The Dhaka Art Summit (DAS) is an international, non-commercial research and exhibition platform for art and architecture related to South Asia. With a core focus on Bangladesh, DAS re-examines how we think about these forms of art in both a regional and an international context. Nadia Samdani CO-FOUNDER AND PRESIDENT Nadia Samdani MBE is the Co-Founder and President of the Samdani Art Foundation and Director of Dhaka Art Summit (DAS). In 2011, with husband Rajeeb Samdani, she established the Samdani Art Foundation to support the work of Bangladesh and South Asia’s contemporary artists and architects and increase their exposure. As part of this initiative, she founded DAS, which has since completed five successful editions under her leadership. She is a member of Tate’s South Asia Acquisitions Committee, Tate’s International Council and Alserkal Avenue’s Programming Committee, one of the founding members of The Harvard University Lakshmi Mittal South Asia Institute’s Arts Advisory Council and member of Asia Society’s Advisory Committee. In 2017, with her husband Rajeeb, she was the first South Asian arts patron to receive the prestigious Montblanc de la Culture Arts Patronage Award. She was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2022 Birthday Honours for services to global art philanthropy and supporting the arts in South Asia and the United Kingdom. She has also received the Knight of the Order of the Arts and Letters by the Cultural Ministry of France.A second-generation collector, she began her own collection at the age of 22. She collects both Bangladeshi and international art, reflecting her experience as both a proud Bangladeshi and a global citizen. She has written about collecting for Art Asia Pacific and Live Mint and has been a guest speaker at art fairs and institutions including the Royal Ontario Museum, Art Basel, Frieze and Harvard University among other institutions. Works from the Samdanis’ collection have been lent to institutions and festivals including: Kiran Nadar Musem of Art, New Delhi (2023); Hayward Gallery, London (2022); Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (2019); Para Site, Hong Kong (2018); Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw (2018); documenta 14, Kassel and Athens, (2017); Shanghai Biennale (2017); Office for Contemporary Art Norway, Olso (2016); Centre Pompidou, Paris (2015); Kunstsammlung Nordrhein, Düsseldorf (2015); Gwangju Biennale (2014); and Kochi-Muziris Biennale (2014). Rajeeb Samdani CO-FOUNDER AND TRUSTEE Rajeeb Samdani is a Co-Founder and Trustee of the Samdani Art Foundation, and Managing Director of Golden Harvest Group - one of the leading diversified conglomerates in Bangladesh. Together with his wife Nadia Samdani MBE, he established the biannual Dhaka Art Summit, and Srihatta- Samdani Art Centre and Sculpture Park. Rajeeb is also known for his modern and contemporary art collection. He is a founding member and Co-Chair of Tate’s South Asian Acquisitions Committee, a member of Tate’s International Council and Tate Advisory Board and Alserkal Avenue’s Programming Committee, a founding member of The Harvard University Lakshmi Mittal South Asia Institute’s Arts Advisory Council, Delfina Foundation’s Global Council member, a member of Art SG and a member of Art Basel Global Patrons Council. In 2017, with his wife Nadia, he was the first South Asian arts patron to receive the prestigious Montblanc de la Culture Arts Patronage Award. He has been a guest speaker at art fairs and institutions including the Royal Ontario Museum of Art, UC Berkeley, Harvard University and the Private Museums Summit. Diana Campbell ARTISTIC DIRECTOR Diana Campbell is a Princeton educated American curator and writer working in South and Southeast Asia since 2010, primarily in India, Bangladesh, and the Philippines. She is committed to fostering a transnational art world, and her plural and long-range vision addresses the concerns of underrepresented regions and artists alongside the more established in manifold forums. Since 2013, she has served as the Founding Artistic Director of Dhaka-based Samdani Art Foundation, Bangladesh and Chief Curator of the Dhaka Art Summit, leading the last five editions of the platform with a global team of collaborators. Campbell has developed the Dhaka Art Summit into a leading research and exhibitions platform for art from South Asia, bringing together artists, architects, curators, and writers through a largely commission based model where new work and exhibitions are born in Bangladesh, adding a scholarly element to the platform through collaborations with the Getty Foundation, Asia Art Archive, Cornell University, Harvard University, RAW Material Company, Gudskul, and many other formal and grassroots educational initiatives around the world. Pacific Islands and Bangladesh are at the forefront of climate change; Campbell’s maternal family is indigenous CHamoru from the island of Guam, and her heritage inspires her curatorial practice and the development of DAS as a platform to amplify indigenous practices both in South Asia and internationally. In addition to her exhibition making and writing practice, Campbell is responsible for developing the Samdani Art Foundation collection and drives its international collaborations ahead of opening the foundation’s permanent home and community-based residency program at Srihatta, the Samdani Art Centre and Sculpture Park in Sylhet. Campbell’s practice specializes in building networks. She is part of the facilitation group of AFIELD, a global network of socially engaged initiatives, and leading the international development of EDI Global Forum, a global network of art education departments as an initiative of the Campania Region of Italy developed by the Fondazione Morra Greco in Naples that is convening over 150 global institutions to address needed change in art education. She is currently curating the 2023 edition of DesertX in the Coachella Valley opening in March 2023, linking the climatic challenges of droughts and floods across California and Bangladesh. Mohammad Sazzad Hossain HEAD OF ADMINISTRATION Mohammad Sazzad Hossain is the Head of Administration of the Samdani Art Foundation. Sazzad has worked for the Samdani Art Foundation since 2012 and has been a key member of the management team from the first edition of the Dhaka Art Summit, now moving into its 7th edition. He is responsible for the artistic production of DAS, along with the management of all the teams on site, as well as the production for Srihatta and its artistic program. From the outset, Sazzad has managed the production of major international artist’s projects, such as Rana Begum, Afrah Shafiq, Antony Gormley, Shilpa Gupta, Ramesh Mario Nithiyendran, Nilima Sheikh, Damian Ortega and Antonio Dias to name a few. He was one of the key members of the Srijan Abartan, a cross-disciplinary sustainable exhibition design research programme introduced in 2020. Sazzad Hossain completed his M.A. and B.A. from Stamford University Bangladesh majoring in English Literature. Emily Dolan Director of Operations and External Affairs Emily Dolan is the Director of Operations and External Affairs. She originally trained as a visual artist and since 2002 has worked in art institutions, including five years at The Fine Art Society, her primary focus being contemporary art. Since 2012 she has taken on production orientated roles in non-profit organisations and has coordinated exhibitions at the Hayward Gallery in London, The 55th Venice Biennale, Garage Centre of Contemporary Art and Culture, Moscow, and the Chalet Society, Paris. Ruxmini Reckvana Q Choudhury ASSISTANT CURATOR Ruxmini Choudhury is a curator, art writer, researcher, and bilingual translator based in Dhaka, Bangladesh. She has been working as the Assistant Curator of the Samdani Art Foundation since 2014. Among the many initiatives she has introduced and developed for Dhaka Art Summit are its art mediation program and the Samdani Artist Led Initiatives Forum, part of her ongoing interest in exploring ways to make art more approachable and interactive to the public. Her research has supported the growth of curatorial knowledge about Bangladesh through her collaborations assisting many international curators on shows in Dhaka such as Dhaka Art Summit, but also in Hong Kong, India, Austria, Norway, Dubai, among others. . She founded the 'Singularity Art Movement' in 2021, a platform which acknowledges social stigmas that impact gendered, social, political, religious, cultural, and racial oppression. This platform acts as a safe space for artists and non-artists to discuss and share these issues, which may or may not result in an exhibition. She completed her BFA in Art History from University of Dhaka in 2014 and previously interned at the Dhaka Art Center, a Dhaka based non-profit art centre. Her research on the crafts of Kushtia, Jhenaidah and Magura districts of Bangladesh has been published in Setouchi Catalogue: Bangladesh Crafts, 2014. She is also an alumna of Kennedy-Lugar Youth Exchange and Study (YES) programme and was previously involved in many social service and youth empowerment activities. Eve Lemesle PRODUCER Eve Lemesle is an arts producer based between Europe and South-Asia. She started the arts management agency called ‘What About Art’ in Mumbai in 2010. She has produced many exhibitions and consulted internationally for the Venice Biennale, Qatar Museums, Shanghai Biennale, Dhaka Art Summit, Kochi Biennale, the Asia Now art fair at La Monnaie de Paris, Soho House collection amongst others. She is currently a consultant with Reliance for the upcoming JIO World Centre in Mumbai. She is also a researcher at the Institute of Public Art at the University of Shanghai. Eve has been installing some of the most prestigious private and corporate art collections in South-Asia. Khan Md. Mobinul Haque Engineer Emma Sumner HEAD OF PUBLICATIONS Emma Sumner is the Head of Publications, Samdani Art Foundation and Dhaka Art Summit, and an independent writer, researcher and lecturer. Originally trained as a visual artist, in 2010 Emma was awarded an Arts and Humanities Research Council Studentship to study Art History and Curating. During her study and since graduating Emma has worked with numerous