ALL PROJECTS Safina Radio project With the subtitle Not as Far as it Seems, the Dhaka edition of Safina Radio Project took questions of belonging and home as its departure point. Responding to the practices, curatorial premises and work on show at the Dhaka Art Summit 2016, Safina explored common grounds within historical contexts, providing a cross-section of origins and their interpretations. Preprogrammed and commissioned pieces opened up a broad cultural context for Dhaka; literature, architecture, art, and music content brought to the fore the rich cultural undercurrents of one of Asia’s most complex cities, drawing listeners closer to Dhaka as a centre for cultural discourse. From 5–8 February, Safina Radio Project broadcasted conversations and performative pieces created with artists, writers, and curators during their time at the summit, drawing on their encounters with the city. safinaradioproject.org Contributors include: Shumon Ahmed Nabil Rahman Ronni Ahmmed Mustafa Zaman Ayesha Sultana Yasmin Jahan Nupur Sarker Protick Munem Wasif Reetu Sattar Mehreen Murtaza Rahel Aima Kashef Chowdhury Mariam Ghani Chitra Ganesh Sharmini Pereira Belinder Dhanoa Safina Radio Project Quinn Latimer Salima Hashmi Paul B. Preciado Katya García-Antón Firoz Mahmud Lynda Benglis Director: Anabelle de Gersigny Commissioned by Alserkal Avenue

ALL PROJECTS BACK Art Dhaka Art Summit 2020 Game Time – ‘Khela-Ramer Khel’ Project Coordinators: Adil Hasnat, Afsana Hasan Shejuti, Mahmuda Siddika, Sanjid Mahmud. BACK Art refers to the founders’ ‘backpack’ approach to the portability of art and ideas in public spaces. They are particularly interested in rural life and issues related to urbanisation, water systems and climate change. Various projects, including ‘Dhaka Live Art Biennale’ (‘D’LAB’), use performance to explore folklore and long-standing aesthetic forms, seeking ways to locate these within contemporary art practice. Game Time – ‘Khelaram Khel’ is a performative game labyrinth addressing the question ‘Are ghosts real?’and considering shared time and play. It was developed from BACK Art’s Native Myth rural residency project in which they collaborated with local children to create ghost characters used in games later on. Games are widely played in rural areas of Bangladesh by people of different ages. Danguli, Ekka-Dokka/Kut-kut, Saat Chara, Saap Ludo, Ha-Du-Du, Bou Chi and Dariya Banda are very old games in this region that are no-longer common in urban areas. The collective is interested in rewiring and reviving older ways of being together, using contemporary art practice as a vehicle for this. The audience enters a playing area with a design pattern created from children’s drawings to experience and engage with a series of customized games.

ALL PROJECTS 11th Shanghai Biennale 12TH NOVEMBER 2016 - 12TH MARCH 2017 Raqs Media Collective curated the 11th edition of the Shanghai Biennale which included Samdani Art Award 2016 finalists, Rafiqul Islam Shuvo and Farzana Ahmed Urmi. The Samdani Art Foundation has supported the artists to present their work in Shanghai.

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. Since it was founded in 2012, the Samdani Art Award has steadily developed into an internationally recognised platform, highlighting the most innovative work being produced by young Bangladeshi artists. Created to honour one talented emerging Bangladeshi artist, the award does not issue the winner with a monetary prize, and instead funds them to undertake an all-expenses paid, six-week residency at the Delfina Foundation in London: a career-defining moment for the artist to further their professional development. Khaled Hasan was the winner of the 1st Samdani Art Award in 2012, along with Musrat Reazi. Samdani Art Award 2012 INTERVIEW: KHALED HASAN Emma Sumner: You initially studied printmaking, how did your practice evolve to become what it is today? Mizanur Rahman Chowdhury: It is very interesting for me to talk about this shift. When I studied printmaking at Faculty of Fine Art, University of Dhaka. I tried to embrace the fact that many of the printing processes I learnt were all steeped in tradition, but no matter what I tried, I never felt that the process fitted with what I wanted to achieve and communicate within my practice. While I was studying, I tried to experiment with mixing and matching various print making techniques and introducing found photography into my lithograph prints, although it was prohibited in our academy at that time, so in parallel to my studies, I continued my own experimental art practice. ES: So, printmaking did not allow you to communicate what you wanted to get across to your audience? Did this change at all after you graduated and had more freedom with the way you were able to work? MRC: Even after graduating I was never really convinced that printmaking would give me the tools to communicate what I wanted through my practice. The sensibility of printmaking was a way to develop my ideas, but the outcome always became something else, like a form of assemblage, or an installation. During my study, I became interested in the moving image—especially the genres of psychedelic and experimental film—and wanted to explore them in my practice. Later, after graduation, I also began to experiment with performance, photography, collage, object sculpture and video installation. These multiple approaches helped steer my practice into the direction it has taken today. ES: Do you still make prints now? MRC: I love woodcarving, and I did begin working in this way during my graduation but my lifestyle doesn’t allow me to practice like this anymore. Its partly for this reason, and the limitations of the media itself, which have moved my practice in a very different directioN. ES: Your practice today is interdisciplinary and embraces installation and many other media. How do you decide what media you want to work with? Do you keep objects of interest to you in stock that you feel you might use later, or you source everything after you have devised an idea for a project? MRC: My work has always been sensitive to the time and space in which I create it so my processes are never fixed and I allow my intuition to guide me when developing new works. I usually find an object which forms the basis of an idea which I then begin to ‘open-up’ through my working processes to explore its core subject in greater depth I only ever select objects that appeal to me, a process which is very subjective as the same object might not appeal to others in the same way it does to me, making the process very much about my connection to the objects I work with. ES: Where do you go to source your materials? Is there anywhere particular where you feel more inspired? MRC: I find my materials in all sorts of places but generally I never go looking for things as I tend to just come across things as I go about my daily tasks, making most of the objects I source ephemeral. For one of my more recent projects I collected a lot of boxes over the period of Ramadan. The boxes contained oranges which had been imported from Egypt, but I was drawn in by the striking logo on the front of the box. Ramadan was the only time that the boxes had been in stock in my local market. As I was already familiar with the store owners, I took the time to talk to them and gained a lot of information about how the boxes had come from Egypt to Bangladesh, making me question the ideas of globalisation and international trade and how these matters might affect the everyday person. This formed the foundation for a new work which I am still developing the work in my studio now. ES: So the conversations that you have with other people as you develop your ideas are also a key part of your working process? MRC: In my project The Soul Who Fails to Fly into the Space (2017), which I exhibited during the Dhaka Art Summit, the chairs on which the television was placed were rented from a local company in Dhaka. The man who owned the company was very open and welcoming towards me, and he was very excited to be playing a small part in my project. But when he showed the chairs to me, every chair had a very shiny sticker of his company logo placed prominently in the centre of the back rest, which wasn’t part of how I’d originally envisaged the work. I thought about it all night but slowly realised that I couldn’t remove the logos, as the interactions between us had helped us to build a relationship of respect, a love that had an impact on my decision making and led to me keeping the logos as they were and allowing in the unexpected. In the end, the logo fitted magically on that installation. All the interactions and discussions that I have with the people I meet during my working process are very important to me and often influence my work in positive ways. The curator, Simon Castets also played an important role while installing the works as we discussed at length about how my work could respond to the space to create a more meditative and playful exhibit. ES: Since arriving in London for your residency at the Delfina Foundation have you started work on any new projects? or is there anything that you are working on now? MRC: I lived in London previously back in 2014 when my wife was undertaking her MA. During that time, I was struck by how many road signs there were and I began taking photos of the streets. I had began working on a project called Land, and now I am back in London for this residency, I have had a chance to restart and develop the ideas I was working on further. While I have been here, I visited the National History Museum and I saw that they had analysed Bangladesh by looking at the structure of our land, particularly our rivers, and the types of our soil. What interested me most about this display, was seeing how Bangladesh is divided by a tectonic plate that goes through the centre of the country which means that my native land could, at some point in the future, be shifted by nature dispelling the concept of land that we conventionally perceive through mapping. Overall, I am more interested in the land inside us, our spirituality and how this connects us to the cosmos and defines who we are and which land we ultimately belong to. SAF: After you have finished your residency at Delfina Foundation and return to Dhaka, what’s next for you? Do you have any upcoming exhibitions or are you planning to work on any new projects? MRC: It’s a big question, currently I’m a little overwhelmed by the spotlight of winning the Samdani Art Award and having many curators and fellow artists wanting to meet me, but it has been a great opportunity to develop my network which I know will be helpful in moving forward with my career. I am very thankful to Samdani Art Foundation and Delfina Foundation for establishing such a valuable platform for young artist in Bangladeshi artists. While I have been here, I’ve had the time and space to open up new critical perspectives on my practice and developed my approach to research and new projects. After developing them further in Dhaka, I am hopeful to show them in exhibitions soon. SAF: You describe photography as a force that gives you a deeper understanding of human beings and life in general. Could you explain how photography has changed your understanding of life and the way you experience it? KH: I find it very difficult to explain exactly what I mean by this as it is something that is related to the practicalities of my everyday life. As a tool, photography has made it simpler for me to share my daily experiences, and gives me a very positive outlook on what is happening around me. For example, if you see a leaf that has dropped into a pool of water, it is a very normal scenario, but when I see it, I try to find the beauty by capturing the best visualisation of it through my camera. If anything, photography has taught me to see that every flower must grow through the dirt before it blooms. However, if I am talking about how photography has changed my life as a human being, I would go as far as expressing that it is the best thing that has happened to me. When I was working on projects documenting a home for the old-aged, or with acid victims or valiant women, every single person I met during my documentation process taught me something, which, at the beginning of each project, was a something I did not expect. Just listening to the hardships that each person had endured made me a stronger person. This might sound a little far-fetched, but if you have not experienced something like this personally, it would be difficult for you to understand exactly what I experienced during each of these projects. SAF: Your early work concentrated on telling the narratives of your native country, Bangladesh. Since moving to the USA, how have your new surroundings changed the way you work? KH: When I lived in Bangladesh, I was travelling all the time to different countries for my work, so I don’t feel that my move to the USA has changed the way I work as a photographer or the way I document my subjects. My passion for the work I make remains that same wherever I go, and the concepts I choose to work with are a bit like my shadows: they follow me wherever my work takes me. Although life in the USA is very different to Bangladesh, I maintain my own unique way of working which will not change because I am living in a new place: although I am trying to cut back on my travel to allow myself time to concentrating on improving my skills to add value to my career. SAF: Seeing yourself as not just a photographer but also as a socially responsible person, how do you ensure the work you make also has a positive contribution to the communities you document? KH: When I first started working as a photographer, it was a priority for me that the work I did would contribute to the communities I worked with, but I also knew that by working as a photographer and documenting other