how humanity related to physically inaccessible worlds below the earth’s crust and beyond the sky. Certain works of art have the transformative power to make us feel and understand what is at stake, inspiring us to take action and bring new worlds into being. Your movement through the Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy was carefully considered in our design of the Summit, contributing to the activation of artworks and ideas found across the venue. By sharing your experience with others both in physical and digital space, we can make history together. Clarissa Tossin b. 1973, Porto Alegre; lives and works in Los Angeles A Queda do Céu (The Falling Sky), 2019* Laminated archival inkjet prints and wood *after Yanomami leader Davi Kopenawa’s autoethnography, and cosmoecological manifesto. Commissioned and produced by Samdani Art Foundation for DAS 2020. Courtesy of the artist, Commonwealth and Council, and Samdani Art Foundation A Queda do Céu (The Falling Sky), 2019, Laminated archival inkjet prints and wood, Commissioned and produced by Samdani Art Foundation for DAS 2020, Courtesy of the artist and Commonwealth and Council. When we talk about environmental concerns relating to the Amazon, we must consider its native peoples as part of the ecology. For instance, the terra preta, or black soil–the most fertile in the Amazon Basin–is a product of long-term indigenous land management practices, going back to ancient times. Discoveries such as this expand our perception of the forest beyond wild land myths and re-signify the ‘jungle’ as a result of human interactions with nature over time. The Amazon rainforest has been the recurring subject of Clarissa Tossin’s work, providing a rich study in the impacts of global commodity chains and by extension, the perpetuation of colonial forces enacted on the region’s environment, cultures, and people. A Queda do Céu (The Falling Sky) further engages with themes of ecological precarity and social justice. The weavings combine satellite images of the recent fires in Amazônia with Nasa images of the Mars plane named after the forest (Amazonis Planitia), the Amazon River and the Milky Way. The patterns were made to resemble the geometric partition of land created by agribusiness mostly visible from satellite images or bird’s-eye view. The triptych suggests a constellation of planets that project ambiguous visions of futurity, post-human landscapes and the ruins of a world yet to come. Clarissa Tossin uses installation, video, performance, sculpture, and photography to negotiate hybridisation of cultures and the persistence of difference. By embracing semantic displacements in given material cultural ecosystems, Tossin’s work reflects on circulation from the level of the body to the global industry. Korakrit Arunanondchai and Alex Gvojic b. 1986, Bangkok; lives and works in New York and Bangkok b. 1986, Chicago; lives and works in New York Together (Dhaka Edition), 2019–2020 Clay, Electrical Wires, Leaves and Branches activated by performance with video and sound Performance is active at 7pm on 7–8 February Commissioned and Produced for by Samdani Art Foundation for DAS 2020. Courtesy of the artists, BANGKOK CITYCITY GALLERY, C L E A R I N G, Carlos/Ishikawa. Realised with additional support from MAIIAM Contemporary Art Museum. Presented with in-kind support from BANGKOK CITYCITY GALLERY Rising up three-storeys of the DAS venue, Korakrit Arunanondchai’s monumental sculpture of a ‘naga’ (a reincarnating deity found across the mythology of South and Southeast Asia that shifts between snake and human form) transforms into a stage for the artist’s newest performance work in collaboration with Alex Gvojic that connects the river-based histories of Bangladesh and Thailand. Arunanondchai will create a soundscape within an environment based on Ghost Cinema, a post-Vietnam War ritual in Thailand where outdoor screenings function as communions between the audience and the spirits. Introduced by American soldiers stationed in Thailand who screened films in the forests, creating enigmatic projections which locals attributed to ghosts, the appropriation of the ritual by locals reflects the rich history of military coups and their effect on local folklore and rituals. Arunanondchai works with performance, video, and installation, addressing the crossing over of themes like family, superstition, spirituality, history, and politics. With an interest in collaboration, he transforms gallery spaces into arenas of connections, personal and cross-cultural. These allow him to explore relationships in recorded history while sidestepping its preoccupation with linear narratives. Alex Gvojic specialises in the interdisciplinary crossing of art, fashion, and music. Within his breath of multimedia projects, which span from entertainment production to environmental design, each embodies a signature sharpness in both imagery and concept. Minam Apang b. 1980, Naharlagun; lives and works in Goa Sisyphean Sea, 2019 Charcoal on Canvas Commissioned for DAS 2020 Courtesy of the