ALL PROJECTS Shako and National Trovoa Dhaka Art Summit 2020 Several artist-led initiatives have been tearing away the cloak of invisibility thrown by structural racism within the art world. The manifesto of Brazil’s National Trovoa , a group of black and non-white women artists and curators which can be seen both as a collective and as a movement, states ‘We understand the need to speak of and to exhibit the plurality of our languages, discourses, research and media produced by us as racialised women’. A rallying call that lives in physical and digital space, Trovoa counts over 150 members and empowers the most disenfranchised members of the art world to become visible together. Shako – Women Artists Association of Bangladesh – for women and by women – believes art can play a role in healing society. It raises funds for individuals, male and female, who are unwell or in need of medical treatment; uses art to encourage physically or mentally challenged people; and promotes female artists and helps them develop skills. A ‘shako’ is a temporary bamboo bridge, built to make it possible to cross rivers and streams, an apt metaphor for Shako’s work connecting talented female artists to vulnerable communities. Reflections on blackness and racial subjugation must respond to different histories and contexts. The largest African diaspora in the world is found in Brazil. In South Asia also, the colour of a woman’s skin can subject her to structural prejudice. Skin-lightening creams are used widely across the country, derogatory phrases are directed at women with dark skin or indigenous features, and advertisements for arranged marriages explicitly favour ‘fair skin’. The Collective Body brings together these two generations of female-led collectives from South Asia and South America for a 5-hour tea party to compare experiences, and in their words, to ‘darken our thoughts.’ The results of these discussions was published in Bangla, English, and Portuguese on social media, follow #darkeningthoughts Shako also ran a workshop about black empowerment on 13 February from 4–6pm in the 4th floor workshop area.

ALL PROJECTS Illustrated Lectures | Imagery, Ideas, Personae, And Sites Across South Asia Curated by Beth Citron And Diana Campbell Betancourt Artists Lucy Raven, The Otolith Group (Anjalika Sagar and Kodwo Eshun), Matti Braun, and Amie Siegel presented illustrated lectures concerning the contemporary circulation of traditional and modernist imagery, ideas, personae, and sites across South Asia. Specifically, and respectively, these included sculptural reliefs at Ellora, Rabindranath Tagore’s art school at Santiniketan, the vision of physicist Vikram Sarabhai, and the global circulation of modernist furniture from Le Corbusier’s Chandigarh. Building on their individual presentations, the artists gathered with curators Beth Citron and Diana Campbell Betancourt in the Education Pavilion on February 4th for a critical discussion of the form of the ‘illustrated lecture’ or ‘lecture performance.’ As an artistic discipline that has often seemed to blur boundaries among art, research, and discourse, the workshop examined different approaches to the lecture performance, as well as the limits of this form and the language used to circumscribe it. Taking historical examples of lecture performances by Chris Burden, Yvonne Rainer, Robert Morris, and Joseph Beuys into consideration, one question this workshop hoped to answer was how the ‘lecture performance’ differs from other types of live works and talks delivered by artists today. This form has been defined rather loosely globally, and comparatively been less studied and practiced in South Asia. This programme sought to address both the global, and local implications of this form. THE OTOLITH GROUP NOTES TOWARDS A FILM ON SANTINIKETAN “Trees are the earth’s endless effort to speak to the listening cosmos.”Rabindranath Tagore, Fireflies, 1928 Since 2012, The Otolith Group have been developing a work that engages with what Gayatri Spivak calls the ‘aesthetic education’ of Visva Bharati University, Shantineketan. This lecture performance presented scenes from the aesthetic sociality engendered in, and by, Kala Bhavana at Visva Bharati. The Otolith Group’s encounters with the pedagogy of ‘tree schooling’ developed by Tagore at Visva Bharati opens onto an engagement with improvisational practices of desegregation and dealienation. The encounters with these practices subtend the ongoing implications of Tagore’s aesthetico-political ecology of nature into a rethinking of the shape of learning in the future of the present. Such a rethinking feeds into an improvisation in and with cinema. What emerges from these experiments with aesthetic education are a series of scenes from a Neo-Tagorean cinema. A cinema conceived as a practice of image making that is shaped by the multiple frames and links of network realism and the geography of the hyperlocal. MATTI BRAUN VIKRAM SARABHAI This illustrated lecture took its point of departure from the biography of Vikram Sarabhai (1919-1971), father of the Indian space programme. It showed how his work intersected major cultural developments in 20th century India and revealed interactions with international modernist figures including Le Corbusier, John Cage, and Henri Cartier-Bresson as they engaged with him and members of his influential family of patrons in their home city of Ahmedabad.This lecture was supported by the Goethe-Institut. AMIE SIEGEL BACKSTORY An associative talk on the speculative, imitative and extractive actions within design, art and auctions in connection to India— on Chandigarh and Le Corbusier, on Pierre Jeanneret, John Pawson and Donald Judd, on modernism, minimalism and marketing—how these iconographies, and the behaviours of design and art markets, both mask and disclose the flow of capital. This talk accompanied the artist’s film presentation in the exhibition Planetary Planning. LUCY RAVEN LOW RELIEF Low Relief connected research into bas-relief sculpture in both India and the United States to the illusion of depth created in stereoscopic 3D lms, and the globally-connected, labour-intensive processes of post-production involved.