institutions and independent platforms, including Tate Liverpool, National Museums Liverpool and the Liverpool Biennale, she has lectured at Liverpool John Moores University, The University of Salford and Wirral Metropolitan and contributes regularly to numerous international platforms including, Art Agenda, Monopol Magazin and e-flux Conversations. Nawreen Ahmed COMMUNICATIONS MANAGER Nawreen Ahmed is working as Communications Manager for Samdani Art Foundation. She has worked as Junior Operations Officer for ME SOLshare Limited and taught Strategic Management and Business English while she worked as a Lecturer for BiMS. She has completed her BBA from Heriot Watt University and MBA from Eastern University DAS 2018 Team Guest Curators Lena Eriksson ART MEDIATION ADVISORS Inviting multidisciplinary collaborations Lena Eriksson’s work encompasses various approaches and genres including performance, drawing, installation, video and organising projects. She was an editorial board member of the web art journal Neulandmagazine (www.neuland-mag.net), and coorganiser of Kasko (www.kasko.ch) and a co-founder of lodypop (a projectspace for power without pressure and performance without panic). She gained her BA Painting from Ecole cantonale d’art du Valais in Sierre and her MA in Teaching and Art in Public Sphere from the University of Applied Sciences and Arts in Lucerne, where she is currently a Lecturer. Rachel Mader ART MEDIATION ADVISORS Rachel Mader is an art researcher. Since 2012 she has directed the competence centre Art, Design & Public Spheres, at the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Art. Between 2009 and 2014, she headed up the project Organising Contemporary Arts: Artistic Practice and Cultural Policy in Postwar Britain. Between 2002 and 2009 she was research assistant in the field of arts research (at the Institute of Contemporary Arts Research at the Zurich University of the Arts), and in Art History (Bern and Zurich). Besides that she has been engaged as an art critic, curator and organiser of multiple events, including artists talks and transdisciplinary conferences. Her publications, talks and research cover the topics of artistic research, art in public spheres, art and ambivalence, political and community arts, feminist approaches in art and science, art mediation, cultural politics and institutional studies. Others CHAIRMAN Farooq Sobhan CO-CHAIR Aktari Mumtaz GOETHE INSTITUT BANGLADESH Philip Kuppers ALLIANCE FRANCAISE DE DHAKA, BANGLADESH Bruno Plasse Kendall Robbins BANGLADESH SHILPAKALA ACADEMY Liaquat Ali Lucky BANGLADESH NATIONAL MUSEUM Faizul Latif Chowdhury GREY ADVERTISING BANGLADESH Gousul Alam Shaon BANGLADESH MINISTRY OF CULTURAL AFFAIRS Abdul Mannan Ilias COLLECTOR Maya Barolo-Rizvi AUSTRALIAN HIGH COMMISSION-BANGLADESH H. E. Julia Niblett DHAKA ART SUMMIT, BANGLADESH Nadia Samdani MBE SAMDANI ART FOUNDATION, BANGLADESH Rajeeb Samdani Organising Comittee Members

ALL PROJECTS Film Programme Curated by Shanay Jhaveri Image: Ayisha Abraham, I Saw A God Dance, India, 2011, video still, 19 minutes, courtesy the artist, ©Ayisha Abraham Passages Shanay Jhaveri Nirad C. Chaudhuri was born in 1897 in the small town of Kishoreganj in the district of Mymensing, now a part of Bangladesh. A tiny and frail man, standing at five feet and weighing just about 43 kilograms, Chaudhuri was a writer and scholar, who took himself and his experience of life as his primary subject. Chaudhuri died in 1999 three months before his 102nd birthday. He published his first book The Autobiography of an Unknown Indian in 1951 at almost precisely the halfway point of his life. Chaudhuri witnessed a flourishing empire, its decline, the birth of a ‘new’ modern nation, its initial socialist incarnation and then its eventual transition into a capitalist behemoth. Very productive, he penned several polemical books, and moved to Oxford in 1970 and never returned to India. He was 57 years old when he made that journey, one that he had prepared for his entire life. The Autobiography of an Unknown Indian is a ground-zero account, apparent almost from the very first pages, of how an ordinary citizen of India interfaced with the British Empire, physically, emotionally, as well as intellectually. Chaudhuri, when writing the book, was literally the unknown man of his title, living modestly in Delhi, writing scripts for All India Radio. What makes the book so distinctive is that Chaudhuri wrote with no literary model or precedent. The life of the common Indian, unacknowledged in any sphere, had not until the middle of the twentieth century been scripted on a page. Not being born to privilege, or granted its advantages, Chaudhuri assembled his knowledge of all things European at Calcutta’s Imperial College and by purchasing books at tremendous personal cost. Committed to cultivating his intellect, Chaudhuri consciously shed certain traits and habits. For instance, once he began to live in Delhi he gave up writing in Bengali (it is completely absent from The Autobiography of an Unknown Indian ) and, for the first time in his life, started wearing Western clothes and eating non-Indian food. Chaudhuri’s book leads with a dedication to the British Empire, which occasioned much controversy on publication, but he was no apologist for the British, frustrated as he was by their resistance to Westernised Indians. On the other hand, he shared with the British little enthusiasm for nationalist leaders and Indian nationalism. His views on India were often unpleasant, and at times unjustified. Clearly, Chaudhuri was not writing for the fallen Empire, nor was he addressing the new nation: neither he nor his prose fell into a particular political or national regime. It would seem that Chaudhuri is a fitful example of Edward Said’s assertion of “gone are the binary oppositions dear to the nationalist and imperialist enterprise… new alignments are rapidly coming into view, and it is those new alignments that now provoke and challenge the fundamentally static notion of identity that has been the core of cultural thought during the era of imperialism.”1 1Edward Said, Culture and Imperialism , New York: Random House, 1993, xxiv-xxv The 1972 documentary by Ismail Merchant and James Ivory Adventures of a Brown Man in Search of a Civilization commissioned by BBC, vividly and unapologetically captures Chaudhuri in England, living out his western affectations. The film is a captivating portrayal of a postcolonial intellectual and forms the primary point of orientation for my film programme Passages for the 3rd Edition of the Dhaka Art Summit, which will play across two spaces in the Shilpakala Academy. Adventures of a Brown Man in Search of a Civilization will show on the hour every hour in an independent ancillary space to the Academy’s auditorium where rest of the programme, organised into thematic group screenings will be projected at scheduled times. The thematic screenings build off concerns that come to bear in Adventures of a Brown Man in Search of a Civilization. The most direct association can be made to those films in the programme that preoccupy themselves with the lives of individuals who have lived between various geographical contexts, and like Chaudhuri “challenge the fundamentally static notion of identity.” These include Ayisha Abraham’s I Saw A God Dance (2011) about the self exoticizing, transracial gay dancer Ram Gopal who popularised Indian classical dance in the West during early half of the twentieth century, an extract from Leslie Thornton’s The Great Invisible (ongoing) which focuses on Isaballe Eberhardt, a Victorian woman who dressed up as a man to travel freely in North Africa during the late nineteenth century, or Aykan Safoğlu’s Off White Tulips (2013) a semi personalised account of the queer American writer James Baldwin’s time in Istanbul in the 1960’s. The trips made by the filmmakers themselves are also integrated, as in Anita Fernandez’s Un Balcon En Afrique (1980) where Fernandez is seen living in a tree house somewhere in Bissau, observing the city from above, but not physically interacting with it and conversely Narcisa Hirsch’s dreamlike Patagonia (1976) that centers itself on a corporeal engagement with the plains and mountains of Patagonia. Alongside, these films is Mati Diop’s A Thousand Sun’s (2013) set in contemporary Dakar, which follows the cattle herder Magaye Niang who was the star of one of the most iconic films of African cinema Touki- Bouki (1973) made by Djibril Diop Mambety, who happens to be Mati Diop’s uncle. In Touki-Bouki Niang along with his then companion Mory conspired to find ways to migrate to France, but A Thousand Sun’s finds them 40 years later still in Dakar, no closer to Paris. The film is a heartbreaking reflection on the notion of self-exile and failed aspirations. Djibril Diop Mamberty himself makes an appearance in ‘Passages’ in Jean-Pierre Bekolo’s short filmic portrait Grandma’s Grammar (1996) in which the legendary filmmaker ruminates on filmmaking and the potential the cinematic holds in telling stories of an emotional and affective nature. The subjective and intimate condition of being in exile, and the complexity in expressing these circumstances is further explored in Bouchra Khalili’s Chapter 1: Mother Tongues (2012) from her Speeches Series in which Khalili collaborated with five exiled people based in Paris and its outskirts, inviting them to translate, memorise, and relay fragments of texts from political thought and contemporary culture written by Malcom X, Abdelkrim El Khattabi, Édouard Glissant, Aimé Césaire, and Mahmoud Darwish. The film programme seeks to move beyond a literal understanding and consideration of travel - one that might focus exclusively on, say, works made by traveling artists - and consequently devotes a section to those films that relate the journeys made by objects across differing contexts and scenarios. It pairs Chris Marker and Alain Resnais’s Statues Also Die (1953) that reflects on African tribal objects that have been gathered by ethnographic museums in the West, with Bahman Kiarostami’s The Treasure Cave (2009) where the story of the The Museum of Contemporary Art in Tehran and its comprehensive collection of modern western art is told. Yto Barrada’s False Start (2015) is an observation on Moroccan fossils and the counterfeiting industry that has sprung up around them, while Lois Patiño’s hallucinatory Night Without Distance (2015) is a portrait of border smuggling between Portugal and Galicia. Objects like LP covers of jazz, blues and salsa in Kader Attia’s Silence Injuries (2013), the pieces of fabrics that Jodie Mack’s delightful animates in her films, kitschy dinnerwear sets in Ana Vaz’s Occidente (2014), a roll of film itself in Jennifer Reeves Landfill 16 (2011) or the collections of objects gathered by artists in their homes or studios as witnessed in Ben Rivers Things (2014) Narcisa Hirsch’s Taller (Workshop) (1975), and Kohei Ando My Collections (1988) are regarded as having expressive potential, and able to convey particular cultural and personal histories. A broader inquiry into other kinds of voyages, is part of the programmes itinerary, and while some of the aforementioned films recount literal acts of travel across territories by people and objects, it also makes room for work like Lisl Ponger’s Phantom Foreign Vienna (2004) in which Ponger does not leave Vienna, but films over seventy different cultures and nations, simply by visiting different neighborhoods in the city. In Ponger’s film Vienna becomes ‘global’, so to speak. She is constructing her own world map, reinforcing that map making itself is an ideological act, something which is further underscored by Anna Bella Geiger in her Elementary Maps No. 3 (1976), where Geiger dwells on the shifting cartographic lines that depict Latin America, and the numerous stereotypes and myths that are projected onto it. Place as an abstraction, the way it resides in memory, but also the more phenomenological and emotional experience of geography is a distinct strand of the programme, most forcibly felt in Claudio Caldini’s pulsating Vadi Samvadi (1981), Sylvia Schedelbauer’s overwhelming Sea of Vapors (2014), Ashim Ahluwalia’s subtle Events in a Cloud Chamber (2016) and Alexandre Larose’s mesmerizing Brouillard – Passage # 15 (2014) in which a single unedited roll of 35mm is exposed 39 times as the filmmaker walks along the same forest path to a water body. Landscapes themselves hold emotions, those particularly that are scarred by violence, and this is suggested in a cluster of films that comprises Mani Kaul’s rarely seen but stunning film on Kashmir Before My Eyes (1989), Soon Mi Yoo’s Dangerous Supplement (2005) assembled from found footage shot by American soldiers during the Korean war, Nguyen Trinh Thi’s Landscape Series # 1 (2013) in which anonymous people are pointing to landscapes across Vietnam, Lamia Joreige’s Untitled: 1997-2003 (1997 - 2003) filmed in Beirut after the Lebanese war officially ended and Basma Alsharif’s Deep Sleep (2014) that alludes to the situation in Gaza, but by filming ancient ruins in Athens and Malta. The trauma, terror, fear, discomfort and threat that lurks in urban cities like Bangkok and Luanda is compellingly communicated in Taiki Sakpisit’s A Ripe Volcano (2011) and Kiluanji Kia Henda’s Concrete Affection – Zopo Lady (2014) respectively. There is also the unknown, the landscapes of outer space in Frances Bodomo’s Afronauts (2014), and of future Vietnam submerged underwater in Freddy Nadolny Poustochkine and Minh Quy Tru’o’ng’s Mars in the Well (2014). As is evident, this film programme is committed to exploring certain colonial and postcolonial conditions – belonging, difference, exile, displacement - that are part of the regions history and present day reality, but with a resolutely transnational perspective. It consciously eschews a regional focus, and presents films from across the world, hoping to manifest as an expansive constellation of shared affinities and empathies, but one where each work still retains it own specificity. Perhaps, ‘Passages’ itself can be regarded as a veritable travelogue, snippets and fragments, of images and sounds, gathered together, to evoke, provoke and trigger emotional responses and memories, and by doing so initiate a set of reflections as to why, when and how do we travel? The experience of any place, here, there, elsewhere, is never static or fixed. It is informed and charged by our interior state of being, by a brew of reminiscences and past resonances that constantly shift, oscillate, and change, as we keep moving. Claude Lévi-Strauss has written in his masterpiece Tristes Tropiques: “the accident of travel often produces ambiguities such as these. Because I spent my first weeks on United States soil in Puerto Rico, I was in future able to find America in Spain. Just, as several years later, through visiting my first English University with a campus surrounded by Neo-Gothic buildings at Dacca in Western Bengal, I now look upon Oxford as a kind of India that has succeeded in controlling the mud, the mildew and the ever encroaching vegetation.”2 2Claude Lévi-Strauss, Tristes Tropiques, Penguin, 1974, 35. Maybe, like Lévi-Strauss, Chaudhuri found Dhaka in Oxford? Will we find Oxford in Dhaka? I - I Saw A God Dance , Ayisha Abraham, India, 2011, 19 minutes - Off White Tulips , Aykan Safoğlu, Turkey, 2013, 24 minutes - The Great Invisible (Excerpt) , Leslie Thornton, United States of America, ongoing, 20 minutes Total Running Time: 63 minutes II - Mapas Elementares No. 3 (Elementary Maps No. 3) , Anna Bella Geiger, Brazil, 1976, 10 minutes - Speeches: Chapter 1 - Mother Tongues , Bouchra Khalili, France, 2012, 23 minutes - Mille Soleils (A Thousand Suns), Mati Diop, Senegal/France, 2013, 45 minutes Total Running Time: 78 minutes III - Un Balcon En Afrique , Anita Fernandez, Guinea-Bissau, 1980, 17 minutes - Patagonia , Narcisa Hirsch, Argentina, 1970, 10 minutes - Phantom Foreign Vienna , Lisl Ponger, Austria, 1991-2004, 27 minutes Total Running Time: 54 minutes IV - Les Statues Meurent Aussi (Statues Also Die) , Chris Marker and Alain Resnais, France, 1952-53, 30 minutes - The Treasure Cave , Bahman Kiarostami, Iran, 2009, 43 minutes Total Running Time: 73 minutes V - La Grammaire De Ma Granďmère (Grandma’s Grammar) , Jean Pierre Bekolo, Cameroon, 1996, 9 minutes - Silence’s Injuries , Kader Attia, Germany, 2014, 13 minutes - Occidente , Ana Vaz, France/Portugal, 2014, 15 minutes - Faux Départ (False Start) , Yto Barrada, Morocco, 2015, 23 minutes - Noite Sem Distância (Night Without Distance) , Lois Patiños, Portugal, 2015, 23 minutes Total Running Time: 83 minutes VI - Persian Pickles , Jodie Mack, United States of America, 2012, 3 minutes - My Collections , Kohei Ando, Japan, 1988, 10 minutes - Blanket Statement # 1 - Home is Where the Heart Is , Jodie Mack, United States of America, 2012, 3 minutes - Taller (Workshop) , Narcisa Hirsch, Argentina, 1975, 11 minutes - Razzle Dazzle , Jodie Mack, United States of America, 2014, 5 minutes - Things , Ben Rivers, United Kingdom, 2014, 20 minutes - Undertone Overture , Jodie Mack, United States of America, 2013, 10 minutes Total Running Time: 61 minutes VII - Before My Eyes , Mani Kaul, India, 1989, 26 minutes - Landscape Series # 1 , Nguyen Trinh Thi, Vietnam, 2013, 5 minutes - Dangerous Supplement , Soon-Mi Yoo, South Korea/United States of America, 2005, 14 minutes - Deep Sleep , Basma Alsharif, Greece/Malta/ Palestinian Territory, 2014, 12 minutes - Untitled 1997 -2003 , Lamia Joreige, Lebanon, 1997-2003, 8 minutes Total Running Time: 65 minutes VIII - A Ripe Volcano , Taiki Sakpisit, Thailand, 2011, 15 minutes - Concrete Affection , Zopo Lady – Kiluanji Kia Hende, Angola, 2014, 12 minutes - Afronauts , Frances Bodomo, United States of America, 2014, 13 minutes - Sao Hoa Noi Day Gieng (Mars in the Well) , Freddy Nadolny Poustochkine and Truong Minh Quy, Vietnam, 2014, 19 minutes Total Running Time: 59 minutes IX - Vadi Samvadi , Claudio Caldini, Argentina, 1981, 6 minutes - Brouillard - Passage # 15 , Alexandre Larose, Canada, 2014, 10 minutes - Events in a Cloud Chamber (2016) , Ashim Ahluwalia and Akbar Padamsee, India, 2016, 15 minutes - Landfill 16 , Jennifer Reeves, United States of America, 2011, 9 minutes - Meer der Dünste (Sea of Vapors) , Sylvia Schedelbauer, Germany, 2014, 15 minutes Total Running Time: 55 minutes

ALL PROJECTS A Beast, A God, And A Line Kunsthall Trondheim, Norway, 30 Nov 2019 - 8 Mar 2020 Dhaka Art Summit 2018 exhibition, A beast, a god, and a line travels to Kunsthall Trondheim in Norway for its fifth iteration, featuring many works commissioned by the Samdani Art Foundation as part of exhibition's the initial edition during DAS 2018. This exhibition was organised by the Samdani Art Foundation in collaboration with Para Site, Hong Kong and the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw. Image Courtesy: Aage A. Mikalsen/ Kunsthall Trondheim

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

The Dhaka Art Summit (DAS) is an international, non-commercial research and exhibition platform for art and architecture related to South Asia. With a core focus on Bangladesh, DAS re-examines how we think about these forms of art in both a regional and an international context. PARTNERS TEAM The 1st edition of the Summit was held in collaboration with Shilpakala Academy and Bangladesh National Museum and showcased the works of 249 artists and 19 galleries . The 1st edition of the Summit focused only on the local artists and galleries. The Summit was visited by over 40,000 visitors The Summit also organised talks. The Dhaka Art Summit (DAS) is an international, non-commercial research and exhibition platform for art and architecture related to South Asia. With a core focus on Bangladesh, DAS re-examines how we think about these forms of art in both a regional and an international context. Samdani Art Foundation also awarded the Samdani Artist Development Award to Khaled Hasan and Samdani Young Talent Award to Musrat Reazi at the closing ceremony of Dhaka Art Summit. The award was judged by a panel of international judges that consisted of Kyla McDonald, Assistant Curator from Tate Modern Museum; Deepak Ananth, a professor at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in France; Elaine W. Ng, Editor and Publisher of Art Asia Pacific Magazine; Bose Krishnamachari, founder of Kochi Biennale; renowned artist Ravinder Reddy from India, and Paris-based Bangladeshi artist Shahabuddin Ahmed.