people’s experiences, I would be able to experience the lives of others in a way that most other people are never able to. The contribution I can make to other people’s lives through my work might be very minimal but I believe that every little bit of effort made contributes to a greater change. I feel grateful that I am able to make the work I do, and that the images I create make other people think more deeply about what they can do to help change society for the greater good. SAF: During your career has there been a community or subject that you have documented which has had a real impact on you as both a photographer and a socially responsible person, and if so, why? KH: All of the work I make stays close to my heart, and each and every image I shoot has its own individual impact. However, documenting residents in an old-aged home made me realise how cruel many people are to their parents and as someone who is very family orientated, it was difficult for me to accept the situation that many of the residents had been left to live with. If anything, the experience made me more responsible towards my own mother and the rest of my family. Although the old-aged home was a fairly depressing environment which could understandable make anyone feel very low, my time there increased my motivation to work harder as a photographer and help raise the residents’ voices through my camera. SAF: Can you tell us about the projects you are currently working on and what we can expect to see next? KH: I am currently working on a project titled ‘Living Odd’ through which I am documenting both the past and present situations of Bangladeshi non-residents and immigrants living in the USA. I want the series to capture the truth behind the mental trauma and various difficulties that many migrants go through to survive in unfamiliar surrounds while documenting the cultural gaps between different races in America. My other ongoing project is focused on women and aims to help visualise the many different characters o women—their appearance, uprising, depressions, beauty, aggression, loneliness, fear, revolution, frustration, and more—and is a project I am excited to see come to fruition. As my documentation of the women I am working with grows, I can see how the project will be one of great strength. Since it was founded in 2012, the Samdani Art Award has steadily developed into an internationally recognised platform, highlighting the most innovative work being produced by young Bangladeshi artists. Created to honour one talented emerging Bangladeshi artist, the award does not issue the winner with a monetary prize, and instead funds them to undertake an all-expenses paid, six-week residency at the Delfina Foundation in London: a career-defining moment for the artist to further their professional development. The award’s latest winner, Mizanur Rahman Chowdhury, travelled to London earlier this year in July to undertake his residency. Providing him with the time and space to revisit old ideas, and explore new, while expanding his networks. I caught up with Chowdhury while he was in residence to discuss his ongoing practice and how winning the award has impacted his career to date. Samdani Art Award 2012 INTERVIEW: MIZANUR RAHMAN CHOWDHURY

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

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. 2023 2020 2018 2016 2016 Dhaka Art Summit Founded in 2012 by the Samdani Art Foundation—which continues to produce the festival—in collaboration with the Ministry of Cultural Affairs, People’s Republic of Bangladesh, DAS is hosted every two years at the Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy. DAS is a platform to catalyse a rich context for research and artistic production in the future through empowering artists and the public through the interaction between its exhibition, education and public programmes. Rejecting the traditional biennale format to create a more generative space for art and exchange, DAS’s interdisciplinary programme concentrates its endeavours towards the advancement and promotion of South Asia’s contemporary and historic creative communities, building alliances through shared values with international practices and initiatives. Chief Curator Diana Campbell leads the Summit with international key curators, artists, and thinkers. 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. For each edition of DAS, Bangladeshi artists shortlisted for the Samdani Art Award exhibit their work under the guidance of an international guest curator. Organised in partnership with the Delfina Foundation, the Award has created an internationally recognised platform for the work of young Bangladeshi artists. Many shortlisted artists have later exhibited or acquired by international exhibitions and institutions, such as Tate, SF MoMA, the Kunsthalle Zurich, Gwangju Biennale, Singapore Biennale, Lyon Biennale, Asia Pacific Triennial, Sharjah Biennial, Para Site, and many others. All of DAS’s exhibitions are supported by an ambitious commissions programme, which invites internationally acclaimed contemporary artists related to South Asia to create new work. Past commissions include Lynda Benglis, Simryn Gill, Po Po, Rasheed Araeen, Damian Ortega, Nilima Sheikh, Monika Sosnowska, Daniel Steegmann Mangrane, along with and some of the most exciting names from the region: Sheela Gowda, Ayesha Sultana, Waqas Khan, Munem Wasif, Zihan Karim, Randhir Singh, Seher Shah, Reetu Sattar, Ramesh Mario Nithiyendran, Kamruzzaman Shahdin, Yasmin Jahan Nupur, Tanya Goel, and many more. Celebrated for its critically acclaimed exhibitions by local and international arts professionals, many of DAS’s past projects have toured internationally to venues and festivals, including Para Site in Hong Kong; TS1 in Yangon; the Modern Art Museum in Warsaw; the Berlin Biennale; the Gwangju Biennale; the Singapore Biennale; the Queens Museum, New York; Kunsthalle Basel, Switzerland; Artspace in Sydney; the Office for Contemporary Art Norway; the San Jose Museum of Art, USA; the Liverpool Biennial; Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Sri Lanka; Kunsthall Trondheim, Norway; and MAIIAM Contemporary Art Museum, Thailand. Free to the public and ticketless, DAS 2023 drew over half a million visitors across its nine-day duration. Expanding from its initial South Asia mandate, DAS 2018 created new connections between South, South East Asia, and the Indian Ocean belt, exhibiting artists from Thailand, Malaysia, Madagascar, the Philippines, and several other countries. DAS 2020 expanded further to connect widely across the Global South based on shared struggles rather than current geopolitical definitions. DAS 2023 took a planetary approach through the lens of climate change. SEVENTH EDITION TONDRA We are pleased to introduce you to the theme we have been dreaming up with our curators and art mediators for the 7th edition of DAS - 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. 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. EXPLORE FIFTH EDITION DAS 2020 সঞ্চারণ / Seismic Movements Inspired by the geological reading of the word ‘summit’ as the top of a mountain, Seismic Movements: Dhaka Art Summit 2020 (DAS 2020) considers the various ruptures that have realigned and continue to shift the face of our spinning planet. Seismic movements do not adhere to statist or nationalist frameworks. They join and split apart tectonics of multiple scales and layers; their epicentres don’t privilege historical imperial centres over the so-called peripheries; they can slowly accumulate or violently erupt in an instant. EXPLORE FOURTH EDITION DAS 2018 The fourth edition of the Dhaka Art Summit (DAS) took place from 2 to 10 February 2018, featuring both an Opening Celebration Weekend (February 2–4) and a closing Scholars’ Weekend (February 8–10), and several tiers of new programming. Produced and primarily funded by the Samdani Art Foundation, DAS 2018 was held in a public-private partnership with the Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy, the country’s National Academy of Fine and Performing Arts, with support from the Ministry of Cultural Affairs and Ministry of Information of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh, the National Tourism Board, the Bangladesh Investment Development Authority (BIDA), and in association with the Bangladesh National Museum. EXPLORE - Jonathan Shaughnessy, Associate Curator, Contemporary Art | Conservateur associé, art contemporainNational Gallery of Canada | Musée des beaux-arts du Canada (DAS 2020) "I feel most fortunate to have had the chance to return to the 2020 Dhaka Art Summit after my initial visit in 2016. The focus on collective practices, “South to South” and indigenous networks that guided the programming within the context of Seismic Movements was grounded, insightful, and provided many crucial perspectives on the otherwise often untethered expanses of today’s “global” art world. A dynamic gathering of artists, minds, and both general and specialized audiences, the strength of DAS (notwithstanding the clear breadth of research, organization and planning that goes into it) is that it is a platform that knows concertedly from where it speaks, and to what ends it serves, while fostering timely and urgent conversations across local, national, and international lines." - Alain Berset, President of Switzerland (DAS 2018) “It’s intense and you can feel lot of energy - this is somehow logical when you think of Bangladesh as a country with 160 million inhabitants and a very young population - you can actually feel the energy in the exhibition.” - Elisabeth van Odijk, Director, Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten, Amsterdam (the Netherlands) (DAS 2018) “Visiting Dhaka Art Summit 2018 was an interesting and challenging experience. A great opportunity to get more insight in contemporary art from e.g. Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, in the recent ‘art history’ of South Asia and in the ‘cultural’ discourse going on. I am more than impressed by the level and richness delivered by the Art Summit as well as by the open and transparent atmosphere. I learned a lot. The visit broadened my insight into cultural developments in South Asia, and enriched my professional network at different levels. I am looking forward to the next edition!” - Gregor Muir, Director of Collection, International Art, Tate (DAS 2020) "Dhaka Art Summit reveals itself in wonderful myriad ways. That the summit centres on the Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy makes perfect sense, allowing for easy manoeuvring between exhibitions, talks, performances and outdoor sculpture. There was much to discover, and a sense of liveliness throughout. Above all, I shall never forget the engagement of the local people whose enthusiasm added to an air of excitement." - Sophie Goltz, Assistant Professor, NTU Centre for Contemporary Art, Singapore (DAS 2018) “DAS 2018 gave us a great opportunity not only to learn about South / South East Asian Art but much more to learn how we can engage in our time through art. The manifold conversations, guided tours and lectures challenged and expanded not only the knowledge about art from Asia but also about the Bengal region and its historical and contemporary cultural richness. The educational complexity of DAS gives young people such an important opportunity to learn thinking out of the (academic) box.” - Glenn Lowry, Director, Museum of Modern Art New York (DAS 2018) “The Dhaka Art Summit was a revelation. Sharply insightful exhibitions, expansive and generous conversations and panel discussions, and a deeply satisfying experience. I learned a great deal, made unexpected connections, and enjoyed being with so many artists, curators, and scholars whose collective energy animated the Summit.” - Koyo Kouoh, Founding Artistic Director, RAW Material Company (DAS 2018) “There is so much to share from this stimulating, inspiring, politically engzged, art historically facinating, sensual, joyful and last but not least simply beautiful show that is the Dhaka Art Summit. Bringing together nine tightly curated exhibitions by a group of the most talented curators practicing today, as well as a though provoking series of screenings, conversations, presentations, performances and symposia; not to mention the incredible education programme with some of the most critically practicing artists, artist’s collectives and thinkers, amazing Diana has completed yet another tour de force for which she can only be highly commended for its curatorial, intellectual, historical and contemporary scop, depth of research and unlimited sense of hospitality.” - Shuddhabrata Sengupta, Artist, Raqs Media Collective (DAS 2018) "The Dhaka Art Summit 2018 has been an intense, exhilarating and thought provoking experience. The curated exhibitions at DAS 2018 offer opportunities to rethink global histories of contemporary art while remaining anchored in a cogently and sharply expressed South Asian context. I had many wonderful experiences and exchanges and was able to get a clear sense of the energy and enthusiasm of the Bangladeshi Contemporary Art scene. The production values of the entire show set a very high standard. DAS is emerging as probably the most significant intersection of creative and discursive energies in the region. With DAS, the artistic and creative communities of Bangladesh stake their claim to being the incubators and custodians of a contemporary cultural sensibility that is truly planetary. This initiative’s continued success is crucial for the health of culture in the entire South Asian region." - Beatrix Ruf, Director, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (DAS 2014) "What a memorable experience the Dhaka Art Summit and Samdani Art Foundation organised. An amazing attendance of artists, curators, art professionals and collectors and