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

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

ALL PROJECTS Charcha Sessions Thakurgaon, 1 - 7 Dec 2018 The Samdani Art Foundation was delighted to partner with Samdani Artist Led Initiatives forum member Gidree Bawlee on their inaugural Charcha Sessions festival in rural Balla, Thakurgan, Bangladesh from December 1-7, 2018 as part of our annual grant program. The four artists in residence for in this inaugural session were Kamruzzaman Shadhin, Yasmin Jahan Nupur, Khandakar Nasir Ahmed and Anisuzzaman, Rubel. Learn more about this program from the text below by Salma Jamal Moushum. The ‘Charcha Sessions’ came into being to facilitate continuing collaborations between visiting artists and the artists/artisans from the village to catalyze a long-term impact on both of their practices. As an organization Gidree Bawlee's aim is to create a balance of influence in the artistic processes of the visiting artists and the community art/craft practitioners. In the future, this project will be held several times of the year to support continuous projects that will be developed by the artists, and also to encourage new experimentation in regards to community engagement. We believe these frequent sessions will help both the visiting artists and the community art practitioners to find an equal ground in their collaborative practice. The sessions will bring interested artists in short-term (or long-term) residencies, or sometimes bring together only the community practitioners working with various materials to experiment and collaborate with each other. Yasmin Jahan Nupur, Shushila Rani and Somari Rani Yasmin Jahan Nupur has been researching the traditional practices of weaving in Bangladesh for several years. In this session she continued her research and practiced with her co-artists Shushila Rani and Somari Rani. Exploring the relationship of women's body to the waist loom while weaving, the artists experimented and attempted to push the boundaries of traditional jute weaving with backstrap looms. This is an ongoing project with learning and experimentation continuing past the residency. Kamruzzaman Shadhin and Prodip Roy Kamruzzaman Shadhin's interest in the traditional crafts of the region and their underlying history and relationship with communities has been a major part of his artistic research and journey. Shadhin and Prodip Roy have been working together for the last several years experimenting with various methods and techniques of bamboo craft. In this session, the artists worked together to transfer the brush strokes from an action painting by Shadhin into a bamboo canvas using traditional bamboo bending methods that Prodip specializes in. The bamboo platform was installed as part of the ceiling of a room of the residency. This is an on-going, process-driven collaborative experiment which will continue in the years to come. Nasir Ahammed, Shariful Islam and Shubesh Barman In his previous visit, Nasir Ahammed in collaboration with bamboo craftsmen from the community, experimented with bamboo twigs creating a large installation in collaboration with the bamboo craftsmen of the village. This time Nasir and his co-artists Shariful Islam and Shubesh Barman used dry branches and twigs and straw which were abundant due to the harvest season and created a dome-like structure which was installed in various spaces around the community. The experimentation will continue as the artists plan on more future explorations with bamboo twigs. Anisuzzaman Rubel, Chandra Kumar and community children Rubel, a recent graduate from the department of sculpture at Dhaka University, collaborated with Chandra Kumar, a clay artisan specialized in idol making. Combining both of their creativity and technique they experimented with clay, straw and bamboo which to create a shade providing sculpture beside a pond. The artists have plans to expand their experiment further in the next visits.

ALL PROJECTS Stepping Softly on the Earth Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art Gidree Bawlee and Kamruzzaman Shadhin’s collaborative project ‘Kaal’ explored how we perceive time, our place within its tapestry, and how these rhythms manifest in our narratives and practices. Informed by rituals, beliefs, and mythologies that persist across generations, the community-engaged project ‘Kaal’ is a study of our surroundings where past and present intertwine, and a dialogue between our shared history and the unfolding present. It’s a journey through time’s knotted and unraveled threads, seeking the enduring connections that bind us all. The first iteration of ‘Kaal’ is ‘Pala,’ showcasing at the Stepping Softly on the Earth exhibition curated by Irene Aristizábal and Kinnari Saraiya. Pala seven intricately woven jute figures echoing the ‘Bishahari Pala’ performance, which blurs the lines between human and non-human realities. Woven by the village community in a collaborative spirit, the work captures the collective essence of participation and shared narratives. This exhibition is supported by Pro Helvetia, Jhaveri Contemporary, and Samdani Art Foundation. Stepping Softly on the Earth evolved from Baltic’s Research and Development project Cosmovisions on Land and Entangled Futures . With additional support from the British Council through an International Collaboration Project Grant towards the research and development project titled Cosmovisions on Land and Entangled Futures.