The Samdani Art Award, Bangladesh's premier art award, has created an internationally recognised platform to showcase the work of young Bangladeshi Artists to an audience of international arts professionals. SAMDANI ART AWARD 2023 SHORTLIST Sumi Anjuman Sumi Anjuman, হাওয়ায় নেওয়া চাঁদ, Winds carry moon, 2021-2022. Interdisciplinary medium. Commissioned and Produced by Samdani Art Foundation for DAS 2023. Courtesy of the artist and Samdani Art Foundation. Photographer: Farhad Rahman b.1989 Sohorab Rabbey Sohorab Rabbey, Almanac of an eroded land, borrowed from our children 2022-2023. Installation. Commissioned and Produced by Samdani Art Foundation for DAS 2023. Courtesy of the artist and Samdani Art Foundation. Photographer: Farhad Rahman b.1994 Rasel Rana Rasel Rana, একজন বাগানির স্বপ্ন , The Gardener’s Dream 2023. Acrylic on canvas. Commissioned and Produced by Samdani Art Foundation for DAS 2023. Courtesy of the artist and Samdani Art Foundation. Photographer: Farhad Rahman b. 1995 Rakibul Anwar Rakibul Anwar, মহানগর, Mohanagar, 2023. Drawings on paper. Commissioned and Produced by Samdani Art Foundation for DAS 2023. Courtesy of the artist and Samdani Art Foundation. Photographer: Farhad Rahman b.1993 Mojahid Musa Mojahid Musa, Assimilated Musing VI, 2022-2023. Sculptural installation using recycled materials, clay, machinery parts, wood, metal, hair, jute, ornaments, found objects from nature, adhesive. Commissioned and Produced by Samdani Art Foundation for DAS 2023. Courtesy of the artist and Samdani Art Foundation. Photographer: Farhad Rahman b. 1990 Habiba Nowrose Habiba Nowrose, Salvation, 2023. Photography. Commissioned and Produced by Samdani Art Foundation for DAS 2023. Courtesy of the artist and Samdani Art Foundation. Photographer: Farhad Rahman b.1989 Faysal Zaman Faysal Zaman, (অ )পূর্ণ, (un)filled, 2021-2023. Installation. Commissioned and Produced by Samdani Art Foundation for DAS 2023. Courtesy of the artist and Samdani Art Foundation. Photographer: Farhad Rahman b. 1996 Dipa Mahbuba Yasmin Dipa Mahbuba Yasmin in association with Md.Solayman, Md. Dulal & Jagannath Das, ঠাউর, Gaze, 2022-2023. Pinting on canvas, paper, wood. Commissioned and Produced by Samdani Art Foundation for DAS 2023. Courtesy of the artist and Samdani Art Foundation. Photographer: Farhad Rahman b.1989 Dinar Sultana Putul Dinar Sultana Putul, A space without a ship, 2023. Mixed media. Commissioned and Produced by Samdani Art Foundation for DAS 2023. Courtesy of the artist and Samdani Art Foundation. Photographer: Farhad Rahman b.1989 Ashfika Rahman Ashfika Rahman, Death of A Home, 2023. Installation. Commissioned and Produced by Samdani Art Foundation for DAS 2023. Courtesy of the artist and Samdani Art Foundation. Photographer: Farhad Rahman b. 1988 Fazla Rabbi Fatiq, মরীচিকা, Mirage 2022-2023, Photographs. Fazla Rabbi Fatiq, মরীচিকা, Mirage 2022-2023, Photographs. Fazla Rabbi Fatiq, মরীচিকা, Mirage 2022-2023, Photographs. Fazla Rabbi Fatiq, মরীচিকা, Mirage 2022-2023, Photographs. Fazla Rabbi Fatiq, মরীচিকা, Mirage 2022-2023, Photographs. Fazla Rabbi Fatiq, মরীচিকা, Mirage 2022-2023, Photographs. Fazla Rabbi Fatiq, মরীচিকা, Mirage 2022-2023, Photographs. Fazla Rabbi Fatiq, মরীচিকা, Mirage 2022-2023, Photographs. Fazla Rabbi Fatiq, মরীচিকা, Mirage 2022-2023, Photographs. Fazla Rabbi Fatiq, মরীচিকা, Mirage 2022-2023, Photographs. Fazla Rabbi Fatiq, মরীচিকা, Mirage 2022-2023, Photographs. Fazla Rabbi Fatiq, মরীচিকা, Mirage 2022-2023, Photographs. Fazla Rabbi Fatiq, মরীচিকা, Mirage 2022-2023, Photographs. Fazla Rabbi Fatiq, মরীচিকা, Mirage 2022-2023, Photographs. Fazla Rabbi Fatiq, মরীচিকা, Mirage 2022-2023, Photographs. Fazla Rabbi Fatiq, মরীচিকা, Mirage 2022-2023, Photographs. Fazla Rabbi Fatiq, মরীচিকা, Mirage 2022-2023, Photographs. Fazla Rabbi Fatiq, মরীচিকা, Mirage 2022-2023, Photographs. Fazla Rabbi Fatiq, মরীচিকা, Mirage 2022-2023, Photographs. Fazla Rabbi Fatiq, মরীচিকা, Mirage 2022-2023, Photographs. Fazla Rabbi Fatiq, মরীচিকা, Mirage 2022-2023, Photographs. Fazla Rabbi Fatiq, মরীচিকা, Mirage 2022-2023, Photographs. Fazla Rabbi Fatiq, মরীচিকা, Mirage 2022-2023, Photographs. Fazla Rabbi Fatiq, মরীচিকা, Mirage 2022-2023, Photographs. Fazla Rabbi Fatiq, মরীচিকা, Mirage 2022-2023, Photographs. Fazla Rabbi Fatiq, মরীচিকা, Mirage 2022-2023, Photographs. Fazla Rabbi Fatiq, মরীচিকা, Mirage 2022-2023, Photographs. Fazla Rabbi Fatiq, মরীচিকা, Mirage 2022-2023, Photographs. Fazla Rabbi Fatiq, মরীচিকা, Mirage 2022-2023, Photographs. Fazla Rabbi Fatiq, মরীচিকা, Mirage 2022-2023, Photographs. MD Fazla Rabbi Fatiq b. 1995 Cumilla; lives and works in Cumilla WINNER Mirage is a series of photographs that attempts to highlight the corruption that lies behind many construction projects in Bangladesh. Focusing on numerous bridges that started to be built in canals, open fields, and agricultural lands over the past two decades - but that now lie abandoned and unused – Fatiq draws attention to the ongoing impact and the sheer scale of this predicament. In several instances, his works depict bridges that have collapsed, with their approach roads in ruins if they were ever made at all. These monumental, almost surreal forms now dominate landscapes across the country, symbolising for Fatiq the systemic corruption in the construction industry where huge budgets are misused and projects left unfinished. Although this series of photographs is devoid of people, it nonetheless conveys lost hopes of connectivity between places and communities, particularly in rural areas where local populations have no option but to move around by water for much of the year. While his works can be hauntingly beautiful, Fatiq’s approach to his subject matter is shaped by an acute social and political sensibility. In Mirage, he deftly combines aspects of traditional photography with elements of abstraction, symbolism and ambiguity, giving rise to the question of what lies underneath the surface of an image. Samdani Art Award 2023 The Samdani Art Foundation announced Bangladeshi artists Purnima Aktar and Md Fazla Rabbi