artist and Chatterjee and Lal Minam Apang produces expansive intricate imaginary landscapes that reveal her spiritual connection to who she is and where she comes from. The artist moved from Arunachal Pradesh to Goa, mirroring the migration of large numbers of youth from Northeast India who are forced to leave due to a rampant military presence and the consequent lack of employment opportunities. Apang’s savage yet delicate drawing registers this trauma, reimagining it at a mythical scale suspended above the heads of viewers. The sea seems to lay siege to the mountains, tilting the axis of the world – alluding to the conflicted landscape of Arunachal Pradesh, but also to the many chapters of change that our planet has experienced: the same Himalayas that are melting today were once completely underwater. Apang’s practice predominantly employs drawing with charcoal. In early works, she painted scenes inspired by the folktales and myths passed down orally by her tribe in Arunachal Pradesh. More recently, her landscapes and figures are drawn from imagination and informed by hybrid experiences of the landscapes she has inhabited. Mizanur Rahman Chowdhury b. 1981, Noakhali; lives and works in Dhaka LOVE LETTER TO THE LAST SUN, 2019–2020 Mixed media Commissioned and produced by Samdani Art Foundation for DAS 2020. Courtesy of the artist and Samdani Art Foundation This newly commissioned interactive installation is composed of a combination of everyday objects and natural elements (fire, water, earth, air) and aims to recalibrate the ecological co-existence of human and non-human living organisms in our universe. The work resides between fiction and reality, between the conceptual and the concrete, between an imagined reality and the construction of it. It fights against normative expectations. The progress of modernity is leading us towards the great destruction of this planet. Through Mizanur Rahman Chowdhury’s use of cameras and projectors, the viewer is able to locate her/himself within the web and connectivity of a total magnetic force, while perceiving the energetic pulses of the universe. Immersing the viewer in his utopian world, s(he) is re-connected with planets and other beings, both human and not. Chowdhury’s interdisciplinary practice plays with different media, ranging from installation, assemblage, video, collage, sculpture, found footage, experimental film and more to conjure a multifaceted artistic universe. By creating unfamiliar space and situations for everyday mundane objects, Chowdhury creates unique interpretations while engaging new experimental territories with vast potentials. Subash Thebe b. 1981, Nepal; lives and works in London NINGWASUM- Moving Across Time and Space, 2019 Acrylic on canvas Commissioned for DAS 2020 Courtesy of the artist Memories of possible and not so possible events woven into stories have been a fundamental way of accessing and disseminating knowledge to future generations in almost all indigenous communities, including Subash Thebe’s Limbu community. In a sense, memory is more significant for the future than for the past. The glacial lakes in Subash Thebe’s new painting are rendered in actual and imaginary time frames; sometimes they freeze back into glaciers and other times they grow bigger. At times, the Himalayas are rich with snow and glaciers and at other times they are nothing but grey tectonic rocks. There’s a spaceship in the frame, its shape inspired by the object called ‘Silamsakma’ commonly used in Limbu rituals. This memory of its existence in the future explores implications previously unimaginable. Thebe works with sound, film, music, performance, painting, and podcasts, exploring the relation between art and social change. He records the sound and images of his public engagements to later incorporate them in his works. His work is inspired by science fiction, future scenarios of struggle, resistance, climate change, and indigeneity. William Forsythe b. 1949, New York Fact of Matter, 2009 Polycarbonate rings, polyester belts, ground support rigging Courtesy of the artist. Presented with additional support from ifa | Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen and the EMK Center. The development and international exhibition of Choreographic Objects by William Forsythe is made possible with the generous support of Susanne Klatten Fact of the Matter, one of William Forsythe’s ‘Choreographic Objects’, poetically speaks to the interplay of collective and individual experience in navigating the world and its challenges and forms of thinking that can be activated through movement. The object is not so much there to be seen as to be used, and engaging with the object and the artist’s instructions gives the user a new perspective of the self as they become aware of their body’s mass, strength, and coordination as a unified system. These three qualities are not as unified as we would like them to be, and we invent strategies to pull through what might seem like an unnavigable space while learning from the strategies devised by other people using the object. Forsythe is known for his radical innovations in choreography and dance. His deep interest in the fundamental principles of organisation has led him to produce a wide range of projects. Parallel to his career as a choreographer, he creates installations, film works, and interactive sculptures, known as ‘Choreographic Objects’.