ALL PROJECTS The Space Between - Rana Begum At The Parasol Unit Foundation For Contemporary Art 13th June - 18th September 2016| The Parasol Unit Foundation For Contemporary Art, London, UK Dhaka Art Summit 2014 Solo Project artist Rana Begum had her first solo show, supported by the Samdani Art Foundation at The Parasol Unit.

ALL PROJECTS দ্বৈধ (A Duality) Curated by Bishwajit Goswami with research support from Muhammad Nafisur Rahman, in collaboration with Brihatta Art Foundation দ্বৈধ (A Duality) Curated by Bishwajit Goswami (Assistant Professor, Department of Drawing and Painting, University of Dhaka) with research support from Muhammad Nafisur Rahman (Assistant Professor of Communication Design at the School of Design, College of DAAP, University of Cincinnati), in collaboration with Brihatta Art Foundation To think about Bangladesh is to think about the riverine, the deltaic landscape often evoking an idyllic imagining. To read about Bangladesh is to also read about floods and storms, and destruction designed by nature. To understand Bangladesh however, is to acknowledge the duality that flows through this land, its dwellers and natural environment interacting in unfettered fluidity in various forms. In welcoming the new year, we sing an ode to invite the stormy nor'westers (Kalboishakhi) to cleanse impurities and herald a fresh start. In embracing the destructive forces of nature, we accept the lessons it teaches us, the reality of the everyday struggles and the manifestation of the resilience of the Bengali spirit to hope for better days. The ambivalent relationship between man and the lived environment, people and nature, finds new modes of storytelling through these expressions. দ্বৈধ (Dyoidho) upholds that relationship by showcasing the fluidity found in the riverine nature of Bengal. The exhibition engages the human senses through color, form and its essence. Combining artistic research and practice, each section of the exhibition sheds light on a different aspect of duality in our everyday surroundings creating an immersive experience. Just as the waterways trace a path from the Himalayan springs to the estuaries of Padma, Meghna and Jamuna at the Bay of Bengal, the narrations traverse the artistic space following the way of the rivers. Sensory immersion is evoked both by the sound of paddy in the harvest festival, while the uneven gallery walls simulate the moist coarseness of the delta-soil. The chaos during coastal calamity resonates in the exhibition’s soundscape, as the seasonal qualities of Bangladesh’s climate: the humid summer, the refreshing monsoon, the dryness of winter all arouse affect, evoking emotion and memory. The dual manifestations of mother nature, nurturing and severe by turns, find new narrative forms where the beauty of the Sundarbans are juxtaposed against the insolent chimneys of bricks, coal and smoke; environmentalist movements are paired with creative performances eliciting thought-provoking contextual commentary on present-day reality. In the duality of light and darkness, the impure and gray forms of our destroyed environment are invoked, while hope shines at the edge of the horizon. দ্বৈধ (Dyoidho) evokes the idea of artifice, where things are not as they seem and artists, architects, designers, photographers and researchers come together in collaboration to set the stage for this discourse. As the urban character “Tokai” engages the environment in conversation and the dryprimitive aroma of hay connotes our agrarian roots—we extend an open invitation to participate in the discussion and to critique the apparent binaries of nature. Through texture, sound, smell, materiality, and color, the exhibition is activated in the creative imaginary and transformed by the experience of the audience. In the presentation of individual and collective experimental artworks, দ্বৈধ (Dyoidho) seeks to raise critical questions, reveal answers, and create dialogue between nature, the lived environment and our human connection to it. We welcome you to join the conversation. The exhibition is divided into six segments. Estuary Welcome to the untarnished estuary of land, air and water where our relationship with nature is fluid and ever-changing. As we immerse ourselves in the familiar and nostalgic sound of husking rice during the harvest season, Rafiqun Nabi's popular character “Tokai” cheekily questions the nature of our urban beliefs. The scent of newly harvested dry hay underlines our cultural nostalgia and our agricultural past. This sentiment is strengthened through the depictions of the seasons through Ahmed Shamsuddoha's Summer, Jamal Ahmed's Monsoon, Alakesh Ghosh's Autumn, Anisuzzaman Anis's Late Autumn, Sheikh Afzal Hossain's Winter, and Kanak Chanpa Chakma's Spring as they transform Hashem Khan's well-cherished memories of Bangladesh’s six seasons opening up a new avenue of discourse. Emerging artist Damasush Hacha's animation adds a new dimension to this conversation. Soma Surovi Jannat’s video artwork reflects the diversity stories found in the extensive water basin dialoguing in tandem with Abdul Gaffar Babu’s unique floating site specific installation. Fluidity Bengalis are easily drawn to the rippling rivers, developing an affection to the murky waters of riverine soil almost instantaneously. Both the abundance and scarcity of water define our daily livelihood, various feelings, or passions; this land of evening ‘Bhatiali’ songs is a serene aquatic canvas as it moves along with the rivers. As a response to the rivers’ temperament, Marina Tabassum's architectural model projects a silhouette of alternative hope that can overcome the shifting ebb and flow of the tide. Alak Roy’s sculptural piece presents the