Fatiq as joint winners of the biannual Samdani Art Award. It is the first time two finalists have been awarded the prize which aims to support, promote and highlight the country’s emerging contemporary artists. Purnima Aktar and Md Fazla Rabbi Fatiq were selected from a shortlist of 12 artists whose work was part of an exhibition curated by Anne Barlow (Director at Tate St Ives) at DAS 2023. The members of the international jury included Ibrahim Mahama, artist; Tarun Nagesh, Curator of Asian Art at the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art (QAGOMA) in Brisbane, Australia; Roobina Karode, Chief Curator, Kiran Nadar Museum of Art; and Simon Castets, Former Samdani Art Award Curator and Director of Strategic Initiatives, LUMA Arles. Md Fazla Rabbi Fatiq is the recipient of the residency at the Delfina Foundation and Purnima Aktar is the recipient of the residency in Ghana, hosted by Ibrahim Mahama’s Savannah Centre for Contemporary Art and Red Clay. Purnima Aktar,আঠারো ভাটির দেশ, A Tale of Eighteen Tides, 2022-2023. Installation. Purnima Aktar,আঠারো ভাটির দেশ, A Tale of Eighteen Tides, 2022-2023. Installation. Purnima Aktar,আঠারো ভাটির দেশ, A Tale of Eighteen Tides, 2022-2023. Installation. Purnima Aktar,আঠারো ভাটির দেশ, A Tale of Eighteen Tides, 2022-2023. Installation. Purnima Aktar,আঠারো ভাটির দেশ, A Tale of Eighteen Tides, 2022-2023. Installation. Purnima Aktar,আঠারো ভাটির দেশ, A Tale of Eighteen Tides, 2022-2023. Installation. Purnima Aktar,আঠারো ভাটির দেশ, A Tale of Eighteen Tides, 2022-2023. Installation. Purnima Aktar,আঠারো ভাটির দেশ, A Tale of Eighteen Tides, 2022-2023. Installation. Purnima Aktar,আঠারো ভাটির দেশ, A Tale of Eighteen Tides, 2022-2023. Installation. Purnima Aktar,আঠারো ভাটির দেশ, A Tale of Eighteen Tides, 2022-2023. Installation. Purnima Aktar,আঠারো ভাটির দেশ, A Tale of Eighteen Tides, 2022-2023. Installation. Purnima Aktar,আঠারো ভাটির দেশ, A Tale of Eighteen Tides, 2022-2023. Installation. Purnima Aktar,আঠারো ভাটির দেশ, A Tale of Eighteen Tides, 2022-2023. Installation. Purnima Aktar,আঠারো ভাটির দেশ, A Tale of Eighteen Tides, 2022-2023. Installation. Purnima Aktar,আঠারো ভাটির দেশ, A Tale of Eighteen Tides, 2022-2023. Installation. Purnima Aktar,আঠারো ভাটির দেশ, A Tale of Eighteen Tides, 2022-2023. Installation. Purnima Aktar,আঠারো ভাটির দেশ, A Tale of Eighteen Tides, 2022-2023. Installation. Purnima Aktar,আঠারো ভাটির দেশ, A Tale of Eighteen Tides, 2022-2023. Installation. Purnima Aktar,আঠারো ভাটির দেশ, A Tale of Eighteen Tides, 2022-2023. Installation. Purnima Aktar,আঠারো ভাটির দেশ, A Tale of Eighteen Tides, 2022-2023. Installation. Purnima Aktar,আঠারো ভাটির দেশ, A Tale of Eighteen Tides, 2022-2023. Installation. Purnima Aktar,আঠারো ভাটির দেশ, A Tale of Eighteen Tides, 2022-2023. Installation. Purnima Aktar,আঠারো ভাটির দেশ, A Tale of Eighteen Tides, 2022-2023. Installation. Purnima Aktar,আঠারো ভাটির দেশ, A Tale of Eighteen Tides, 2022-2023. Installation. Purnima Aktar,আঠারো ভাটির দেশ, A Tale of Eighteen Tides, 2022-2023. Installation. Purnima Aktar,আঠারো ভাটির দেশ, A Tale of Eighteen Tides, 2022-2023. Installation. Purnima Aktar,আঠারো ভাটির দেশ, A Tale of Eighteen Tides, 2022-2023. Installation. Purnima Aktar,আঠারো ভাটির দেশ, A Tale of Eighteen Tides, 2022-2023. Installation. Purnima Aktar,আঠারো ভাটির দেশ, A Tale of Eighteen Tides, 2022-2023. Installation. Purnima Aktar,আঠারো ভাটির দেশ, A Tale of Eighteen Tides, 2022-2023. Installation. Purnima Aktar b. 1997, Narayanganj; lives and works in Dhaka. WINNER The Sundarbans mangrove forest, known as the ‘land of eighteen tides’, is host to a vast range of flora and fauna, including the Bengal tiger. According to local folklore, the Sundarbans is watched over by Bonbibi, a revered female deity. It is said that for hundreds of years, woodcutters, honey collectors and others whose livelihoods depend on the forest, have prayed to Bonbibi to protect them from harm. Despite being a UNESCO World Heritage site, the fragile ecosystem of the Sundarbans is increasingly under threat due to climate change and environmental pollution. A Tale of Eighteen Tides is an allegorical work that explores this loss of biodiversity in the forest alongside the cultures and traditions that are in danger of dying out with it. Comprising eighteen parts, the installation depicts the figure of Bonbibi alongside a Bengal tiger and other wild animals, with those species that are already extinct painted in monochrome. Aktar’s work is inspired by nature and the myths and symbols of the Bengal Delta, as well as by artistic source including Mughal miniatures, Tantric paintings and Bangla folk art. She often combines these in her work to address issues around social and environmental justice. 2023 2020 2018 2016 2014 2012 Award Archive

ALL PROJECTS Gidree Bawlee Foundation of Arts Dhaka Art Summit 2020 Gidree Bawlee Foundation of Arts in northwest Bangladesh acts as a catalyst for social inclusivity through community-focused activities, bringing together diverse members of their neighbourhood as well as artists to experiment with local cultural traditions. In 2018, they created ‘Hamra’ to develop experimental forms of puppeteering. The presentation in DAS, ‘Golpota Shobar’ performs local history and myths surrounding a small village and the many living and non-living beings that inhabit it – as imagined by a theatre company of children. The handmade puppets made with found materials by the children tell stories of small incidents in the village – natural and/or supernatural that connect to long histories of waves of migration through to recent south-to-north movements of climate change refugees. ‘Golpota Shobar’ is realized in collaboration with Jolputul Puppet Studio and was performed inside of Taloi Havini’s ‘Reclamation’ installation at 4pm on 7, 8, 9, 14 and 15 February, with periodic interventions within the puppet theatre within this amoeba. The children also conducted theatre workshops with Dhaka based children during the DAS school days, performing the results of their workshop from 12.45–1.15pm on 11 and 13 February.