ALL PROJECTS Condition Report 4: Stepping Out of Line; Art Collectives and Translocal Parallelism Envisioned by Koyo Kouoh, Marie Helene Pereira, and Dulcie Abrahams Altass of RAW Material Company, Dakar Su sanxleẽn booloo wot wer / Ants come together to find wellbeing Béy, bu àndul ak béy, ànd ak cere / Goats who leave the herd, find themselves in the company of couscous Wolof proverbs Above our heads, this very second, thousands upon thousands of birds are flying in flocks. From the lightest shift in the incline of feathers is born a collective moment that allows for protection and efficacy whilst flying over great distances. From the ground, there appears to be perfect synchronicity within these flock movements, a marvel that scientists are still trying to understand. A flick of a wing, banal on its own, is the genesis of significant impact when performed with other, similar winged beings. This fascinating and naturally occurring activity is a useful starting point for Condition Report 4: Stepping out of line; Art collectives and trans-local parallelism, which exists as a forum for addressing practices and forms of production that take the cooperating, non-hierarchical group as a guiding principle. The fourth edition of RAW Material Company’s biannual symposium program exploring the artistic landscape in Africa and beyond, CR4 delves into examples of collectivity both historic and contemporary to assess the scope of change possible through the ignition of our interconnectedness. Dreams of cooperation are not always fulfilled, and we acknowledge that the same spirit of resistance, survival, or predation that facilitates collective action can wane or backfire, leaving members out of formation. Yet the aesthetic, physical, and social fields of intervention that are the focus and fodder of collectives merit attention, particularly given the role they play in the seismic movements that are the focus of DAS 2020. This symposium, through its form and content, opens up the different lines of inquiry that emerge from collective practice, with a particular focus on webs of international solidarities. Writers and curators are in dialogue with members of collectives, allowing both critical analysis and historical production to sit side by side with practice. We begin with an investigation into the formal aesthetic of the collective and the forms, structures, and shapes that emerge both organically and strategically when we flock together. Drawing on both traditions of Bengali ensemble music and the Senegalese Penc – a structure for community dialogue – allows us to enact collective forms and give shape to this coming together. Moreover, the space we use in Dhaka is designed to let the outside in and vice versa, an acknowledgment of the large number of collective practices that are currently threatened by the displacement of entire communities for economic or climatic reasons, who are thus separated from the material space that plays an active role in the affirmation of collective existence. Moving from concerns around form, the conversation will unpack different propositions for making histories of collective practice and collective practices of making histories. Polyphonic in their very nature, collective movements have proven complex to anchor in any one narrative. Members may tell different and contradictory stories, highlighting aspects of particular relevance to their own journey or the wider circles within which they move, beyond the sphere of the collective itself. And yet we know that these stories must be told. If we accept this reality, can we think of the generative space between the swarm behavior of two neighboring bees? What historiographical approaches are necessary for unearthing and learning from gossip, witness accounts, and inconsistency? As articulated by Elvira Dyangani Ose, how can we ‘claim history as a participatory experience’? International collectivism can at times be even harder to map, across linguistic lines and countries with differing relationships to the archive, and yet we must learn to become more supple and more creative in our historiographical methodology if we want to do justice to these histories. Engaging in a more frontal manner with the contemporary moment and the crescendo of interest within both the art world and the fields of social sciences and humanities in collectives and collectivism – indeed as a fully-fledged ‘ism’ – we will also ask questions related to the relationship between collective practice and economy. Are visions of commons and non-hierarchical labor structures purely utopian within a global, late-capitalist order? Must collectives shun capitalism completely to be legitimate, or is it that