interrelation between the sacrificial and redemptive dynamic between water and land, while Tarun Ghosh’s artwork conveys an imagery of the intuitive exploration of everyday domestic qualities. Summing up this duality inherent in both the people and the wetlands, Dhali Al Mamoon portrays a new relation between a treasured memorable past and the strange aridity of the present. The Land Bengal's alluvial soil produces yearlong abundant harvests. Its nurturing quality is cherished by the artists who draw upon its wealth. Monirul Islam actively cultivates these tenets into his creative practice transforming commonplace daily objects into an expression of artistry that elevates and comments on the complexity of our relationship with our organic world. Through its nurturing quality, Bengali art pays tribute to femininity creating a magical connection with nature’s various manifestations. In her quest for her female self identity, Nazlee Laila Mansur combines surrealism with reality. Through the fluid and rhythmic brushstrokes in Farida Zaman’s Sufiya, we glimpse a dreamlike world evoked by Mother Nature. The power and resilience of the feminine is exemplified in Dilara Begum Jolly's installations and in Rokeya Sultana’s Madonna. Through Chandravati, Bengal's first female poet from Kishorgonj, Abdus Shakoor Shah pays tribute to the power of storytelling and “Parul”— the ever-familiar creation of master puppeteer Mustafa Monwar—joins this conversation in earnest. In understanding the tenderness of nature and the feelings of nurturing, Joydeb Roaza helps us visualise the tender roots of the sounds and feelings through his performance Tender Roots. Source Originating from the Himalayan Gangotri Glacier, the ancient Ganges exists to purify. The ever-familiar Padma, Meghna, and Jamuna rivers have changed the shape of this delta, saturating the earth with loam, alluvium and life. However, we, the ungrateful urbanites, repay that generosity by disposing our waste into the Buriganga. Mohammad Eunus’s Metaphor of a Wounded River paints that final heartbeat as nature gives in to relentless urban settlement. Through the mix of industrial and organic materials, Mahmuda Siddika’s leather collage comments on the extinction of the Buriganga. Mojahid Musa’s sculpture embodies the unusual and phantasmagorical form of the obscure darkness and fearful uncertainty of the future which is juxtaposed by Soma Surovi Jannat’s mural work where light heralds a new hope and a new resolution for the future. In the duality of light and darkness, people confront the contaminated and polluted reality of our present while holding hope for the future. Through their solo performances playing with colour, touch, and fragrance, Yasmin Jahan Nupur and Niloofar Chaman manifest the duality of both the lamentation and promise of our human condition. Indebtedness The Sundarbans, surrounded by loam, are a symbol of the deep trust in the preservation of the balance and diversity of our environment. Anisuzzaman Faroque’s installation represents the steadfast mangroves that defy the constant torrential tides, clinging to the southern border of our delta. They protect us decade after decade from the catastrophic side of nature unconditionally without any expectation or compensation. Shahid Kabir expresses this coexistence between the forests with the local inhabitants and Mostafizul Haque’s series Golpata depicts the evolution of this huge terrain. Hamiduzzaman Khan’s mural portrays a confluence of the duality of fresh and saltwater under the vast sky of the extensive Sundarbans. Meanwhile, Abul Barq Alvi provides us with a bird’s eye view of the brick kilns with fumes that engulf the surrounding landscape, and Nisar Hossain's painting Towards Annihilation reinforces the idiosyncratic emotions that man contains and performs against nature. Contradiction Bengalis remain optimistic even when faced with great adversity. The wrath of nature claims our homes and assets repeatedly along with priceless memories made over a lifetime. Recognising the silent desperate lament of the climate refugees, Abir Abdullah’s photo series documents their plight in an effort to discover the potent source of hope that propels them onward. The chaos brought on by the changeable and temperamental rivers permeate the lives of everyone and the nostalgic backdrop of Ahmed Rasel's visual storytelling holds up the constant fear of the devastation brought on by the ever-eroding river. This duality inherent in our natural habitat is reinforced both through the fictitious world found in Ashrafia Adib's virtual reality piece and Khairul Alam Shada’s cinematic portrayal of our natural surroundings. These contradictory perspectives are explored through Mohammed Emran Hossain's architectural installation of the periscope which refracts, reflects and reframes various angles symbolically empowering each of us to create a dramatic synthesis of our own perspectives of self-realisation, intuition, and worldview. Acknowledgements: We would like to express our sincere appreciation to the following individuals and organisations for their generous cooperation in helping make this project possible. Curatorial Team: Bishwajit Goswami (Curator and Researcher), Muhammad Nafisur Rahman (Key Research Support), Shouro Dasgupta (Research Assistance), Kashfia Arif (Editor), Souradeep Dasgupta (Content Development), Zannatun Nahar Nijhum (Content Development), Humaira Hossain (Content Development), Anadiny Mogno (Content Development), Nusrat Mahmud (Project Manager), Atkia Sadia Rahman (Project Coordinator), Tirtha Saha (Project Support). Documentation : Anas Bin Iqbal (Editorial support), Arup Mandal (Video and Photography), Farid Ahmed Rafi (Photography) Logistics: Tanzid Parvez, Din Islam Hossain Sayem Gallery Logistics: Md. Shahadat Hossain, Nurun Nahar, Niloy Mankhin, Ruposhree Hajong, Mohammad Ashraful, Ekmot Ali, Sohel Chowdhury, Faruk Hossain Art Mediators and Volunteers: Anadiny Mogno, Anas Bin Iqbal, Apu Nandi, Arup Mandal, Farhana Rafiq Achol, Farid Ahmed Rafi, Fatin Fida Arko, Kamrun Nahar, Konika Mahian, Jisan Sajjad, Sarker Tukhor, Shaidul Alam Shifat, Tirtha Saha, Rizwan Bin Iqbal Social Media: Anas Bin Iqbal, Atkia Sadia Rahman, Nusrat Mahmud, Nusrat Jahan, Arup Mandal, Farid Ahmed Rafi Exhibition Production: Abdur Razzaq and Team (Gallery Preparation), Amal Sarker and Team (Structural Installation), Chanchal Kumar Shil (Printing), Md Humayun Kabir and Team (Metalwork), Helal Samrat (Production Volunteer), Bijoy Devnath & Munia Ahmed Mim (Architectural Scale Model Making) Special Thanks: Abdullah Al Mahmud Mahin, Bipul Mallick, Enayetullah Khan, Farhan Azim, Imran uz-zaman, Mohammad Kamrul, Mong Mong Sho, Nisar Hossain, Ramzan Ali Chowdhury, Rezwan Rahman, Saiqa Iqbal Meghna, Sharmilie Rahman, Sourav Chowdhury, Sony Kumar Sen, Syed Kushal, Tania Sultana Bristy. Zareen Mahmud.

The Dhaka Art Summit (DAS) is an international, non-commercial research and exhibition platform for art and architecture related to South Asia. With a core focus on Bangladesh, DAS re-examines how we think about these forms of art in both a regional and an international context. PARTNERS TEAM Held at the Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy, 5th – 8th February 2016 Curated by Samdani Art Foundation Artistic Director and DAS Chief Curator Diana Campbell, Katya García Antón (Director of the Office for Contemporary Art Norway), Daniel Baumann (Director of the Kunsthalle in Zurich), artist Nikhil Chopra, Beth Citron (Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Rubin Museum of Art), artist Madhavi Gore, curator Shanay Jhaveri (Assistant Curator-Modern and Contem-porary Art, South Asia, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York), Aurelien Lemonier (Architecture Curator at the Centre Pompidou), Nada Raza (assistant curator at Tate Modern), Md. Muniruzzaman and artist Jana Prepeluh with Asia Art Archive Senior Researcher Sabih Ahmed and Amara Antilla (assistant curator at the Guggenheim Museum, New York). 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. 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 prescrip-tive. 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 Col-lection; the Museum Folkwang in Essen; the Pinault Collection and many public and private South Asian col-lections 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. In addition to new commissions and curated group exhibitions, DAS events included talks, critical writing, performances, films, book launches and the Summit’s first historical exhibition, Rewind. The Samdani Art Award finalists exhibition curated by Daniel Baumann; The Missing One curated by Nada Raza; Architecture in Bangladesh curated by Aurelién Lemonier; The Performance Pavilion, curated by Nikhil Chopra, Madhavi Gore and Jana Prepeluh; Not as far as it seems, a series of conversations and sound pieces curated by Safina Radio Project; a Film Programme curated by Shanay Jhaveri; as well as Critical Writing Ensemble, panel dis-cussions, workshops, and more. Exhibitions & Programmes The Summit is a free and ticketless event and this year welcomed 138,000 visitors in 4 days, of which 800 were international visitors and operated tours for 2,500 students from 30+ schools. Those participating included over 300 emerging and established artists, 100 speakers who attended as part of the Talks Programme, as well as internationally renowned curators and writers, and attracted visitors from over 70 international institutions, who attended the Summit to extend and further their research into the region. Talks Programme DAS 2016 Soul Searching DAS 2016 Curated by Md. Muniruzzaman Safina Radio project DAS 2016 Architecture In Bangladesh DAS 2016 Curated by Aurélien Lemonier Film Programme DAS 2016 Curated by Shanay Jhaveri Shifting Sands, Shifting Hands DAS 2016 Curated by Nikhil Chopra, Madhavi Gore And Jana Prepeluh Live Feed Station - Asia Art Archive DAS 2016 Critical Writing Ensemble DAS 2016 Curated By Katya García-Antón, Antonio Cataldo, Diana Campbell, Chandrika Grover And Bhavna Kakar Solo Art Projects DAS 2016 Curated by Diana Campbell Rewind DAS 2016 Curated by Amara Antilla, Beth Citron, Diana Campbell and Sabih Ahmed Mining Warm Data DAS 2016 Curated by Diana Campbell The Missing One DAS 2016 Curated by Nada Raza LOAD MORE

ALL PROJECTS বন্যা (Bonna) DAS 2023 is told through the voice of বন্যা (Bonna), a character who speaks from Bangladesh to the world. She is a bold young girl who expresses her dynamic personality fearlessly, refusing to be silenced by her brothers, uncles, or forefathers. Bonna is a common name in Bangladesh, and it also means ‘flood.’ In Bangladesh, a flood does not simply translate into a singular connotation of “disaster.” The DAS concept of বন্যা (Bonna) challenges binaries - between necessity and excess, between regeneration and disaster, between adult and child, between male and female. DAS 2023 invokes and interpretsবন্যা (Bonna) as a complex symbol-system, which is indigenous, personal and at once universal, an embodied non-human reversal of how storms, cyclones, tsunamis, stars, and all environmental crises and “discoveries” are named. বন্যা (Bonna),the young girl, is an activating creative force who offers us an invitation to join her in sharing stories and asking questions. She asks why the words for weather are gendered, what the relationship between gender, the built environment, and climate change might be…why her namesake has been deployed as a weapon against indigenous people for centuries across the continents. She is filled with wonder when she sees that the traces of her physical growth and traces of floods are measured with similar horizontal lines marked vertically on a wall. She wonders if her name might mean something different now, as the floods she encounters in traditional as well as modern forms of artistic expression are very different from the ones she witnesses outside with her own eyes today. “বন্যা (Bonna)” is joined by over 1,200 Bangladeshi children who made artistic contributions to the exhibition as part of the production process and education programming of DAS 2023. As with the movement of peoples and ideas, languages travel too, often embedded in songs and stories from which we can try to trace their point of origin. DAS 2023 considers the ways in which humans form, inherit, and establish vocabularies to understand the world around us, and the mistranslations that can ensue when we try to apply singular terms 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 are shapers of history and culture, as well as being metaphors for life in general. The aim is to see past the limits of translation which can be incapable of conveying the different ways we negotiate the world, while opening new channels for transcultural empathy. How do you tell the story of multiple crises, while facilitating hope? Storms have eyes and eyes have storms. We can be flooded with emotions, yet reduced to singular drops of tears. We give storms human names; we describe human emotions using terms that are also applied to weather. Extreme weather and the absence of state management was the tipping point for Bangladeshis to declare independence in 1971 and fight for the right to express themselves in their own language. As the Ghanaian-Scottish designer, thinker and educator Lesley Lokko insightfully points out, “When you are in the eye of the storm, this is often the right point to push for maximum change.” For millennia, humans have invoked their minds and bodies through prayers, rituals, songs, and dances to summon rain from the sky. Bonna is now learning that humans with power are not only filling the earth with genetically modified seeds, but also now seeding the sky with clouds. During Bengali New Year, Bangladeshi people sing a song written by Rabindranath Tagore, Esho hey Boishakh, which calls upon the first month of summer to bring storms to wash away any residue of ugliness from the previous year. When considering this, and the traditional ways of coping and celebrating polar forces, we must acknowledge that climate change is accelerating and causing even more dramatic events, often beyond the capacity of even the most resilient people’s ability to survive. Climate change is not unidirectional. It is a systemic and episodic transformation of ecologies, systems and structures over time. While these same conditions once historically evolved to be considered as protective, today they are fragile, imbalanced and precarious at multiple scales. DAS 2023, in collaboration with its artists and curators, presents the work of organizations from across the country who are realizing the capacity for more meaningful, just, and beautiful forms of life in situations some may misguidedly see as “hopeless.” Bonna is the overarching narrative of DAS 2023; made up of works of art that tell a story across the venue of the Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy, also containing chapters within it which are complete exhibitions in themselves: Very Small Feelings; Samdani Art Award; To Enter the Sky; and Duality, which are also part of Bonna and are told through the voice of guest curators in dialogue with Chief Curator Diana Campbell, Ruxmini Reckvana Q Choudhury, Curator and Swilin Haque, Curatorial Assistant. ARTISTS: LOCATION: GROUND FLOOR Joydeb Roaja Submerged dream 8 (জলমগ্ন স্বপ্ন ৮), 2022-2023 Ink on Paper and board Commissioned by Samdani Art Foundation for DAS 2023 Courtesy of the artist and Jhaveri Contemporary This immersive installation submerges visitors in a metaphorical lake of tears. In 1962 under Pakistani rule with American financial and technical support, the construction of the Kaptai dam flooded 400km of Chakma land in what is now Bangladesh, even submerging the Chakma royal palace. Today, tourists in Bangladesh take boat rides over these beautiful waters, mostly unaware of the trauma submerged below the reflective surface that mirrors the sky. To the local indigenous Chakma people, this lake is the site of a heartbreaking event called Bor Porong, or “the great exodus.” Over 100,000 people from about 18,000 families, mostly from indigenous communities, were displaced, resulting in the forced migration to neighboring India of over 35,000 Chakmas and Hajongs. Dams and flooding are a shared weapon of violence against indigenous people all over the world. Roaja’s installation imagines people from the Chittagong Hill Tracts raising the submerged palace from the bottom of the lake back up to the surface, a promise of hope for renewed ways of life after the flood. Part of the artist’s making process involved interviewing multiple generations of indigenous people who remember life before the dam, and also younger generations who have only heard about life before the dam via storytelling and oral tradition. Roaja has an interconnected performance, painting and drawing practice that highlights the challenging social and political landscape of Bangladesh’s Chittagong Hill Tracts. His works are tied to the experiences of indigeneity, often emphasizing the deep and symbiotic connection of indigenous people with their land