The Dhaka Art Summit (DAS) is an international, non-commercial research and exhibition platform for art and architecture related to South Asia. With a core focus on Bangladesh, DAS re-examines how we think about these forms of art in both a regional and an international context. PARTNERS TEAM The 2nd edition of the Dhaka Art Summit unfolded from February 7 to 9, 2014 at the Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy. Marking a strategic shift, the Summit decided to concentrate its focus on South Asia starting from this edition. DAS 2014 showcased a diverse array of programs, including five curatorial exhibitions by both international and Bangladeshi curators, along with 14 solo art projects curated by Diana Campbell Betancourt, the Artistic Director of the Samdani Foundation. These projects celebrated artists from across South Asia. The summit encompassed a citywide public art initiative, performances, the screening of experimental films, speaker panels, and the active participation of 15 Bangladeshi and 17 South Asia-focused galleries. The Dhaka Art Summit (DAS) is an international, non-commercial research and exhibition platform for art and architecture related to South Asia. With a core focus on Bangladesh, DAS re-examines how we think about these forms of art in both a regional and an international context. During the Dhaka Art Summit, the Samdani Art Award was presented to the talented Bangladeshi artist Ayesha Sultana. The winner was chosen by an international jury panel chaired by Aaron Cezar, the Director of Delfina Foundation, and included Adriano Pedrosa (Independent Curator), Jessica Morgan (Daskalopoulos Curator, International Art, Tate Modern), Sandhini Poddar (Associate Curator, Guggenheim Museum), and Pooja Sood (Director, KHOJ India). The awarded artist received a three-month residency at the Delfina Foundation in the United Kingdom. Exhibitions & Programmes The Summit is a free and ticketless event and this year welcomed 138,000 visitors in 4 days, of which 800 were international visitors and operated tours for 2,500 students from 30+ schools. Those participating included over 300 emerging and established artists, 100 speakers who attended as part of the Talks Programme, as well as internationally renowned curators and writers, and attracted visitors from over 70 international institutions, who attended the Summit to extend and further their research into the region. Visas to Happiness- Children's Workshop DAS 2014 Lifeblood DAS 2014 Curated by Rosa Maria Falvo Citizens of Time DAS 2014 Curated by Veeranganakumari Solanki Then | Why Not? -Solo Art Projects DAS 2014 Curated by Diana Campbell Ex-Ist DAS 2014 Curated by Ambereen Karamant B/DESH DAS 2014 Curated by Deepak Ananth Liberty DAS 2014 Curated by Md. Muniruzzaman assisted by Takir Hossain LOAD MORE

The Samdani Art Award, Bangladesh's premier art award, has created an internationally recognised platform to showcase the work of young Bangladeshi Artists to an audience of international arts professionals. Mizanur Rahman Chowdhury b. 1981, Noakhali WINNER Mizanur Rahman Chowdhury’s (b. 1981, Noakhali) interdisciplinary practice plays with everyday objects to create interactions, which sit between installation and assemblage. By creating unfamiliar situations for everyday objects, Chowdhury creates new interpretations of familiar objects while opening new experimental territories with open-ended possibilities. He received a Master of Fine Arts in Printmaking at the University of Dhaka (2011). His work has been shown in group exhibitions throughout Bangladesh. DAS 2018 Commission : The Soul Who Fails to Fly into the Space (2017) Humans are the ultimate expression of freedom. Connected with the cosmos, with nature, and the higher forces through spirituality, the human body is a reflection of all such associations. The soul-body-mind desires to become immortal, to go beyond the vacuum of death, flying into the cosmos time and again, but failing to meet eternity. The shiny golden fountain is like a reservoir - the essence of life where the eternal sound of this cosmos reverberates. Samdani Art Award 2018 INTERVIEW SELECTION COMMITTEE Sheela Gowda (artist, based in Bangalore, India) Runa Islam (artist, based in London) Subodh Gupta (artist, based in New Delhi, India) Mona Hatoum (artist, based in London) Chaired by Aaron Cezar (Director, Delfina Foundation) IN PARTNERSHIP WITH New North and South Network Liverpool Biennial Delfina Foundation For the 2018 edition of the Samdani Art Award, each of the eleven shortlisted artists exhibited newly commissioned work in an exhibition at the Dhaka Art Summit (DAS) from February 2-10, 2018, guest curated by Simon Castets, Director of the Swiss Institute, New York. During the summit, the jury selected Mizanur Rahman Chowdhury as the recipient of the 2018 award. Announced during the DAS 2018 Opening Celebratory Dinner on the 2 February by Tate Director, Dr. Maria Balshaw, Rahman Chowdhury will receive a six-week residency with the Delfina Foundation in London. In association with the Liverpool Biennial, each of the shortlist artists have also received curatorial mentoring support from the New North and South network. SAMDANI ART AWARD 2018 SHORTLIST Shikh Sabbir Alam Discern the shape, form, within space (2016), acrylic on canvas. Image courtesy: the artist. Shikh Sabbir Alam (b. 1982, Kushtia) embraces the practice of freehand drawing to plot out his thoughts, which evolve into a more permanent process, predominantly painting. Alam embraces each part of the process to express his understanding of a subject; each dot, line, shape or colour helps him to map out an idea. His work portrays the process of our sensory system, creating a map to describe the elements and their position within the process. Alam received a Master of Fine Arts from the Oslo National Academy of the Arts, Norway (2016). Rakib Ahmed Untitled (2016), new photograph taken on old set acquired from photography studio that closed. Image courtesy: the artist. Rakib Ahmed (b. 1988, Netrakona) is a photographer and director whose work has been published broadly. His project “Faces of the City” documents the lost black and white photography studios – those that used darkrooms – of Bangladesh’s past. Ahmed received a Bachelor of Arts in Photography from Patshala – South Asian Media Academy (2010). Palash Bhattacharjee Marked (2017), microphone set, photographs, hammer etc., on display at "Ephemeral Perennial" at the Daily Star-Bengal Arts Precinct, Dhaka. Image courtesy: the artist. Palash Bhattacharjee (b. 1983, Chittagong) bridges performance, installation, and video within his practice. His works present aesthetic experimentations derived from personal experience, set in relation to human sensitivities and emotion. These are conscious and unconscious expressions of his everyday behaviours, excitements, and obsessions within the context of a society where narratives of a human’s existential reality seems to lose meaning in the face of larger political, social concerns. His work and performances have been included in numerous group exhibitions throughout Bangladesh as well as South Korea, Argentina, and the United States. Bhattacharjee received a Master in Fine Arts from the University of Chittagong (2006). Opper Zaman Insulate (2016), casting plaster, found objects, nails, rope and projected film. Image courtesy: the artist. Opper Zaman (b. 1995, Dhaka) examines the daily scenarios and codes everyday people participate in to survive within society, addressing factors such as social standing as well as race and culture, in an attempt to understand what others experience. Using a wide variety of media, Zaman creates spaces in which his audience can be emerged, and engage with, his concepts on how other people, living very different lives to his own, experience life. Zaman is currently working towards a Bachelor of Arts at the University of Hertfordshire. Marzia Farhana Text Sculpture (2017), mixed-media installation including book shelf, books, wires, paper plates etc. Image courtesy: the artist. Marzia Farhana (b. 1985, Dhaka) constructs precarious multimedia installations informed by Joseph Beuys’ anthropological understanding of art. Her practice is time- and space-based and ongoing, open to interpretation. Art for Farhana is an act of resistance, an act to resist the horror of the present wild condition of the world. She received her Masters of Fine Art from Central Saint Martins (2014) and bachelor of Fine Art in Graphic Design from the University of Dhaka (2009). Her work has been exhibited in multiple group shows in Bangladesh. She has attended residencies at the Khoj International Art Association Residency in Goa, India (2017) and the 16th International Festival in Iran (2010). Debasish Shom Untitled, from the artist’ ongoing project, In the Rivers Dark. Image courtesy: the artist. Debasish Shom (b. 1979, Bagerhat) was raised in rural Bangladesh and is part of the country’s Hindu minority. Shom’s work is a very personal form of self-expression motivated by his socio-political background and the psychological tension in the subjects he tackles. Working in the medium of photography, Shom uses alternative image-making and printing techniques, choosing the way he captures light through his lens based on the feelings he wants to communicate. He is currently a lecturer of Photographic Technique at Pathshala – South Asian Media Institute. His work has been published in CANVAS, The Daily Star, and Lens Culture among others. Asfika Rahman Untitled (2016), hand painted photograph from the artists Suspected project. Image courtesy: the artist. Asfika Rahman (b. 1988, Dhaka) is currently studying photography at the University of Applied Science and Arts in Germany, and received a professional degree in Documentary and Photojournalism from Pathshala – South Asian Media Institute (2016). Her practice sits between art and documentary, drawing inspiration from 19th century prints, which she recontextualises with new media. Photography has become the predominant medium and vehicle for expressing her views on complex systemic social issues. Aprita Singh Lopa Freedom in Femininity (2017), performance. Image courtesy: the artist. Aprita Singh Lopa (b. 1986, Kishoreganj) holds a Master of Fine Arts in Graphic Design from the University of Dhaka. Her work examines the relationship between the natural landscape and the creatures that reside within it. Lopa searches for ways to maintain and develop the worlds green spaces, while communicating the importance nature plays in everyday life through the mediums of ceramics and performance. She has been included in numerous group exhibitions within Bangladesh. Ahmed Rasel Untitled (2016), from the series Memories of Water in Tafalia, Dhaka. Image courtesy: the artist. Ahmed Rasel (b.1988, Barishal) is a faculty member of the Dhaka-based photography institute, Counter Foto. He earned a Masters in Bengali Literature from the University of Dhaka (2013) with the ambition of becoming a poet, before realising that photography could better blend his poetic feelings with his inner vision, memory, and personal history. Rasel is a visual storyteller. He presents the world as a continuation of the great human story, intertwined with his personal experiences, believing that every story forms part of our overall world history and that every human being is a historical element. His work has been published in Trouw, Private Magazine, F-stop magazine, and The Daily Independent, among others, and exhibited in photo festivals in Bangladesh and India. 2023 2020 2018 2016 2014 2012 Award Archive