collective practice must fall on either side of a state/ private dichotomy? How do collectives create models of institutions that disrupt this opposition? How do collectives engage with informal and bartering economies to survive, produce, and endure, and what lessons can be learned from these strategies? Challenging traditional notions of authorship and therefore ownership, artist collectives also challenge and reject the vision of the mythical, singular, and historically male artist, drawing attention to the plurality of skills and efforts needed to generate and support a project. Continuing in this vein, it is worthwhile to pause on how collective practice can influence how formal institutions function, and to consider to what ends and through which channels we can create new alliances of support across domains. Many collectives also tend to have a shorter lifespan than formal institutions, and we will consider the death and dispersal of collectives as key moments in their existence. When birds disband from the flock formation, it signifies that the need that brought them together is no longer relevant; a danger has passed, or the aerodynamic support they provided one another has given sufficient time for rest. To be cognizant of how to collectively separate, shift energies, and acknowledge the end of a mission is a skill that will also be discussed; what happens after the seismic movement? Fundamentally, CR4 is an invitation to think about the ‘we’ and the forms of our relationships with one another. We will question and map strategies that allow the flock to fly and get the job done, and then to leave formation without injury, in a bid to open up this prescient field of study while learning and practising how we can live better together. Featuring Akaliko Centre for Historical Reenactment (Kemang Wa Lehulere) Chimurenga (Zipho Dayile) Cosmin Costinas Depth Of the Field (Emeka Okereke) Elizabeth A. Povinelli Gidree Bawlee (Salma Jamal Moushum) Green Papaya (Merv Espina) Hong Kong Artist Union – KY Wong Jatiwangi (Ismal Muntaha) John Tain Joydeb Roaja & Hill Group Laboratoire Agit’Art (Pascal Nampemanla Traoré) Luta ca caba inda (Sonia Vaz Borges) Marina Fokidis Mustafa Zaman Pathshala (Taslima Akhter) ruangrupa (Farid Aditama Rakun) Shawon Akand Shomoy Group (Dhali Al Mamoon) Shoni Mongol Adda (Tarana Willy) Somankidi Coura (Raphaël Grisey and Bouba Touré) The Otolith Group Opening Speech of Diana- Condition Report 4 by RAW Material Company at DAS 2020 https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PLpE5N73vV6zBLs3OliomTbRc803ghvpdR&v=Xf0DeQuXnrc Ogadha' Ekattata | তরঙ্গ by Akaliko- Condition Report 4 by RAW Material Company at DAS 2020 https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PLpE5N73vV6zBLs3OliomTbRc803ghvpdR&v=xV2pHRxBI_8 Keynote by Elizabeth Povinelli -Condition Report 4 by RAW Material Company at DAS 2020 https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PLpE5N73vV6zBLs3OliomTbRc803ghvpdR&v=OA8PFfehAOQ Indigenous Resistance and Gender in South Asia and the Pacific History- CR 4 by RAW at DAS2020 Joydeb Roaja, Hill Artist Group, Greg Dvorak, Mata Aho Collective, Taloi Havini https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PLpE5N73vV6zBLs3OliomTbRc803ghvpdR&v=Yo1dWSBTBoM Forms of Collectives- Condition Report 4 by RAW Material Company at DAS 2020 Jatiwangi (Ismal Muntaha), Laboratoire Agit’Art (Pascal Nampemanla Traoré), Pathshala (Taslima Akhter)- Moderated by Marina https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PLpE5N73vV6zBLs3OliomTbRc803ghvpdR&v=8lU9ZtQ4kv4 PENC on Forms of Collectives- Condition Report 4 by RAW Material Company at DAS 2020 Moderated by Mustafa Zaman, the PENC reflects on the forms of collectives and the future of them. https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PLpE5N73vV6zBLs3OliomTbRc803ghvpdR&v=hCLbTTqfnAA Making (Collective) History-Condition Report 4 by RAW Material Company at DAS 2020 Luta ca caba inda, Guinea Bissau – Chimurenga, South Africa – Gidree Bawlee, Bangladesh – Moderated by Shawon Akand https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PLpE5N73vV6zBLs3OliomTbRc803ghvpdR&v=UHIz0Ns4y7s Collective Practice and Economy- Condition Report 4 by RAW Material Company at DAS 2020 Somankidi Coura, Mali – Hong Kong Artist Union, Hong Kong – Shoni Mongol Adda, Bangladesh – Moderated by ruangrupa https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PLpE5N73vV6zBLs3OliomTbRc803ghvpdR&v=bcS0HSAPYRc The Death of the Collective- Condition Report 4 by RAW Material Company at DAS 2020 Green Papaya, Philippines – Depth Of Field, Nigeria – Shomoy Group, Bangladesh – Moderated by Cosmin Costinas https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PLpE5N73vV6zBLs3OliomTbRc803ghvpdR&v=SIzTMGLc_ZQ PENC Writing Collective History- Condition Report 4 by RAW Material Company at DAS 2020 The PENC open forum discussion session on writing collective history is moderated by Otolith Group https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PLpE5N73vV6zBLs3OliomTbRc803ghvpdR&v=KuId3rQ8jYM