as well as the fight for recognition and rights. His work is an empowering demand preservation of minority cultures. b.1973, Khagrachari; lives and works in Khagrachari Kasper Bosmans No Water, 2019/2023 Instruction based mural Courtesy of the artist and Gladstone Gallery No Water refers to the descending level of the ground water table, otherwise known as the boundary between water-saturated ground and unsaturated ground. This descent is partly the result of sand mining and the proliferation of concrete architecture. These works were produced according to the instructions of the artist Kasper Bosmans, which are always the same: the uppermost segment of the painting must be blue, the lowest one brown. Specific hues of each color are chosen by people who have a connection with the place where the work is being shown, in this case, nine people who have been working on Dhaka Art Summit since 2012. They also determine the height of the horizon, but this may never be situated precisely in the middle of the wall, giving rise to playful involvement to create a portrait of Dhaka Art Summit and its surroundings. This is part of a series of instruction based, participatory works found across the Summit. Bosmans is a storyteller; a keen observer of the many ways in which images probe the boundaries between nature and fiction, art and craft. From an intuitive, playful, as well as anthropological approach, he takes the remnants of local traditions, tales, and mythological iconography to speak about global questions in today’s world. b. 1990, Lommel; lives and works in Brussels Matt Copson Age of Coming, 2021 Laser animation with 16 minute audio soundtrack Samdani Art Foundation Collection Formed by a laser machine that flickers in nearly every color, a naked baby created by the artist Matt Copson faces storms inside and outside of his shapeshifting body, which sings to us about his existential conflicts. This work is inspired by the iconic self-help book Diary of a Baby that follows the journey of a baby discovering the world step by step until he turns four years old. The baby expresses how he feels hunger as a storm: “A storm threatens. The light turns metallic. The march of clouds across the sky breaks apart. Pieces of sky fly off in different directions. The wind picks up force, in silence. There are rushing sounds, but no motion. The wind and its sound have separated. Each chases after its lost partner in fits and starts. The world is disintegrating. Something is about to happen.” Copson’s ravenous baby swallows a chair, then a gun, then a plane and grows larger and larger until disintegrating into an abstract work of art. Copson talks about this shift: “The baby wants it all: every color possible, to grow and grow and this is impossible. The laser projector is a mechanical device and the growing density of information eventually means that it can no longer even depict an image and becomes a barrage of spinning broken lines.” This work captures the struggle of trying to obtain something impossible, and the beauty that can be found in these existential quests. Based on theatrical elements and artistic tropes, Copson broaches notions of contemporaneity, abstraction, automation, recurrence, the eternal, and the strange in his work as an artist and a director. He uses elements ranging from classical philosophy to traditional folklore to introduce familiar characters, sometimes partially sketched or whose process of abstraction is incomplete. Generally expressed in the form of a monologue, these characters are perceived through perpetual questioning as to their state or present situation, always hard to pin down and impossible to resolve. b. 1992, Oxford; lives and works in London and Los Angeles Miet Warlop Chant For Hope, 2022-2023 Participatory performance Commissioned by Samdani Art Foundation in partnership with KANAL, Centre Pompidou, Brussels with support from the Flemish Region of Belgium and EUNIC Inspired by the history of the language movement and movement of language in Bangladesh, visitors get swept into the trance conjured by a participatory dancing sculpture which injects energy to propel makers (of history) past exhaustion. Chant for Hope is an incantatory ritual that aims, literally and figuratively, to convey hope for a better world. The performers act as cheerleaders and freedom fighters, injecting energy and meaning into the struggle for life. A group of performers sculpt a series of words in Bengali by flooding molds with plaster, which become moving sculptures that can be rearranged and find new meaning as they are passed between the performers and the audience. The audience thus becomes a participant: spectators are asked to take all the words out into the 'real' world, into the street and/or into their homes. The content of Chant for Hope thus spreads, literally, as a critical reflection and as an invitation to connect ourselves more with each other, as human beings. Warlop’s work is about making the static-dynamic and making the dynamic-static. She treats art as an experience, like ritual concerts or objects animated by choreography. She works in cycles rather than in projects and believes in the attitude that accompanies an idea, using a combination of performance, choreography, theater, and sculpting skills to make her shows. Her work amplifies the dynamics of personal relationships that are created between memories, skin, objects and sounds. b. 1978, Torhout; lives and works in Brussels LOCATION: SOUTH PLAZA Afrah Shafiq Where do the Ants Go?, 2022-2023 Immersive game installation This project was created as part of the "to-gather" international collaboration of Pro Helvetia, Swiss Arts Council with curatorial support of Diana