ALL PROJECTS Nobody Told Me There Would be Days Like These Curated by Mustafa Zaman Assistant Curator: Ruxmini Reckvana Q Choudhury The 1980s was a decade during which art played an increasingly social-political role in Dhaka’s art scene. This defiant point of departure from ‘surface painting’, which saw its emergence in the 1960s, can be seen as a tectonic shift since this strain of artmaking continues to inform the discourses and debates across the cultural horizon in Bangladesh to this day. Artists sought detours and vocalised antagonistic positions primarily to dislodge art from its elite academic perch. Dehumanisation and storytelling became twin conduits for artists to formulate new strategies to articulate dissent. In artist-curated exhibitions, access to ideas and information on art and artists was supplied with the intention to edify the public. This ‘critical turn’ left its influence on many disciplines – it effected a change in how artists, poets, as well as theatre and film activists perceived the relationship between their works and society. Thus, the 1980s witnessed a determined detour through reframing of the ‘social’ and invocation of the ‘political’. New idioms were born out of the resistance movements waged against the longest-ruling military dictatorship in Bangladesh – the regime of the recently deceased general H.M. Ershad that lasted from 1981 to 1990. The dictator’s unscrupulous move to align with those who collaborated with the Pakistani army during the Liberation War in 1971, the pseudo-Islamic garb that came with the emerging brand of populism he was responsible for, the opening up of the economy to global market forces, and rising corruption coupled with political repression provided the backdrop for the subsequent resistance movements leading to the final overthrow of the dictator in 1990. To parse the developments of the 1980s, one can say that in the arts, it was the decade of radicalisation as interrogation won over introspection and action over passivity. It was an era of political resistance as well as cultural re-organisation. In the arts, this critical turn resulted out of the conviction that to topple the dictator one must spread antagonism in all spheres of life. After the fall of the dictator in 1990 – the fate of ‘democracy’ in Bangladesh became entangled with issues of corruption and flawed elections, and art and activism of the 1980s were carried over to subsequent decades to be reframed and re-organised to bear on various different goals. As DAS mounts its fifth edition, in which a synergy of the newest samples of South Asian art provide fodder for the public eye/mind, ‘Nobody Told Me There Would be Days Like These’ maps the history of groups that laid the ground for art and theatre, film and literary movements in the 1980s with the hope that we do not collectively renege on our promises made in favour of life. The exhibition’s title is a nod to a song from the same era by John Lennon and Yoko Ono. Visual Arts In the visual arts, Quamrul Hassan (1921–1988) set a visual language into motion that sought to critique the emerging ruling elite of the early 1970s. Otherwise well-known for his pleasant depiction of rural life, Hassan, who belonged to the first generation of artists in East Bengal when Pakistan was formed, tackled what may be termed as the gentrification of urban society and the concomitant loss of social values. His political art, which articulated a critical voice by crowding his canvas with symbolic motifs where the dominant minority or alienated elite is represented in both human and animal form, was the first attempt in Bangladeshi art to instrumentalise ‘social fact’. Later in the 1980s, a group of young artists calling themselves ‘Shomoy’ emerged fresh out of art institutions. The group’s politically cast art once again brought storytelling to centre stage and sought to redefine narrative painting in South Asia. Shomoy, which literally translates to time, sought political salvation, hoping to end the military misrule which coloured life in Bangladesh in the 1980s. Their creative acts percolated into a critical analysis of their time, often reflecting the prevailing mass discontent, seeking to restore the ethos of the 1971 Liberation War. The members of Shomoy were Dhali Al Mamoon (b. 1958), Wakilur Rahman (b. 1961), Habibur Rahman (b. 1958), Shishir Bhattacharjee (b. 1960), Nisar Hossain (b. 1960), Dilara Begum Jolly (b. 1960), Aziz Sharafi (b. 1956), Saidul Haque Juise (b. 1960), Ali Morshed Noton (b. 1958), Lala Rukh Selim (b. 1963), Tawfiqur Rahman (b. 1959). Shomoy works lay at the intersection of many fields of emerging discourses and forms. The most active Shomoy members, including Shishir Bhattacharjee, Dilara Begum Jolly, Nisar Hossain, Dhali Al Mamun, and Wakilur Rahman also transported their creative energy to activities which lay beyond the scope of their respective disciplines. To understand the drift, one must take into account how the idea of dissent began to redefine cultural production of the era. The most active protagonists of theatre, cinema and poetry began to respond to the unfolding political events and the marketisation of the economy. Shomoy artists worked simultaneously through various themes and trajectories, utilising the power latent in little-noticed popular culture of South Asia. They devised their own brand of social realism – a way to attend to the ‘here and now.’ The works of Shishir Bhattacharjee, Wakilur Rahman, and Nisar Hossain unveiled the decadence and dehumanisation of the era while throwing up sharp critiques of the dictatorial and imperial political scheme. Both Dilara Begum Jolly and Dhali Al Mamoon’s figurative motifs began to break down into mangled entities referring to what was rotting in society, while Nisar Hossain’s insect-like predators were set against a backdrop teeming with references to rickshaw paintings. The belief in secularism and democracy was of prime importance to the generation of artists that came to maturity in the 1980s. Pitted against the destructive power unleashed through subsequent regimes, their conviction to create a secular social sphere fuelled their creativity, although the zeal for the ‘real’ assumed many different dimensions in theatre, cinema and even in poetry. If secular logic was the common thread to all this, artist’s voices often turned sarcastic while talking back to power. Architecture Networks of knowledge also kept people in sync with one another although they were working from within their respective disciplines. Chetana, a platform that grew out of a study circle that was presided over by late architect Muzharul Islam (1923–2012), often hosted their programmes in the presence of poets and literary personalities as part of the group’s early advocacy for interdisciplinarity. The late poets Shamsur Rahman (1929–2006) and Belal Chowdhury (1938–2018) and late professor and educationist Kabir Chowdhury (1923–2011) attended Chetana’s inauguration event. The most important element of their activism was that they attempted to bring Bangladesh’s architecture and heritage into the conversation about modern architecture. Chetana saw the union of like-minded architects: Raziul Hassan, Nazmul Latif, Syed Azaz Rasul, Uttam Kumar Saha, Nahas Khalil, then architects working in different fields including teaching at the architecture department of Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, BUET, comprised the group. Saiful Haq (b. 1958), and Kazi Khaleed Ashraf (b. 1959), were members from the time they were fourth year students at BUET and are now established architects and researchers who continue to build on the ethos of Chetana. Theatre Resistance took the most effective and potent form in the arena of the theatre. The most influential iconic theatre and literary personality Selim Al Deen (1949–2008), who initiated Dhaka Theatre, was also responsible for Gram Theatre (launched in 1983) and worked to extend urban theatre to the rural hinterland. Nasiruddin Yousuff Bacchu, an actor-director, played an important role in the creolisation of modern theatre by way of absorbing Al Deen’s ideals and activism. By the late 1980s, more than 150 theatre troupes were developed in villages across the country under Gram Theatre, although most ceased to be active over the following years. These troupes lent momentum to a country-wide cultural regeneration and in spreading awareness among the masses about the slow erosion of society and politics under military rule. As a playwright and teacher, Selim Al Deen introduced what many refer to as ‘Epic Realism.’ His extensive study on Bengali popular theatre genre called ‘jatra’ coupled with his attempt in retracing the Hindu-Buddhist performance heritage led to his renowned drama ‘Kittankhola’, which is still considered a milestone in the modern theatre history in Bangladesh. Dhaka Theatre and Aranyak among other theatrical groups were instrumental in staging dramas that either harked back to the theme of the Liberation War and the repression of the Pakistan junta, or aimed to expose the anomalies of military dictatorship. Some groups even attempted to poke fun at the then military ruler. Theatrical performances served as a means to educate and open the eyes of the masses. ‘Payer Awaj Pawa Jay’ is a case in point. First staged by Dhaka Theatre in 1976, it was written by the late writer and poet Syed Shamsul Haq (1935– 2016) and was themed around the atrocities of the Pakistan army and the abuse of power by the village elite in the name of religion. Film The Short Film Movement added a decisive layer to the cultural fabric woven since the early 1980s. Morshedul Islam and Tareque Masud debuted as young filmmakers in the 1980s and were part of a greater movement centred on the Bangladesh Short Film Forum. Formed in 1986 by a group of young independent filmmakers and activists inspired and mentored by Alamgir Kabir (1938–1989), the platform was created after years of activism and campaigning for creative and aesthetically pleasing cinema by collectives called film societies. When the forum came into being it featured some of the most notable young Bangladeshi film makers among its members at the time, including Morshedul Islam (b. 1957), Tanvir Mokammel (b. 1955), late Tareque Masud (1956–2011), Enayet Karim Babul, Tareq Shahriar, Abu Sayeed (b. 1962), Shameem Akhtar, Manjare Hasin Murad, Yasmine Kabir, Nurul Alam Atique, Zahidur Rahim Anjan, N. Rashed Chowdhury, and Akram Khan. The Forum, by way of a biennial and non-competitive International Short and Independent Film Festival, kept hope alive for independent filmmaking, beyond injecting the cultural scene with much-needed optimism in favour of cultural activism. The first festival was held in 1988 and was entirely dedicated to short films. The forum is still active and it continues to organise seminars and workshops on films and film festivals all over Bangladesh, in addition to holding film shows and film-related events at their permanent venue at Bangladesh Film Centre in Shahbagh, Dhaka. Tareque Masud and Morshedul Islam played a decisive role in the development of Bangladeshi film, they made films that at once drew critical appreciation and public attention, the former for his documentaries and latter for his short-length films. ‘Adam Surat’, a documentary on the legendary artist S. M. Sultan by Tareque Masud, and ‘Chaka’ by Morshedul Islam were among the most influential films of the era, while Abu Sayeed, an early enthusiast of short-length film, later took to making feature films. Chaka carried over the idea of the ‘witness’, a theme that runs across many of his works, from the 1980s to the new millennium while Sayeed attempted to bring ‘Kittonkhola’, a popular stage play written by Selim Al Deen, to the silver screen in the year 2000. Literature The Little Mag movement was the veritable crucible of talents where writers and poets willing to break the mainstream circuit gathered. Working as a platform for literary aspirants who were willing to look beyond already explored territories, the alternative publications that gave it its shape also created space for artists and filmmakers to work in alignment with the cultural political goals of the time. Among many who played a catalytic role, poet Sajjad Sharif (b. 1963) was particularly active in threading the literary world with the world of art and film as he was behind some specific moments of convergence between members of the Shomoy group and the filmmaker Tareque Masud. Sajjad Sharif’s contributions can be traced to the early editions of the ‘Anindya’ (meaning one who lived eternally without blemish) and ‘Gandeeb’, or ‘Gandiva’ (the bow of Arjuna, the central character of the Mahabharata). Little magazines were selfpublished zines; the writers and poets involved took turns in generating funds for printing. Sometimes they were sponsored by literary enthusiasts. They were cheap and contained works of prose and poetry by emerging poets and writers. Although not directly involved with any little magazine, Ahmed Sofa (1943–2001) inspired many in the alternative literary circuit with his outspoken nature and intellectual honesty, including Salimullah Khan (b. 1958). While Sofa was stationed at Aziz Market, a place where these magazines were conceived and sold, he nurtured a new breed of young poets and writers. These were the literary creatives of the time who fought against conventional patterns of thought that then pervaded mainstream culture. Among the little magazines that worked as nodal points through which artists, writers and poets made their presence heard, Anindya saw its beginnings in 1985 and Gandeeb had its start in 1987. Together they worked as an alternative platform where the possibility of cross-fertilisation first began to appear. The editors of the two of the most influential and long lasting alternative magazines (both are in circulation now) were respectively Habib Wahid (b. 1962) and Tapan Barua (b. 1956). Of the emerging renegades who helped develop their reputation, some became part of the mainstream at a later date.