the challenging and thought provoking panel discussions enabled meetings of people, intensive exchange and an insight not only into how art is integrating in Dhaka and Bangladesh but all of South Asia." - Sebastian Cichocki, Deputy Director and Chief Curator, Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw (DAS 2018) “DAS is not only a show, it is a self-learning apparatus, which changes the patterns of understanding, recognition and global dissemination from the South Asia region. DAS is a polyphony of voices, resonating deep in the contemporary art world but also locally, triggering the imagination of diverse audiences and touching upon the most urgent social, political and economic issues of our times. DAS might be defined also as a free academy, conceptual playground and a carnival. DAS is also a story-teller. One can learn a lot just from listening carefully.” - Jitish Kallat, artist and curator of Kochi-Muziris Biennale 2014 (DAS 2014) "I leave Dhaka, carrying with me a whole lot of generative ideas, great thoughts and memories.I feel what I witnessed is truly historic and will be discussed as a key transformative catalyst for the entire region in the many years to come. Congratulations to Rajeeb and Nadia Samdani and Diana Campbell Betancourt on this whole-hearted visionary effort." - Philippe Pirotte, Dean of the Staedelschule, Frankfurt (DAS 2018) “For me the Dhaka Art is a welcome alternative to the biennale circuit. Assuming in a discursively responsible way that such initiatives become more and more condensed events, in a global competition for attention, the Dhaka Art Summit, advances the notion of the “summit” which allows for very different, yet all interesting projects and initiatives, to share a venue, in which conceptual diversity is preferred over the constraints of one curatorial premise. Talks, exhibitions, prizes, documentaries, and even a fair of artist initiatives enrich each other in new surprising ways. Maybe the Dhaka Art Summit is not only an interesting answer to the often fatigue perceived in the biennale circuit but also to the global inflation of art fairs.” - Jessica Morgan, The Daskalopoulos Curator, International Art, Tate Modern (DAS 2014) "I heard over and over that Dhaka Art Summit had managed the complicated and sometimes impossible by bringing together artists, thinkers and curators from South Asia, providing a meeting place and a discursive space which is really to be applauded. The entire event was outstandingly well organised and installed. It was really exceptional to have the live encounter with Nikhil Chopra's performance and without doubt it was the presence of works like his, Shilpa Gupta, Naeem Mohaiemen, Rashid Rana and Mithu Sen, among others, who made work specially for the event, that brought a unique aspect to Dhaka Art Summit." - Maria Lind, Critic and Artistic Director, Gwangju Biennale 2016 (DAS 2016) “I almost gave up reading art writing. I have come to reconsider this through the Summit...” - Adam Szymczyk, Artistic Director, Documenta 14 (DAS 2014) "The Summit was a surprisingly personal, low key and highly focused gathering of many amazing individuals from several countries in South Asia. A variety of experiences brought under one roof was what I really appreciated as it exceeded the usual monoforms of a "biennial", "art fair", "conference" etc., offering instead a holistic experience of being with the artists, seeing their work and discussing it on the spot. Unpretentious and intelligently designed in skillful hands of Chief Curator, Diana Campbell, the Summit felt like it was a labour of love and not a dull cultural marketing exercise." - Lucas Huang, The National Gallery of Singapore (DAS 2016) “I thought the Dhaka Art Summit 2016 was a splendid affair of critical clout and great programming. There is literally nothing like it in Asia and I am certain the next one will be an even bigger success.” - Dayanita Singh, Artist, India (DAS 2016) “I have never experienced something as art focused, open and inclusive as I just did at Dhaka Art Summit. The calibre of the conversations was a rare happening in our region.” - Stuart Comer, Chief Curator of Media and Performance, Museum of Modern Art, New York (DAS 2016) “The Dhaka Summit proved to be an invaluable interface with a number of key artists, discourses, and histories that suggest the increasingly urgent voice South Asia has in the current global cultural discourse....We look forward to developing many of these conversations as we deepen our engagement in the region.” - Bunty Chand, Director of Asia Society, India (DAS 2016) “Dhaka Art Summit has set the gold standard for the visual arts in South Asia” - Frances Morris, Director of Tate Modern, London, UK, On her second trip to Dhaka, Bangladesh (DAS 2016) “The Dhaka Summit has rapidly become an important focus for artists from South Asia and beyond and this year is attracting widespread international attention.” THIRD EDITION DAS 2016 DAS provokes reflections on transnationalism, selfhood and time with invited artists, curators and thinkers who build exhibitions through commissioned research and experience within the region—without being prescriptive. Neither a biennial, symposium nor festival but somewhere in between, the unique format of the Summit transforms the Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy into a generative space to reconsider the past and future of art and exchange within South Asia and beyond. DAS 2016 included loans from the Bangladesh National Collection; the Museum Folkwang in Essen; the Pinault Collection and many public and private South Asian collections as well as partnerships with institutions such as the Centre Pompidou; Asia Art Archive and Harvard South Asia Institute, DAS considers South Asia from the view of doing and becoming rather than cartography, occupying the triplet planes of imagination, will and circumstance. EXPLORE SECOND EDITION DAS 2014 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. EXPLORE FIRST EDITION DAS 2012 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. EXPLORE Following the fifth edition subtitled Seismic Movements which welcomed nearly 500,000 visitors in nine days in February 2020, its sixth edition is the first edition with a Bangla subtitle; বন্যা/Bonna. DAS 2023 considers the ways in which we inherit and form vocabularies to understand the world around us, and the mistranslation that can ensue when we try to apply these vocabularies to unfamiliar contexts; the same word can migrate from positive to negative connotations and back depending on how and where it travels. Weather and water as shapers of history and culture as well as being metaphors for life in general are viewed in an embodied way through the lens of those who live in Bangladesh, next to the sea and rivers, underneath the storm systems, feeling the wind and rain. DAS 2023 বন্যা / Bonna SIXTH EDITION EXPLORE TEAM

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. Since it was founded in 2012, the Samdani Art Award has steadily developed into an internationally recognised platform, highlighting the most innovative work being produced by young Bangladeshi artists. Created to honour one talented emerging Bangladeshi artist, the award does not issue the winner with a monetary prize, and instead funds them to undertake an all-expenses paid, six-week residency at the Delfina Foundation in London: a career-defining moment for the artist to further their professional development. The award’s latest winner, Mizanur Rahman Chowdhury, travelled to London earlier this year in July to undertake his residency. Providing him with the time and space to revisit old ideas, and explore new, while expanding his networks. I caught up with Chowdhury while he was in residence to discuss his ongoing practice and how winning the award has impacted his career to date. Samdani Art Award 2023 INTERVIEW: KHALED HASAN Emma Sumner: You initially studied printmaking, how did your practice evolve to become what it is today? Mizanur Rahman Chowdhury: It is very interesting for me to talk about this shift. When I studied printmaking at Faculty of Fine Art, University of Dhaka. I tried to embrace the fact that many of the printing processes I learnt were all steeped in tradition, but no matter what I tried, I never felt that the process fitted with what I wanted to achieve and communicate within my practice. While I was studying, I tried to experiment with mixing and matching various print making techniques and introducing found photography into my lithograph prints, although it was prohibited in our academy at that time, so in parallel to my studies, I continued my own experimental art practice. ES: So, printmaking did not allow you to communicate what you wanted to get across to your audience? Did this change at all after you graduated and had more freedom with the way you were able to work? MRC: Even after graduating I was never really convinced that printmaking would give me the tools to communicate what I wanted through my practice. The sensibility of printmaking was a way to develop my ideas, but the outcome always became something else, like a form of assemblage, or an installation. During my study, I became interested in the moving image—especially the genres of psychedelic and experimental film—and wanted to explore them in my practice. Later, after graduation, I also began to experiment with performance, photography, collage, object sculpture and video installation. These multiple approaches helped steer my practice into the direction it has taken today. ES: Do you still make prints now? MRC: I love woodcarving, and I did begin working in this way during my graduation but my lifestyle doesn’t allow me to practice like this anymore. Its partly for this reason, and the limitations of the media itself, which have moved my practice in a very different directioN. ES: Your practice today is interdisciplinary and embraces installation and many other media. How do you decide what media you want to work with? Do you keep objects of interest to you in stock that you feel you might use later, or you source everything after you have devised an idea for a project? MRC: My work has always been sensitive to the time and space in which I create it so my processes are never fixed and I allow my intuition to guide me when developing new works. I usually find an object which forms the basis of an idea which I then begin to ‘open-up’ through my working processes to explore its core subject in greater depth I only ever select objects that appeal to me, a process which is very subjective as the same object might not appeal to others in the same way it does to me, making the process very much about my connection to the objects I work with. ES: Where do you go to source your materials? Is there anywhere particular where you feel more inspired? MRC: I find my materials in all sorts of places but generally I never go looking for things as I tend to just come across things as I go about my daily tasks, making most of the objects I source ephemeral. For one of my more recent projects I collected a lot of boxes over the period of Ramadan. The boxes contained oranges which had been imported from Egypt, but I was drawn in by the striking logo on the front of the box. Ramadan was the only time that the boxes had been in stock in my local market. As I was already familiar with the store owners, I took the time to talk to them and gained a lot of information about how the boxes had come from Egypt to Bangladesh, making me question the ideas of globalisation and international trade and how these matters might affect the everyday person. This formed the foundation for a new work which I am still developing the work in my studio now. ES: So the conversations that you have with other people as you develop your ideas are also a key part of your working process? MRC: In my project The Soul Who Fails to Fly into the Space (2017), which I exhibited during the Dhaka Art Summit, the chairs on which the television was placed were rented from a local company in Dhaka. The man who owned the company was very open and welcoming towards me, and he was very excited to be playing a small part in my project. But when he showed the chairs to me, every chair had a very shiny sticker of his company logo placed prominently in the centre of the back rest, which wasn’t part of how I’d originally envisaged the work. I thought about it all night but slowly realised that I couldn’t remove the logos, as the interactions between us had helped us to build a relationship of respect, a love that had an impact on my decision making and led to me keeping the logos as they were and allowing in the unexpected. In the end, the logo fitted magically on that installation. All the interactions and discussions that I have with the people I meet during my working process are very important to me and often influence my work in positive ways. The curator, Simon Castets also played an important role while installing the works as we discussed at length about how my work could respond to the space to create a more meditative and playful exhibit. ES: Since arriving in London for your residency at the Delfina Foundation have you started work on any new projects? or is there anything that you are working on now? MRC: I lived in London previously back in 2014 when my wife was undertaking her MA. During that time, I was struck by how many road signs there were and I began taking photos of the streets. I had began working on a project called Land, and now I am back in London for this residency, I have had a chance to restart and develop the ideas I was working on further. While I have been here, I visited the National History Museum and I saw that they had analysed Bangladesh by looking at the structure of our land, particularly our rivers, and the types of our soil. What interested me most about this display, was seeing how Bangladesh is divided by a tectonic plate that goes through the centre of the country which means that my native land could, at some point in the future, be shifted by nature dispelling the concept of land that we conventionally perceive through mapping. Overall, I am more interested in the land inside us, our spirituality and how this connects us to the cosmos and defines who we are and which land we ultimately belong to. SAF: After you have finished your residency at Delfina Foundation and return to Dhaka, what’s next for you? Do you have any upcoming exhibitions or are you planning to work on any new projects? MRC: It’s a big question, currently I’m a little overwhelmed by the spotlight of winning the Samdani Art Award and having many curators and fellow artists wanting to meet me, but it has been a great opportunity to develop my network which I know will be helpful in moving forward with my career. I am very thankful to Samdani Art Foundation and Delfina Foundation for establishing such a valuable platform for young artist in Bangladeshi artists. While I have been here, I’ve had the time and space to open up new critical perspectives on my practice and developed my approach to research and new projects. After developing them further in Dhaka, I am hopeful to show them in exhibitions soon. Since it was founded in 2012, the Samdani Art Award has steadily developed into an internationally recognised platform, highlighting the most innovative work being produced by young Bangladeshi artists. Created to honour one talented emerging Bangladeshi artist, the award does not issue the winner with a monetary prize, and instead funds them to undertake an all-expenses paid, six-week residency at the Delfina Foundation in London: a career-defining moment for the artist to further their professional development. The award’s latest winner, Mizanur Rahman Chowdhury, travelled to London earlier this year in July to undertake his residency. Providing him with the time and space to revisit old ideas, and explore new, while expanding his networks. I caught up with Chowdhury while he was in residence to discuss his ongoing practice and how winning the award has impacted his career to date. Samdani Art Award 2012 INTERVIEW: MIZANUR RAHMAN CHOWDHURY Emma Sumner: You initially studied printmaking, how did your practice evolve to become what it is today? Mizanur Rahman Chowdhury: It is very interesting for me to talk about this shift. When I studied printmaking at Faculty of Fine Art, University of Dhaka. I tried to embrace the fact that many of the printing processes I learnt were all steeped in tradition, but no matter what I tried, I never felt that the process fitted with what I wanted to achieve and communicate within my practice. While I was studying, I tried to experiment with mixing and matching various print making techniques and introducing found photography into my lithograph prints, although it was prohibited in our academy at that time, so in parallel to my studies, I continued my own experimental art practice. ES: So, printmaking did not allow you to communicate what you wanted to get across to your audience? Did this change at all after you graduated and had more freedom with the way you were able to work? MRC: Even after graduating I was never really convinced that printmaking would give me the tools to communicate what I wanted through my practice. The sensibility of printmaking was a way to develop my ideas, but the outcome always became something else, like a form of assemblage, or an installation. During my study, I became interested in the moving image—especially the genres of psychedelic and experimental film—and wanted to explore them in my practice. Later, after graduation, I also began to experiment with performance, photography, collage, object sculpture and video installation. These multiple approaches helped steer my practice into the direction it has taken today. ES: Do you still make prints now? MRC: I love woodcarving, and I did begin working in this way during my graduation but my lifestyle doesn’t allow me to practice like this anymore. Its partly for this reason, and the limitations of the media itself, which have moved my practice in a very different directioN. ES: Your practice today is interdisciplinary and embraces installation and many other media. How do you decide what media you want to work with? Do you keep objects of interest to you in stock that you feel you might use later, or you source everything after you have devised an idea for a project? MRC: My work has always been sensitive to the time and space in which I create it so my processes are never fixed and I allow my intuition to guide me when developing new works. I usually find an object which forms the basis of an idea which I then begin to ‘open-up’ through my working processes to explore its core subject in greater depth I only ever select objects that appeal to me, a process which is very subjective as the same object might not appeal to others in the same way it does to me, making the process very much about my connection to the objects I work with. ES: Where do you go to source your materials? Is there anywhere particular where you feel more inspired? MRC: I find my materials in all sorts of places but generally I never go looking for things as I tend to just come across things as I go about my daily tasks, making most of the objects I source ephemeral. For one of my more recent projects I collected a lot of boxes over the period of Ramadan. The boxes contained oranges which had been imported from Egypt, but I was drawn in by the striking logo on the front of the box. Ramadan was the only time that the boxes had been in stock in my local market. As I was already familiar with the store owners, I took the time to talk to them and gained a lot of information about how the boxes had come from Egypt to Bangladesh, making me question the ideas of globalisation and international trade and how these matters might affect the everyday person. This formed the foundation for a new work which I am still developing the work in my studio now. ES: So the conversations that you have with other people as you develop your ideas are also a key part of your working process? MRC: In my project The Soul Who Fails to Fly into the Space (2017), which I exhibited during the Dhaka Art Summit, the chairs on which the television was placed were rented from a local company in Dhaka. The man who owned the company was very open and welcoming towards me, and he was very excited to be playing a small part in my project. But when he showed the chairs to me, every chair had a very shiny sticker of his company logo placed prominently in the centre of the back rest, which wasn’t part of how I’d originally envisaged the work. I thought about it all night but slowly realised that I couldn’t remove the logos, as the interactions between us had helped us to build a relationship of respect, a love that had an impact on my decision making and led to me keeping the logos as they were and allowing in the unexpected. In the end, the logo fitted magically on that installation. All the interactions and discussions that I have with the people I meet during my working process are very important to me and often influence my work in positive ways. The curator, Simon Castets also played an important role while installing the works as we discussed at length about how my work could respond to the space to create a more meditative and playful exhibit. ES: Since arriving in London for your residency at the Delfina Foundation have you started work on any new projects? or is there anything that you are working on now? MRC: I lived in London previously back in 2014 when my wife was undertaking her MA. During that time, I was struck by how many road signs there were and I began taking photos of the streets. I had began working on a project called Land, and now I am back in London for this residency, I have had a chance to restart and develop the ideas I was working on further. While I have been here, I visited the National History Museum and I saw that they had analysed Bangladesh by looking at the structure of our land, particularly our rivers, and the types of our soil. What interested me most about this display, was seeing how Bangladesh is divided by a tectonic plate that goes through the centre of the country which means that my native land could, at some point in the future, be shifted by nature dispelling the concept of land that we conventionally perceive through mapping. Overall, I am more interested in the land inside us, our spirituality and how this connects us to the cosmos and defines who we are and which land we ultimately belong to. SAF: After you have finished your residency at Delfina Foundation and return to Dhaka, what’s next for you? Do you have any upcoming exhibitions or are you planning to work on any new projects? MRC: It’s a big question, currently I’m a little overwhelmed by the spotlight of winning the Samdani Art Award and having many curators and fellow artists wanting to meet me, but it has been a great opportunity to develop my network which I know will be helpful in moving forward with my career. I am very thankful to Samdani Art Foundation and Delfina Foundation for establishing such a valuable platform for young artist in Bangladeshi artists. While I have been here, I’ve had the time and space to open up new critical perspectives on my practice and developed my approach to research and new projects. After developing them further in Dhaka, I am hopeful to show them in exhibitions soon.

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

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. Teresa Albor DIRECTOR OF EXTERNAL AFFAIRS Teresa Albor, Director of Cultural Affairs of the Samdani Art Foundation, is a cultural producer who has been working internationally in the US, UK, and Eastern Europe, and was based in South and Southeast Asia for over a decade. Her roles have included running a London-based art college, co-founding an international artists’ residency programme and others. She has a practice as an artist, making live art, video and sound work which explores questions of human nature, identity and marginalisation. 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. 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. Tanzila Reza COMMUNICATIONS MANAGER Tanzila Reza is working as Communications Manager of the Samdani Art Foundation. She is an experienced marketing communication officer who previously worked in the utilities industry. Adam Ondak CURATORIAL ASSISTANT Adam Ondak works as Curatorial Assistant of the Samdani Art Foundation and DAS and is the assistant to Diana Campbell Betancourt. He currently studies Business Management at King’s College London. Ondak participated in an interdisciplinary academic programme ‘Experiencing China 2018’ at Tsinghua University, Beijing. He is part of the organisational team of the annual ‘Central European Conference’ held at London School of Economics. Lucia Zubalova CURATORIAL ASSISTANT Lucia Zubalova works as curatorial assistant of the Samdani Art Foundation and DAS. She is an alumnus of the Courtauld Institute of Art. Zubalova has previously interned at the Slovak National Gallery, worked for the Bratislava-based Linea Collection and was taught by Diana Campbell Betancourt at the Salzburg International Summer Academy of Fine Arts. Enayet Kabir COLLECTIVE PLATFORM FELLOW Enayet Kabir is the Collective Platform Fellow at DAS. He is a Bangladeshi multimedia artist whose work explores speculative Bengali futures and the unreality of Dhaka city. Kabir is a driving force in Brooklyn’s underground electronic music community, as both a live performer and event organizer. He is currently the Creative Director for the musician Yaeji, directing her music videos and conceiving of international stage shows. Fraser Muggeridge and Joe Nava of Fraser Muggeridge studio, London, are the graphic designers responsible for the visual identity and design production of DAS 2020. Throughout a wide range of formats, from artists’ books and exhibition catalogues to posters, marketing material, exhibitions and websites, the studio prioritises artists’ and writers’ content over the imposition of a signature style. Clients include: Artangel, Art on the Underground, Focal Point Gallery, Hauser & Wirth, Sadies Coles, Somerset House, Tate, V&A, The Vanity Press. Alyesha Choudhury ARCHITECTURAL INTERN Alyesha Choudhury works as the Architectural intern for the Samdani Art Foundation and DAS. Living between London, Dhaka and Glasgow, she is a student of architecture and one of the founders of the /other collective. She received her RIBA Part 1 certification from the Mackintosh School of Architecture at the Glasgow School of Art. The /other collective deconstructs colonial discourse in the architectural environment, commissioning installations and hosting a panel for the 2019 ArchiFringe at the Lighthouse Gallery and Transmission Gallery. Her previous experience includes internships with the Delfina Foundation and Rana Begum Studio. DAS 2020 Team Kathryn Weir CURATOR (Collective Body) Kathryn Weir founded ‘Cosmopolis’ at the Centre Pompidou in 2015 as a platform for research-based and collaborative multidisciplinary art practices. The platform constructs bridges between new forms of creative experimentation and critical vocabularies from contemporary theory, and between reconceived geographies and histories. From 2006 until 2014, she led the international art and cinémathèque curatorial areas at the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art (QAGOMA), Brisbane and was one of the curators of the 5th, 6th and 7th Asia Pacific Triennials of Contemporary Art. From 2020 she has been appointed Director of the MADRE museum in Napes. Sean Anderson CURATOR (On Muzharul Islam) Sean Anderson is Associate Professor and Undergraduate Program Director at