ALL PROJECTS Soul Searching Curated by Md. Muniruzzaman “In my youth, I went around the entire (British) India driven by curiosity of imagination and drawn by various attractions and sentiments. I was not contented. So I crossed ‘seven seas and thirteen rivers’, and went around the world led by my whims. Then suddenly on the screen of my mind the beauty and the nature of lovely Chitra (the river) was flashed. ... I was nostalgic. I came back to her.” -SM Sultan To find the artistic sources of the Bangladeshi Modernists one need look no further than the folk life for their inspiration. Even as the urban entity grew prominent in contemporary Bangladesh, the artists of that generation sought their own identity through the vernacular, be it urban or rural. In his quote “The River is my Master”- Shilpacharya Zainul Abedin always identified the river of Brahmaputra as the muse of his artistic exploration. After many experimentations and explorations across South Asia and the globe, he mastered his artistic identity by returning to nature – back to the riverbank where he was born. His painterly lines contain an indirect similarity to the linear characteristics of the common people of Bengal. We can identify two aspects of Abedin’s works that subconsciously draw from the environment around him. These are: 1. Natural surroundings have inspired his work, such as the Brahmaputra River. 2. Folk-art and craft from the region. These two are the common features of other Bangladeshi artists of that time. They were inspired by nature and the simple ways of the common people. The language of Bangladeshi modernism begins with the combination of these two subconscious psychological identities. Needless to say, Zainul Abedin catalysed modernism inspired by the land, river, and culture of Bengal for generations after him. Another legendary contemporary artist of Abedin’s time, himself a reflection of these two identities, was S.M. Sultan. For him, his creation and his identity were intertwined. Sultan travelled around the world, yet settled in the remote village of Narail, where he developed his artistic practice amid folk life which he adapted as his own after traveling the world on various scholarships. Quamrul Hassan, on the other hand, created another visual language where he adopted folk into urban entity. The æsthetics of his works came mainly from Potuas (folk artists) as well as cubism. Folk art, Battala prints and Kalighat patas were the strengths of his works. As a result, he is referred to as a Potua. Brought up in a city, Safiuddin Ahmed explored folk entities through his urban experience.4 As a result of his urban upbringing, Ahmed sought to transform the descriptive language of folk art into a more abstract form. This practice was followed by the next generation of artists who helped develop and mature the movement. These characteristics were the direct or indirect aspirations for the next generation of artists. Considering the factors that define Bangladeshi art, fifty-two artists of Bangladesh are presenting their works in the exhibition Soul Searching to re-discover their artistic sources. The selection consists of prominent artists who were directly involved with developing the described characteristics of Bangladeshi art as well as the subsequent generation of artists who learned from them.

ALL PROJECTS TONDRA: Phase One A project commissioned by the Samdani Art Foundation, uniting ten Bangladeshi artists with international curators and mentors to create score-based works that explore the space between dreams and reality, unfolding across global partner institutions in 2026. TONDRA The meaning of the word TONDRA in Bangla can be described as a state of existence where reality and dreams collide; a lucid dream that captivates the soul. TONDRA is also a common female name in Bangladesh, which became popular during the mid 1990s-2000s for a character named Tondra in a novel by the Bangladeshi author Humayun Ahmed. For many the name tondra carries a wave of nostalgia -tied to love, longing and cultural imagination shaped by Bengali literature and film. Our story of TONDRA emerged from heartbreak expressed by a young visitor at DAS 2023, who wrote messages for a woman named TONDRA on the walls of our exhibition such as “Everyone is here, but you are missing from my life”. His writing style ranged from graffiti to poetry, referring to his Tondra as ‘a cloudy day’ and other beautiful metaphors that connected his deepest personal feelings for his beloved to the stories and films of Humayun Ahmed, Zahir Raihan and lyricist Ukil Munsi. We see this visitor as an emerging artist who found the need to express the feelings inside of him in a public cultural forum, transforming the delirious state of heartbreak into something others can connect to, as we do with some of our favourite love songs. TONDRA is a journey through the landscapes of emotions, where the line between what we feel, what we see and what we imagine becomes blurry. In July 2024, Bangladesh entered a state of radical transformation, catalyzed by a historic student uprising that ended a 15-year autocracy and opened up space for imagining new futures. Many from the generation of “the student who loved Tondra” were active in this revolution, freeing Bangladesh from one reality and currently living in a place where a new reality has yet to land. One can describe life in Bangladesh as a state of Tondra, a liminal space where Bangladeshis are dreaming about what kind of future they wish to have. TONDRA is a project by Samdani Art Foundation supporting ten Bangladeshi artists to work with a global curatorial team to develop score-based projects, which like a dream, are not limited to a particular time and place to exist. As Bangladesh approaches democratic elections in 2026, the Samdani Art Foundation is rethinking how best to support artists in this moment of transition. With international mobility more limited than when the Dhaka Art Summit began in 2012, our focus is shifting from producing exhibitions to empowering artists to develop works that connect their ideas with the world. TONDRA will be the heart of a reimagined Dhaka Art Summit, led by Tondra’s curatorial team , which will reopen to visitors after Bangladesh has elected its future leadership—contributing to a forward-thinking civil society through art and culture. Dreams might also be the last frontier of freedom. These works of art will circulate as part of a global dream about what is possible when ideas can move even when bodies lie still, as they do when we dream. In dreams and in art, the wildest things are possible. Samdani Art Foundation’s Artistic Director Diana Campbell, as Chief Curator, and a team of guest curators will be working with the selected ten artists for a year to develop their projects. The guest curators are: Nora Razian (Deputy Director, Arts, Art Jameel, Dubai), Lucas Morin (Senior Curator, Art Jameel, Dubai), Indranjan Banerjee (Curator, Art Jameel, Dubai), (Chief Curator, WEILS, Brussels ), Hiuwai Chu (Head of Exhibitions and Curator, MACBA, Barcelona), Mohamed Almusibli (Director, Kunsthalle Basel), and Christina Li (Independent Curator based in the Netherlands), with the curatorial support from Ruxmini Choudhury (Curator, Samdani Art Foundation) and Swilin Haque (Curatorial Assistant). TONDRA’s first artist dreamers in residence are Ashfika Rahman, Joydeb Roaja, Kamruzzaman Shadhin, Laisul Hoque, Munem Wasif, Promiti Hossain, Reetu Sattar, Samsul Alam Helal, Sumi Anjuman, and Yasmin Jahan Nupur. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Humayun Ahmed (13 November 1948 – 19 July 2012) was one of the most influential and popular writers, filmmakers, dramatists, and educators in contemporary Bangladesh. Zahir Raihan (19 August 1935 – disappeared 30 January 1972) was a prominent Bangladeshi novelist, writer, journalist, and filmmaker. Ukil Munsi (11 June 1885-12 December 1978) was a Bengali Baul singer, songwriter, and lyricist, known especially for his “birohi” (longing / separation) songs.