Cornell University’s Department of Architecture. Anderson was formerly Associate Curator in the Department of Architecture and Design at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in addition to being a practicing architect and educator in Afghanistan, Australia, India, India, Italy, Morocco, Sri Lanka and the U.A.E. He is a founding Board Member of the African Futures Institute (AFI). Long seeking to uncover overlooked contexts for reappraising the spatial, he has written books on South Asian ritual sculpture, the modern architecture of colonial Eritrea and co-edited a volume dedicated to contemporary architecture and design in Sri Lanka. At MoMA, he organized Insecurities: Tracing Displacement and Shelter (2016-17) and Thinking Machines: Art and Design in the Computer Age, 1959-89 (2017-18) and led four iterations of the Young Architects Program at MoMA PS1. At MoMA, he was co-director of the CMAP Asia and Africa research programs, an editor of post, and established two continuing online educational platforms: “What is Contemporary Art?” and “Reimagining Blackness and Architecture.” Co-organized with Mabel O. Wilson, Reconstructions: Architecture and Blackness in America, the first exhibition and book ever at MoMA to highlight the work of African American and African Diasporic architects, artists and designers, concluded in May 2021. Bishwajit Goswami CURATOR (Roots) Bishwajit Goswami is a Dhaka based curator and art educator. He is an Assistant Professor in the Drawing & Painting Department of the Faculty of Fine Art, University of Dhaka, Bangladesh, and also visiting faculty at the Architecture Department of BUET & BRAC University. Goswami is the co-founder of Brihatta, a research-based, artist-run Platform, with a strong focus on community development, and collaboration. As an art educator he has been part of many conferences and has participated in many national and international exhibitions as a practicing artist. His extensive interest in art and education has led him to extend his practice to exhibition making. In 2020 he curated the exhibition ‘Roots’ at the Dhaka Art Summit which focused on Bangladeshi art educators and the institutions that they built, following this journey across the 20th century until the 1990s, to consider how today’s artistic practices in Bangladesh were shaped. Goswami is passionate about working with students and providing them with opportunities and his practice involves collaborating with young art students and creatives. Kehkasha Sabah ASSISTANT CURATOR (Collective Body) Kehkasha Sabah is an independent curator, visual artist and researcher based in Dhaka, Bangladesh. She is Assistant Curator, Collectives Platform at DAS 2020. She is engaged in contemporary art, new media and curation focusing on socio-political issues such as cultural taboos, identity, body and space. She received the Talent Recognition Award of the Society for Promotion of Bangladesh Art in 2019. She is one of the founding members of Art Lab Dhaka. Mustafa Zaman CURATOR (No One Told Me There’d Be Days Like This) Mustafa Zaman was trained as a printmaker, however he soon veered into multidisciplinary practice turning his attention to contemporary human conditions often observed in relation to the instruments of power. Zaman held solo shows at the Zainul Gallery, Institute of Fine Arts (2000); at the Bengal Gallery of Fine Arts (2010); and at Alliance Francaise (2010) Zaman is now chief curator at Dwip, a gallery based in Dhaka. Guest Curators Others CHAIRMAN Farooq Sobhan GOETHE INSTITUT BANGLADESH Kirsten Hackenbroch ALLIANCE FRANCAISE DE DHAKA, BANGLADESH Mr. Olivier Dintinger AUSTRALIAN HIGH COMMISSION-BANGLADESH H. E. Julia Niblett ART COLLECTOR Maya Barolo-Rizvi BANGLADESH NATIONAL MUSEUM Md. Reaz Ahmed BANGLADESH SHILPAKALA ACADEMY Mr. Liaquat Ali Lucky GREY ADVERTISING BANGLADESH Syed Gousul Alam Shaon COMILLA VICTORIANS, BANGLADESH PREMIER LEAGUE Nafisa Kamal DHAKA ART SUMMIT, BANGLADESH Nadia Samdani MBE SAMDANI ART FOUNDATION, BANGLADESH Rajeeb Samdani Organising Comittee Members

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. Soma Surovi Jannat b. 1990 in Dhaka, lives and works in Dhaka, Bangladesh WINNER Soma Surovi Jannat works with illustration, drawing and painting. Her work bridges different stimuli from her surroundings, aiming to depict what often are grim circumstances through an optimistic lens. Jannat transforms her two-dimensional works into installations, developing a visual language that allows the viewer to perceive the presence and correlation of different elements across varied circumstances. Numerous facets with individual storylines are joined to present a dominant narrative, which allows for the experience of a complex visual illusion. Interaction, collaboration and social engagement are characteristic of her working process. Samdani Art Award 2020 The 2020 Samdani Art Award was curated by Philippe Pirotte, supported by Goethe Institut. The winner was selected by a jury chaired by Aaron Cezar of Delfina Foundation with Adrián Villar Rojas, Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, Julie Mehretu, and Sunjung Kim. The 2020 Samdani Art Award was curated by Philippe Pirrote and the winner was Soma Surovi Jannat. This was also the first time a Jury Award was provided to Promiti Hossain. Promiti Hossain b. 1991 in Dhaka, lives and works between Dhaka, Bangladesh and Shantiniketon, India JURY AWARD WINNER Promiti Hossain’s artistic practice is comprised of drawing, painting and collage. Her work addresses her private experience as well as the subjectivity of gender. The constant news stories of gender-based violence against women and children, which she comes across daily, inspire her to draw attention to the struggles women face in the world. Her anatomic-style ink drawings of insects, flowers, and the female body allow marks and mistakes to represent the challenges women face in society. SAMDANI ART AWARD 2020 SHORTLIST Zihan Karim Zihan Karim, Last Five Minutes of Xiluo Theatre, 2016–2020, video Installation b. 1984 in Chattogram, lives and works in Chattogram, Bangladesh Tahia Farhin Haque ahia Farhin Haque, Shadows of A Wooden House, 2019–ongoing, photography. b. 1996 in Dhaka, lives and works in Dhaka, Bangladesh Sumana Akter Sumana Akhter, Look Back – Part 2, 2018–2020, clay b. 1983 in Narayanganj, lives and works in Narayanganj, Bangladesh Sounak Das Networking Realm, 2018–2020. mixed media installation b. 1993 in Dhaka, lives and works in Dhaka, Bangladesh Palash Bhattacharjee Palash Bhattacharjee, Pass, 2019 Two channel video, installation b. 1983 in Chattogram, lives and works in Chattogram, Bangladesh Najmun Nahar Keya Najmun Nahar Keya, The Spell Song, 2019, handwoven Tangail Sari b. 1980 in Dhaka, lives and works in Dhaka, Bangladesh Habiba Nowrose Habiba Nowrose, Life of Venus, 2019–ongoing, photography b. 1989 in Sirajganj, lives and works in Dhaka, Bangladesh Faiham Ebna Sharif Faiham Ebna Sharif, Cha Chakra: Tea Tales Of Bangladesh, 2016–ongoing, photography b. 1985 in Dhaka, lives and works in Dhaka, Bangladesh Ashfika Rahman Ashfika Rahman, Redeem, 2019, mixed media installation b.1988, Dhaka, lives and works in Dhaka, Bangladesh Ariful Kabir Ariful Kabir, 3.5 seconds, 2020, performance and installation, mixed media b. 1990 in Chattogram, lives and works in Besancon, France 2023 2020 2018 2016 2014 2012 Award Archive

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. 2023 2020 2018 2016 2016 Samdani Art Award The Award aims to support, promote, and highlight Bangladeshi contemporary art, and was created to honour talented emerging Bangladeshi artists between the ages of 22 and 40. In the year between each Dhaka Art Summit, the Samdani Art Foundation, in partnership with the Delfina Foundation —with whom the Samdani Art Award has partnered since 2013—sends an open call for applications. The Delfina Foundation then identifies twenty semi-finalists, and the guest curator selects the shortlist of ten finalists following one-to-one sessions with each of the artists. The winner is selected by an international jury board. The winner of the Samdani Art Award receives an all-expenses-paid, six-week residency at the Delfina Foundation in London. A residency at the Delfina Foundation can be a career-defining moment for an artist to develop their ideas, sharpen their practice, and widen their networks. 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 The Samdani Art Foundation has 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 the 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. EXPLORE The 2020 Samdani Art Award was curated by Philippe Pirotte, supported by Goethe Institut. The winner was selected by a jury chaired by Aaron Cezar of Delfina Foundation with Adrián Villar Rojas, Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, Julie Mehretu, and Sunjung Kim. The 2020 Samdani Art Award was curated by Philippe Pirrote and the winner was Soma Surovi Jannat. This was also the first time a Jury Award was provided to Promiti Hossain. Samdani Art Award 2020 EXPLORE EXPLORE EXPLORE 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 EXPLORE The 2016 edition of the Samdani Art Award exhibition was guest curated by Daniel Baumann, Director of the Kunsthalle Zurich, assisted by Ruxmini Choudhury, Assistant Curator Samdani Art Foundation, and artist Ayesha Sultana. During the Summit, the jury selected Rasel Chowdhury as the recipient of the 2016 award. Announced during the DAS 2016 Opening Dinner on the 5 February by Kiran Nadar, Chairperson of the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art and Trustee of the Shiv Nadar Foundation in New Delhi, Chowdhury received a six-week residency with the Delfina Foundation in London which he undertook in the Autumn of 2016. Samdani Art Award 2016 EXPLORE The ten shortlisted artists for the 2014 edition of the Samdani Art Award exhibition were selected by the Delfina Foundation's Director, Aaron Cezar. During the Summit, the jury selected Ayesha Sultana as the recipient of the 2014 award. Announced during the DAS 2014 Opening Dinner on the 5 February, Sultana received a three-month residency with the Delfina Foundation in London which she undertook in the Autumn of 2014. Samdani Art Award 2014 EXPLORE The first edition of the Samdani Art Award had two prize categories: the Samdani Artist Development Award and the Samdani Young Talent Award. From 29 shortlisted artists, the jury selected artists Khaled Hasan and Musrat Reazi as the recipients of the 2012 awards. Samdani Art Award 2012 EXPLORE

ALL PROJECTS On Muzharul Islam: Surfacing Intention Co-Curated by Diana Campbell with Sean Anderson and Nurur Khan and Assistant Curator Ruxmini Reckvana Q Choudhury Observing the interplay and occasional confrontation inherent amongarchitectural spaces within an emergent nation-state, seventeen artists/collaboratives respond to the built and unbuilt legacy of the groundbreaking Bangladeshi architect Muzharul Islam (1923–2012). Active in politics because of his own conviction that ‘it was the most architectural thing he could do’, Islam humbly and uncompromisingly forged an architectural movement in what was East Pakistan as part of a broader claim toward decolonial consciousness in the 1950s leading to the country’s independence in 1971. His buildings and ideas influenced multiple generations of Bangladeshi architects working today and subsequently international figures. Working across photography, painting, sculpture, performance, sound, and film, the artists in the exhibition present work that at once negotiates and builds worlds that are borne from the local environmental and cultural climate of Bangladesh. For Islam as well as these artists, architecture and art are conceived as benefiting all who make up the lands of any nation, no matter their origin, without the boundaries of class or caste. On Muzharul Islam: Surfacing Intention Co-Curated by Diana Campbell Betancourt with Sean Anderson and Nurur Khan and Assistant Curator Ruxmini Reckvana Q Choudhury If the inception of the monument connoted manifestations of power, how do histories of collective agency, that which builds and/or questions the monumental, begin to be made visible? Architecture, in its capacity to embody the simultaneous recording of historical narratives in addition to marking action across time and space, extends how bodies modify, represent and experience the environment. Bangladeshi architect Muzharul Islam, born a generation prior to the partitioning of the Indian sub-continent and at work during the 1952 Language Movement and the 1971 Liberation War, was alarmed to witness attempts to transform the territory of his birth from a communal ecology grounded in culture to an alienated society in which interdependence was reduced. He deployed architecture and the assembly of physical and institutional structures as a fortress against myopic singular views of Nationhood and citizenship. While Islam believed in the strength of a Bengali identity, he also recognised how modernism as an ideology and tool could be deployed to extend the country’s influence beyond the region. Bangladesh, according to Muzharul Islam, should be conceived as modern from the beginning. In a striking departure from his predecessors, Islam’s prolific works throughout the country ensured that the pursuit of a Bangladesh-born architecture was as much concerned with signifying the multiple worlds in which the individual and society functioned while also locating oneself, a calculation of value built from within and not externally construed. Islam harnessed the diachronic histories of the built environment in Bangladesh as a means to reject proscriptive views of Bengal rooted in vernaculars. He instead refocussed how his collaborators, workers, students, and leading architects of his time including Louis I. Kahn and Stanley Tigerman could witness a Bengal of 2,000 years ago that was building large scale cities and monuments in brick as a means imagine the future of a country that did not yet exist. Muzharul Islam’s practice and ideology influenced multiple generations of Bangladeshi architects whose work has been increasingly visible internationally over the last five years. However, until recently, there has been little critical scholarly research in English about this architect who tirelessly and uncompromisingly fought to construct a new social order in cooperation with communities and partners of the land. Muzharul Islam’s conception of modernity in Bangladesh was conceived as an extension of its lands while also ensuring a way of life that was accessible to and responsive of an international community of architects, designers and artists. The production of a modern architecture in Bangladesh and more broadly, in South and Southeast Asia, expressed the potential of space with a materiality that was fluid in meaning and nature. While the introduction of concrete and cement in the region at the beginning of the 20th century promised the rise of new industrial techniques and forms, the use of brick in Bangladesh allowed for a return to the ground, to the unobstructed lands occupied for millennia by many different peoples. How brick might be conceived within modernist paradigms that privileged the multiple industries related to concrete, was crucial for an emergent nation attempting to assert its own visual and spatial identity. With an almost ontological connectivity to building, to histories in and out of time, brick remains an essential component that transcends multiple scales and contexts. Muzharul Islam’s brick architecture invests in tectonics that reconfigured how surfaces might be understood both as symbol and method. One may regard Islam’s drawings and buildings as a structuring of structures. For the architect, and the artists presented in this exhibition, contrasting (im-)materialities allow for the mutability of meaning even among precise configurations of settings. One may be able to observe how Muzharul Islam, as both an architect and an activist, revealed how communities and cultures could serve as agents in the imagining of new institutions. The conceit of the exhibition’s title reveals a paradox found within the reception of modern architecture in Bangladesh. On one hand, surfaces are both agents of and metaphors for what contains us. Buildings can be surfaces. And surfaces may embody how buildings are designed and built. Informing our visual and haptic faculties, surface is also that which collapses the negotiable nature of built space. Surfaces are a productive in-between, neither here nor there. In architecture, we are at once enmeshed among assemblies of surfaces that may have been ‘designed’ or ‘chosen’ while they are also subject to entropy, to the passage of time. By extension, the collaborative efforts for much of how Muzharul Islam’s projects transpired also allows for a questioning of labour; he built with and for the people of Bangladesh, refusing to inscribe himself as the ‘genius creator.’ Intention, likewise, is tied to internal and external processes that may broaden one’s understanding of affect. The invisible may subsequently become an index of strategies for making. Found at the horizon of the known, or perhaps at the threshold of building as object and form, intention remains ever-present, pointing a way forward, a movement toward a fragile yet more complete notion of self-knowledge. By surfacing intention, we are attempting to suggest how Muzharul Islam revealed subjectivities among his built and unbuilt projects. Consequently, the prompt for each of the artists allowed for expansive readings that are rooted in Bangladesh but also relevant to other local contexts such as Manila, Warsaw, Rio de Janeiro, New Delhi, among others. Each of the artists brought together for this exhibition use process, materiality and form to disassemble the boundaries that have long defined self and other. Conventional dialectics embedded within notions of gender and context are also questioned. In our discussions with each of the artists, how surface in all of its manifestations came to inform their own conception of Islam’s architecture was apparent. Surface was imagined as a modern agent for thinking through and responding to alternative spatial paradigms. Yet, we remained steadfast that such diverse perspectives resonate with how and why the (modern) architecture of Bangladesh might be reconceived through projection, sculpture, performance, photography, drawing and painting. What are the residues of intention? By circulating through this exhibition one participates in a journey that reveals elements of Muzharul Islam’s ideology that cannot be read by looking at an architectural plan or model. Fingerprints carry the material traces of a day’s activities and are unintended marks of our presence in a space. One of the first works visitors encounter when entering the Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy is an immersive installation on the winding central staircase of the venue choreographically built up by Rana Begum. Fingerprints of Bangladeshi collaborators of DAS come together to form a pattern of collectivity, a monument to democracy, speaking to what the hands of the people can achieve together, while maintaining the individuality of each person through the unique markings and spirals making up each fingerprint. If you look closely, similar traces of individual makers can be found on the terracotta screens and bricks of Muzharul Islam’s art school, Charukala, now formally known as the Faculty of Fine Art, University of Dhaka (designed 1953–55). Similarly, works by Ayesha Sultana, Maria Taniguchi, and Prabhavathi Meppayil measure the markings of making that build up and transform over time through processes of accumulation, oxidation, and entropy. As we pass Begum’s installation and enter Gallery One, we become enveloped in another spiralling environment of iron rebar growing from what appears to be two stairs ripped out of the central staircase of Muzharul Islam’s School of Fine Art. The climb up and down this staircase in addition to the hidden (and often forgotten) emotions from those daily journeys are part of what makes up the art history of Bangladesh, inspiring Monika Sosnowska to reimagine this element of Muzharul Islam’s architecture in a seemingly displaced sculptural form. Hajra Waheed’s video The Spiral (2019) draws us into another reading of the spiral, taking this catalytic geometry as a starting point to reflect on processes of upheaval in human experience. The video is a meditation on undefeated despair and the possibilities for radical hope that Islam fostered in his practice as Bangladesh fought for its independence. The spiral staircase in Muzharul Islam’s Charulaka winds around a column, a pivotal support structure bearing silent witness to the generations of movement around it. Tanya Goel has wrapped the pillars of the Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy’s South Plaza with Bangla resistance poems that Muzharul Islam and his peers engaged with at the dawn of Bangladesh’s existence. These texts and their florid Bangla forms painted in textured brick dust unfold as visitors circulate around these co-dependent structures which float free from obstructing walls for the first time in DAS’s exhibition history. Muzharul Islam designed his buildings with the hope that they would provide culturally grounded upward mobility for all the people passing through them in their own pursuits of knowledge. Movement is key to the works by Aditya Novali, Shezad Dawood, and Dayanita Singh in this exhibition. Novali created rotatable paintings inspired by the situated modernism of Muzharul Islam and his Indonesian contemporary, Y. B. Mangunwijaya. These paintings change form throughout the course of the show, speaking to how influence moves and shapes architecture across space and time outside of nationalist frameworks. Drawing on the futuristic geometry of Muzharul Islam’s drawings, Dawood’s adaptable ‘stage set’ functions somewhere between architecture and tapestry. For a number of years, Dawood has been developing a notion of ‘paintings without painting’, that are created through the collaging and sewing of different textile elements, some incorporating Bengali kantha techniques. These works, inspired by Islam’s plans for the University of Chittagong (1968–71), function as hangings and room dividers which envelop visitors and connect to a video that documents a dance performance realized in collaboration with choreographer Adrienne Hart, composer Patten, costume designer Priya Ahluwalia and Dawood. Dayanita Singh’s ‘Museum of Shedding’ takes the elitist form of the museum off its metaphorical pedestal and puts it in the hands of the people, where they too can become the curators, adjusting the sequence and display of the individual images within it. Institutions are dynamic mechanisms for the making of society. Like Islam and his emphasis on change from within, Dayanita’s Museums are open structures, frameworks for the making and reception of multiple meanings and audiences. While movement was crucial to Muzharul Islam, so was standing still, a necessary state of being to learn from nature and its transformations across time. The open plan of most of Muzharul Islam’s university and educational buildings speaks to how he wanted students and others alike not only to learn about art and culture within the classroom, but also from the activities teeming beyond the windows and across the roofs, verandahs, and ponds hosting other components of student life. The National Library in Dhaka has one artwork inside, a monumental mural of a jungle, and Lucas Arruda’s exquisite jungle paintings speak to a kind of knowledge that cannot be taught from books. They are embodied and yet distant; seductive yet menacing. Daniel Steegmann Mangrané’s narrative film, shot in Chaukala, looks at the spiritual interplay between humans and nonhumans and the kind of interconnected ecology that Muzharul Islam tried to foster in his work in Dhaka in the 1950s, which has ongoing lessons for other parts of the world today. The Otolith Group’s film O Horizon grounds the spirit of Dhaka’s art school in its predecessor Santiniketan in West Bengal, speaking to the wisdom its founders and architects tried to glean from its surrounding structures and forests. While the works described thus far draw inspiration from Muzharul Islam’s built spaces, many of these spaces no longer carry the architect’s intentions due to bureaucracy, degradation or ideas of modernisation that implemented elements such as air conditioners and false ceilings, obscuring the quiet majesty of his spaces. The invention of blueprints, aspects of which are used today in contemporary architectural practice, carry the scores of intentions, of what was meant to come but might never appear or what may have ceased to be. Muzharul Islam and Stanley Tigerman spent nearly ten years developing five polytechnic institutes across the country, including detailed studies into different microclimates of Bangladesh, which were never realized beyond visionary drawings and blue-prints from 1965–71. Marlon de Azambuja awakens Dhaka’s multiplicity of densities at all scales in an installation inspired by the ‘bones and organs of the city’, shifting how we consider, deploy, and imagine the clamps, bricks and tools that both Muzharul Islam and architects today imagine and construct the urban environments that contain us. Seher Shah and Randhir Singh’s cyanotype prints of Muzharul Islam’s poorly preserved Central Library at Dhaka University employ conventional architectural representational methods, such as the plan and elevation, and function between the precise formalism of a blueprint and the intuitive nature of drawing. Haroon Mirza’s animated scores of light and sound derived from Muzharul Islam’s drawings and blue-prints for Chittagong University bring to life an architectural vision for sites that would train Bangladeshis (the East Pakistanis) to develop their own destiny (even if ironically many of these projects were funded by the World Bank). Sometimes it is not possible to think or operate in a free and radical way with radical transparency, and it is necessary to remain invisible, emerging when the time is right. William Forsythe’s work, A Volume within which it is not Possible for Certain Classes of Action to Arise (2015) locates the need to find new ways of navigating spaces that constrict freedom, akin to the kinds of social spaces that Muzharul Islam tried to create within his lifetime. If previous (Western) modernist paradigms for truth-seeking were in part coalesced in and around solutions, to finality, then this exhibition attempts to reverse course, to allow for an opening, even if brief, to the possibilities afforded by architectures that may not yet be visible. These are architectures of becoming. For this exhibition, inasmuch as for the architecture of Muzharul Islam, surfacing is thus an active method for articulating simultaneities in a society’s arising, an awareness of emergent parallel historicities among movements near and far, a reshaping of value’s precarity, of collaborations borne from collectivity, each of which threatens to disturb the surface. The authors wish to thank and cite the dedicated research of the exhibition’s curatorial advisor Nurur Khan. Many of the ideas in this essay and exhibition stem from long conversations with Khan and relate to his upcoming PHD thesis. Muzharul Islam b. 1923, Murshidabad, British India; d. 2012, Dhaka Muzharul Islam was an architect, urban planner, and educator and is considered to be one of the pioneers of South Asian architecture. He sought to develop a language of architectural modernism in South Asia that responded directly to the local social, cultural, and climatic conditions, while also establishing the groundwork for the development of architectural education in the region. Islam’s architectural projects include the Faculty of Fine Arts, Dhaka University (1953–1955), the Central Public Library (1953–1954), the NIPA Building (1963–65) and the Rangamati Township (1964), Jahangirnagar University (1968–71), Chittagong University (1971), the National Library and the National Archives (1980–84). His works remain as outstanding instances of situated modernism, as well as sensitive and visionary architectural masterworks of architecture that address history, society, people, economy, city, and, foremost, the building and aspiration of a nation. Aditya Novali b. 1978, Surakarta; lives and works in Surakarta Y/M/B/U/M/Z/A/H/N/A/G/R/U/U/N/L/W/I/I/S/J/L/A/A/Y/M/A #1 ,#2,#3,#4,#5,#6,#7,#8,#9,#10,#11,#12,#13,#14 (rotatable painting series), 2019–2020 Oil paint and ink on modular rotatable triangular zinc bars covered with canvas, wood and zinc frame Commissioned for DAS 2020. Courtesy of the artist and Roh Projects. Realised with additional support from Roh Projects Aditya Novali finds inspiration in the ways that Muzharul Islam (1923–2012) and the Indonesian architect Y. B. Mangunwijaya (1929–99) created spaces that provided a better quality of life for the people building the new nations of Bangladesh and his native Indonesia. For both, the ambition of architecture was in part to create transcendent opportunities for mobility across class barriers with a humanist approach. Islam and Mangunwijaya demonstrated how architecture could cross the borders of the political, social, economic, and religious realms to invent solutions for living inspired by local wisdom, especially when considering how to live in variable climates. We live in a world where many people relate more to digital information than to the immediate environment around them. In this new body of work, the artist paints rotatable panels inspired by the work of Islam and Mangunwijaya as a means to create hybrid paintings that change across the course of the exhibition, drawing connections across time, space, and cultures through the rooted legacy of these figures to their land and people. Novali makes sculptures and installations using complex methods of production as well as commercial materials. Influenced by his background in architecture, his work addresses themes such as structure, space, and urban planning. Using audience participation, Novali’s works act as investigations of social issues related to space with the help of methodological techniques and orderly systems. Ayesha Sultana b. 1984 in Jessore; lives and works in Sylhet Breath Count Series, 2019–2020 Mark-making on clay-coated paper Courtesy of the artist, Experimenter Kolkata and Samdani Art Foundation Ayesha Sultana’s recent work negotiates space and distance by measuring the space between things- such as the breaks between taking breaths- marking the rhythm of the day. She contemplates the relationship between her hand, her body, and the rest of the landscape surrounding her, making visible the motion of rhythm without being seen. Through a body of scratch drawings on clay-coated paper, Breath Count are personal explorations of movement, mark-making and corporeality. Ayesha reveals staccato patterns that represent a delicate inward probe of her own body using count, distance, motion and removal in breath in these works. Like the marble lines in Louis Kahn’s parliament building, which mark the labour of a day’s work casting concrete, Sultana’s marks measure the labour of internal bodily systems. Sultana works with drawing, painting, object, and sound, through processes that translate notions of space. She employs drawing as a tool of inquiry, through cutting, folding, stitching, layering, recording, and tracing applied to her series characterised by repetition, variation, and rhythm. Sultana often draws inspiration from architecture and the natural environment. Daniel Steegmann Mangrané b. 1977, Barcelona; lives and works in Rio de Janeiro Fog Dog, 2019–2020 Film and ceramic installation Commissioned for DAS 2020 and produced by Samdani Art Foundation and Esther Schipper. Courtesy of the artist, Samdani Art Foundation, and Esther Schipper. Presented with additional support from Mendes Wood DM Daniel Steegmann Mangrané’s narrative film brings us into a community of human and inhuman inhabitants of Charukala, the Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Dhaka (designed by Muzharul Islam from 1953–55). Mixing fiction and contemplation, this work explores the past and future spectres that haunt present-day Bangladesh from the viewpoint of the stray dogs who live in and among its shared spaces. While life revolves around the art school for the protagonists in this film, the horrors of climactic and political violence elsewhere in the world appear and speak to the interconnectedness of seemingly disparate contexts. Employing sculpture, installation, film, holograms, and drawing, Steegmann invites the viewer to critically reflect on how the divide between culture and nature is perceived while exploring their constructed interstices. Echoing his interest in biological systems, specifically Brazilian rainforests, Steegmann’s works often introduce elements from nature into exhibition spaces. Dayanita Singh What, when and where is a museum? For Dayanita Singh, the museum rests within, occasionally outside of the conventional market and aesthetic discourses that have come to instigate their articulation throughout history. One finds congruence with the institutional building projects of Muzharul Islam who actively sought to democratise spaces. For her Museum of Shedding, Singh has selected a collection of images that, with one box, suggests an origin or window into a visual and spatial language that does not seek answers. Drawn from her extensive photographic body of work, the box forms part of a series of mobile museums that allow her images to be endlessly edited, sequenced, archived and displayed. Like Muzharul Islam, the spaces that Singh has photographed are imbued with the relations, voices and rituals of their occupation. Viewers share in their unfolding. Each photograph in a Singh museum contributes to the making of unbound mythologies: of a chair, of an individual, of interiors that stand outside of time. Familiar but perhaps also unknown, Singh’s photographs and Islam’s buildings situate us in a continual state of becoming. Dayanita Singh deploys photography to reflect and expand on the ways in which we relate to photographic images and their construction. Stemming from Singh’s longstanding interest in the archive, her museums at all scales present photographs as interconnected bodies and spaces that are replete with narrative possibilities. b. 1961, New Delhi; lives and works in New Delhi Hajra Waheed b. 1980, Calgary; lives and works in Montreal The Spiral, 2019 Video work with narration, 7:10 min Courtesy of the artist. Presented with additional support from the Canada Council for the Arts Conceived and written by Hajra Waheed as a series of working notes for an exhibition, the narration of this film explores a single form – the spiral – as a starting point to reflect on processes of upheaval in human experience. The film acts as a meditation on undefeated despair and the possibilities for radical hope. For Waheed, spirals are reflexive and interdependent, much like Muzharul Islam’s belief in the ability of architecture to bring people together to radically transform society for an equitable future. Waheed’s multidisciplinary practice ranges from interactive installations to collage, video, sound, and sculpture. Among other issues, she explores the nexus between security, surveillance, and the covert networks of power that structure lives, while also addressing the traumas and alienation of displaced subjects affected by legacies of colonial and state violence. Haroon Mirza b. 1977, London; lives and works in London Lectures in Theology, 2019–2020 24-channel electrical signals for Hi-Fi speakers and LEDs, steel, electrical wire, bespoke media device, carpet, wall painting Commissioned and produced by Samdani Art Foundation and Lisson Gallery for DAS 2020. Courtesy of the artist, Samdani Art Foundation, and Lisson Gallery. Realised with additional support from Lisson Gallery How does one envision a building while also recognising its inhabitation through time and space? Even with the best of intentions, spaces change over time and often deteriorate if not maintained. This is the case with several buildings designed by Muzharul Islam, such as the Jaipurhat Limestone and Cement Project (which was built as housing for 1,700 workers and is now a girl’s military school) and the five polytechnic universities designed by Islam and Stanley Tigerman throughout Bangladesh. Architectural plans and blueprints are like scores for the future, and Haroon Mirza has composed a new sound and light installation reimagining Islam’s frequencies of thought. For both the artist and the architect, building a society relies on the ways in which education contributes to and informs how equality transcends previously encoded class divides. Mirza’s medium is electricity, which is seen and heard simultaneously. He adopts found objects and audiovisual equipment in his installations and performances. Inviting the viewer to re-evaluate their definitions of noise and music, Mirza’s work is known for its physical impact and its undermining of straightforward narrative by exploring the sociocultural histories of the objects, ideas, and processes he employs. Lucas Arruda b. 1983, Sao Paulo; lives and works in Sao Paulo Series of Untitled (from the Deserto-Modelo series), 2013–2019 Oil on canvas Courtesy of the artist and Mendes Wood DM. Presented with additional support from Mendes Wood DM The National Library of Bangladesh (1978–9) reflects the architect Muzharul Islam’s engagement with Louis I. Kahn. Upon entering the lobby, one immediately encounters a monumental mural of a jungle painted. This immersive and magnanimous image, an unusual choice for a library, greets those seeking knowledge while conveying Islam’s belief that learning must be grounded in the demands of climate and place. Jungles rebuild themselves as dynamic and diverse ecosystems, akin to Islam’s ideas about Bangladeshi society, which had to rebuild itself after the Pakistani army brutally massacred the country’s intellectuals in 1971. Lucas Arruda creates images that concern the body’s relationship to light throughout the day and life. Like the mural in Islam’s National Library, Arruda’s jungles coalesce a metaphysical sensation that can’t be described by scouring all the books in the library. They allude to another form of feeling and knowing. Lucas Arruda works with painting, prints, light installation, slide projections, and films. His practice encompasses a wide spectrum of subjects, ranging from the conceptual framework of painting to metaphysical questions. Commonly portraying archetypal landscapes characterised by a subtle and intricate rendition of light, Arruda’s small-scale atmospheric compositions dwell on the viewer’s experiences as opposed to geographical specificity. Maria Taniguchi b. 1981 Dumaguete City; lives and works in Manila Untitled, 2017 Acrylic on canvas Courtesy of the artist and Samdani Art Foundation Untitled, 2017 5 works, acrylic on canvas Courtesy of the artist and Perrotin. Realised with additional support from Perrotin Like Muzharul Islam, Maria Taniguchi finds beauty in the marks of the human hand on objects that we associate with industrial production, such as bricks. These traces inform not only the contexts in which they were made but also the people who made them. Taniguchi’s painted architecture calls to mind the transformative and meditative process of brick-laying as well as the subtle changes that can be found across seemingly monotonous surfaces through the movement of light and shadow. Bricks are an apt metaphor for Muzharul Islam’s philosophy that can be read as nationalism expressed through modernity. ‘When I mention standing on one’s own soil’, writes Muzharul Islam, ‘it is to find oneself, but not to find oneself and become stagnant. What I am seeking is to stand on one’s own feet and then to proceed forward. If for that reason I have to take two steps backward to go one step forward, I have no problem with that. I think that there is no other way of moving forward.’ (Islam, Muzharul. An Architect in Bangladesh: Conversations with Muzharul Islam. Edited by Kazi Khaleed. Ashraf. Dhaka: Loka Press, 2014. p.37) Taniguchi works with painting and video in addition to printmaking, pottery, and sculpture. Her work focuses on concepts of composing, constructing, and framing, whilst referring to the craftsmanship and history of the Philippines. The repetitive process of creation employed in much of her work has been likened to the urban structure of Manila. Marlon de Azambuja b. 1978, Porto Alegre; lives and works in Madrid Untitled (from the Brutalismo Series), 2019–2020 Industrial metal clamps, building material sourced in Dhaka Commissioned for DAS 2020. Courtesy of the artist and Samdani Art Foundation and Instituto de Vision. Realised with additional support from Acción Cultural Española (AC/E) Marlon de Azambuja’s sprawling installation captures the density of Dhaka as well as its precarity in the wake of exponential urban growth resulting from climate change-related migration. The work unveils the inner organs of the city – construction materials such as bricks and concrete blocks, industrial clamps and building tools. Like unsung artists, Bangladesh’s construction workers transform these everyday materials into the buildings that make up the cityscapes of emergent massive cities such as Dhaka. Dhaka is the world’s most densely populated city, a fact that Muzharul Islam could never have imagined when he was the senior architect for the government of East Pakistan. ‘Cities should provide the environment for civilised life within the context of our own culture,’ said Islam. ‘The city can develop only as a part of the physical environment of the country – with the ultimate aim of abolishing all differences between the city and the rural areas. The traditional relationship with nature… should be continued in the cities.’ De Azambuja works with drawing, photography, sculpture, installation, and video to create new ways of looking at the structures that surround us. He is invested in the cultural and aesthetic impact of architecture and urban planning as spaces of confrontation between instinct and rationality, and the city as a living, breathing entity. Monika Sosnowska b. 1972, Ryki; lives and works in Warsaw Stairs, 2019–2020 Commissioned and Produced by Samdani Art Foundation for DAS 2020. Courtesy of the artist and Foksal Gallery Foundation Nearly every Bangladeshi artist exhibiting at DAS 2020 has climbed up and down the spiral staircase at Charukala (the Faculty of Fine Arts) at Dhaka University as part of their artistic journey. Muzharul Islam viewed architecture as a vehicle to a better life, elevating local materials to their highest potential (while avoiding decoration). For Islam, the common Bangladeshi woman and man could rise above the circumstances in which they were born via education. Inspired by Islam and his vision, Monika Sosnowska has created a sculpture using similar materials to the staircase at Charukala, but removing its function. This sculpture leads nowhere, and while it pays homage to foundational structures, it also invites the viewer to consider the illusions inherent in built spaces. Sosnowksa uses building elements and materials to create disorientating installations, spaces, and objects that explore the psychological impact of architectural space. She is interested in architecture’s capacity to influence behaviour as well as reflect social structures and ideologies. Flaws, glitches, and deficiencies in her work are used to question aspects commonly attributed to global modernisms. The Otolith Group Founded 2002 by Anjalika Sagar (b. 1968) and Kodwo Eshun (b. 1966), who live and work in London O Horizon, 2018 4K video, colour, 90 min Commissioned by Bauhaus Imaginista and co-produced by the Rubin Museum, with support from Project 88 Screening: 10am, 11.30am, 1pm, 2.30pm, 4pm, 5.30pm O Horizon refers to the surface layer of soil, changed in the area around Santiniketan as the result of Rabindranath Tagore’s introduction of new flora to the planning and development of the campus. The film extends The Otolith Group’s ongoing consideration of the current geological age as one in which human activity spurs the primary changes on climate and the environment. O Horizon reflects upon modernist theories of dance and song developed by Tagore and the experimental practices of mural, sculpture, painting, and drawing developed by India’s great modernist artists affiliated with Santiniketan. O Horizon draws together visual arts, dance, song, music, and recital to assemble a structure of feeling of the Tagorean imagination in the 21st Century. The work also has resonances with Muzharul Islam’s campus of the Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Dhaka, where learning and convening of students unite the indoors and outdoors around circular forms such as the rooftops and ponds. The research-based work of The Otolith Group spans moving image, audio, performance, installation, and curation. These are utilised to explore the temporal anomalies, anthropic inversions, and synthetic alienation of the posthuman, the inhuman, the nonhuman, and the complexity of the ‘environmental conditions of life we all face.’ The Otolith Group also runs a curatorial public platform, The Otolith Collective. Prabhavathi Meppayil b. 1965, Bangalore; lives and works in Bangalore dp/twenty/thirteen, 2019 Copper wire and copper wire embedded in gesso panel dp/twenty/forty eight, 2019 Wood gesso and copper dp/twenty/six, 2019 Thinnam on gesso panel Commissioned for DAS 2020. Courtesy of the artist and Pace. Presented with additional support from Pace Time is rarely subtle. Yet among Prabhavathi Meppayil’s works, one’s gaze is enmeshed in a rare confluence of multiple structures, temporalities and forms that reconfigure our notion of space in and of time. At once archaeological in process and expansive in reading, Meppayil’s multimedia paintings confound for their immediacy and immeasurability. These newly commissioned works observe how Muzharul Islam’s reliance on both social and empirical structures informed the making and occupation of space. For Meppayil, her work shares in a similar layering of ideas; of an intuitive composition of sublime architectures that may be affected by forces such as entropy while at the same time, resistant to present-day desires for immediateness and easy reproduction. In this oscillation between additive and subtractive connotations, of surfaces marked and degraded, Meppayil’s works encourage the generative act of looking closely and seeing beyond. Prabhavathi Meppayil’s practice rests in her meticulous approach to conceiving and executing processes specific to the materials that she uses. Coming from a family of goldsmiths, Meppayil adopts artisan techniques as a means to relocate particular materials as a generator of forms, providing a parallel reading to the way in which western art histories were received in the twentieth century. Through the use of non-traditional tools and often copper wire, she carves, erases and highlights carefully conceived lines and patterns into layers of gesso to underscore the blurring of painting, drawing, and other disciplines while establishing meditative installations. Rana Begum b. 1977, Sylhet; lives and works in London No. 972 Wall Painting, 2019–2020 Ink and fingerprints on wall Commissioned for DAS 2020. Courtesy of the artist and Jhaveri Contemporary. Realised with additional support from Jhaveri Contemporary Many buildings designed by Muzharul Islam carry the marks of their makers. The architect reminded Russian-born American architect Louis I. Kahn that Bangladesh’s most skilled construction workers possessed a refined knowledge of building yet were illiterate, prompting Kahn to consider other ways of translating his vision for building in Bangladesh. In a similar spirit, writer Kazi Nasrul Islam invokes a benediction of indigenous forms of feeling and knowing in his poem Ink on My Face, Ink on my Hands. Inspired by her memories of growing up in Sylhet, Rana Begum creates an immersive participatory installation in the central staircase of DAS 2020, where the fingerprints of the individuals who come together to build DAS form an abstract portrait of the collective energy of the Summit and city. Begum utilises industrial materials such as stainless steel, aluminium, copper, brass, glass, and wood in her minimalist sculptures and reliefs. Her contemplative works explore shifting interactions between geometry, colour, and light, drawing inspiration from both the chance encounters of city life and the intricate patterns of Islamic art and architecture. Seher Shah and Randhir Singh b. 1975, Karachi; lives and works in New Delhi b. 1976, New Delhi; lives and works in New Delhi Dhaka Library (set of 9), 2017–18 Cyanotype prints on Arches aquarelle paper Commissioned and produced by Samdani Art Foundation for DAS 2018. Courtesy of the artist and Nature Morte. Presented with additional support from Nature Morte First presented at DAS 2018, Dhaka Library is part of a collaborative body of work by Seher Shah and Randhir Singh exploring overlapping ideas in architecture, photography, drawing, and printmaking. Cyanotypes were one of the first photographic printmaking processes developed in the 19th century and a precursor to the blueprint, which was an important reproduction method for architectural and engineering drawings well into the 20th century. Working with this printmaking process, Shah and Singh focused on Muzharul Islam’s Dhaka Library (1953–1954), fragmenting its unique architectural components through photographic images. The artists were drawn to Islam’s work due to its aesthetic qualities, including heavy massing, the sculptural use of concrete, and repetitive structural grids, along with a visionary intent driven by a desire to break from the status quo. Seher Shah’s practice uses experiences from the field of art and architecture to question the rational language of architectural drawing. Randhir Singh is an architectural photographer who draws on his education as an architect to focus on ever-changing meanings found within modern architecture and urbanism in South Asia. Over the past few years, they have collaborated on a number of projects to explore the relationships between drawing, photography, and architecture. Shezad Dawood b. 1974, London; lives and works in London University of NonDualism, 2020 Installation with painted textiles and programmed lighting sequence Musical score by patten Commissioned for DAS 2020, generously supported by the Bagri Foundation. Courtesy of the artist and Jhaveri Contemporary University of NonDualism, 2019 Super 8 and HD transferred to digital, 3:27 min Commissioned by Frieze LIVE and DAS 2020, generously supported by the Bagri Foundation. Produced by Miranda Sharp and Sara Thorsen Fredborg for Ubik Productions. Costumes by Priya Ahluwalia / Ahluwalia Studio, musical score by patten, choreography by Adrienne Hart / Neon Dance, dancers Pepa Ubera and Devaraj Thimmaiah, production by Laurie Storey, lighting by Pete Carrier, editing by Sergio Vego Borrego, location Queensrollahouse, London Considering how the body and fabric may become architecture, and where architectural space is always a platform for human performativity, Shezad Dawood’s installation draws on the legacy of Muzharul Islam to create an adaptable stage set. His interior functions somewhere between architecture and tapestry. With the layering of sound, Dawood examines the influence of Bengali polymath Rabindranath Tagore on Muzharul Islam, but also how Tagore informed the later spiritual work of Alice Coltrane. Referencing Islam’s approach to nondualism, the project extends such flows into the space of the exhibition and enacts a series of dynamic collaborations much like the architect who regularly collaborated with artists, poets, and singers. Dawood works across disciplines to deconstruct systems of image, language, site, and narrative. His fascination with architectural modernism in South Asia recurs in several projects, interweaving these histories with those of the Non-Aligned Movement and the Cold War. His practice often involves collaboration, imagining a remapping across geographic borders and communities. Tanya Goel b. 1985, New Delhi; lives and works in New Delhi Tracing Modernity in Dust, 2019–20 Brick-dust paint Commissioned and produced by Samdani Art Foundation for DAS 2020. Courtesy of the artist, Samdani Art Foundation, and Nature Morte. Realised with additional support from Nature Morte and Inlaks Shivdasani Foundation The brick is perhaps the oldest and most ubiquitous building material. Tanya Goel was inspired by the detailed texture found in the brick patterns of buildings by Muzharul Islam. In designing the Faculty of Fine Arts, for example, Islam introduced a subtle geometric pattern on the face of each handmade brick, integrating a modern architectural language with the vernaculars of regional building. The artist traced details of Islam’s ageing buildings in brick dust, protecting them for the next generation through the process of drawing. She juxtaposes these zoomed in details within their wider (material) context by framing them within her photographs of Islam’s Faculty of Fine Arts, National Library, and male dormitory at Jahangirnagar University (as they stand today), paired with paintings she made on fragments of debris collected from these sites. Goel is invested in the afterlife of construction, creating pigments from charcoal, aluminium, concrete, glass, soil, mica, graphite, and foils, all of which are sourced from building sites. Exploring abstraction within her painting practice, Goel works with the concepts of density and complexity inherent to the synthetic repetition of mathematical formulas, balancing unforeseen orders and potential chaos. William Forsythe b. 1949, New York A Volume Within Which it is Not Possible for Certain Classes of Action to Arise, 2015 Scaffolding structure, drywall Courtesy of the artist. The development and international exhibition of Choreographic Objects by William Forsythe is made possible with the generous support of Susanne Klatten ‘Choreography is about organising bodies in space, or you’re organising bodies with other bodies or a body with other bodies in an environment that is organised.’ William Forsythe Politics ‘was the most architectural thing to do.’ Muzharul Islam Both Muzharul Islam and William Forsythe extrapolate the tenets of their respective fields, choreography and architecture, into the realm of the political where these ideas have implications in ‘real life.’ This work is a metaphor for time, for political structures, for any physical or metaphorical barrier that might not allow for certain actions to arise. When Muzharul Islam was building the Faculty of Fine Arts and the National Library, such barriers could have been seen as colonial domination by West Pakistan. What are these barriers today? And how do they persist? This work offers the visitor the possibility of consciously and physically experiencing the loss of a broad degree of freedom, which is incorporated into our daily existence. In a world that is continuously creating impediments to movement, we must invent new strategies of transiting through them. 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.’