Campbell, Fernanda Brenner, Chus Martinez, Daniel Baumann, and Iaroslav Volovod Where do the Ants Go? is a large-scale sculpture of an anthill that the audience can enter and interact with a colony of ants that live within it. Using real time inputs the “players” within the anthill make choices that affect the behavior of the individual ants and the collective outcome of the colony. The anthill is imagined as a real-life rendering from the game Minecraft, using the logic of voxels and referencing immersive environments, speculative futures and web3.0; the ant colony set within it translates ant behaviors from the natural world into algorithms and data sets. As more and more of human existence continues to play out in the virtual space where conversation is mediated by seemingly invisible algorithms, the installation creates a meeting ground between the physical and digital, the algorithm and consciousness, the virtual world and the natural world and offers a space to step back, observe patterns and perhaps even re-set. Shafiq uses the process of research as an artistic playground. She intertwines archival findings, history, memory, folklore and fantasy to create a speculative world born of remix culture. Her work moves across various mediums drawing from the handmade language of traditional folk forms and connecting them to the digital language of the Internet and video games. When she is not glued to her computer she makes glass mosaics. b. 1989, Bangalore; lives and works in Goa Ahmet Öğüt Balanced Protest Banners, 2022-2023 Bamboo stilts, Digital Print, Performance Commissioned by Samdani Art Foundation, Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, and Latvian Center for Contemporary Art with support from SAHA and Goethe Institut Bangladesh and the curatorial contribution of iLiana Fokianaki Performers walk across the South Plaza on bamboo stilts that are both support structures and also protest banners highlighting difficult-to-find goods and commodities in Bangladesh such as cherry blossoms, avocados, blueberries and kiwis. This precarious balancing act invites us to consider what we might take for granted as we exert ourselves in the world. Bangladeshis in villages, as well as Indians in similar climatic contexts, address their rising water levels by creating tools for living similar in form to these stilts, finding new ways to walk on unstable ground.Öğüt is a sociocultural initiator, artist, and lecturer. Working across a variety of media, including photography, video, and installation, the artist often uses humor and small gestures to offer his commentary on serious and/or pressing social and political issues. Öğüt is regularly collaborating with people from outside of the art world to create shifts in collective perception of society. B. 1981, Diyarbakır; lives and works in Istanbul, Amsterdam and Berlin This work is also part of Very Small Feelings Antony Gormley TURN, 2022-2023 A 2.5km line of bamboo Commissioned by Samdani Art FoundationCourtesy of the artist and Xavier Hufkens Bamboo, the world’s largest grass, can be a metaphor for generative transfers of energy in Bangladesh. It grows high out of the earth powered by photosynthesis and when harvested, is bundled and tied together to form large rafts that float down Bangladesh’s many rivers, then unbundled and transferred to construction sites across the country to be transformed into architecture, a kind of second-body for human and non-human bodies to dwell in. Antony Gormley and a team of Bangladeshi artisans have transformed 2.5km of bamboo into a drawing in space that could also be seen as a sculpture or as a second skin for the visitors passing through it. It is an energy field, exploding like unfurled springs and seemingly boundless orbits, a line transformed into an infinite loop without beginning or end. It makes us think about time, which can be perceived as linear in some contexts, circular in others. Our bodies, and how they move in making drawings, sculptures, and architecture are interconnected in their role in world-building. How can we create and collaborate on the same scale that society has the capacity to destroy? Continuing along the shapeshifting journey of bamboo in Bangladesh, the work will be recycled into other forms after Dhaka Art Summit is over. Antony Gormley is widely acclaimed for his sculptures, installations and public artworks that investigate the relationship of the human body to space. His work has developed the potential opened up by sculpture through a critical engagement with both his own body and those of others in a way that confronts fundamental questions of where human beings stand in relation to nature and the cosmos. Gormley continually tries to identify the space of art as a place of becoming in which new behaviors, thoughts and feelings can arise. He studied meditation in South Asia in the 1970s prior to attending art school, and this is his first return to the region since 1974. b. 1950, London; lives and works in London Ashfika Rahman বেহুলা আজকাল (Behula These Days), 2022-2023 Community-led photography and textile installation Commissioned by Samdani Art Foundation Courtesy of the artist বেহুলা আজকাল (Behula These Days) is a collaborative community project articulating the violence against women around in one of the most flood-prone areas in Bangladesh, which is also the birthplace of the mythological figure Behula. Behula is the protagonist of one of the most popular epic mythological love stories in Bengal - Behula and Lakhindar - written between the thirteenth and eighteenth centuries. In the plot line, Lakhindar (Behula’s husband) lost his life on their wedding night through the curse of the Hindu goddess of snakes, Manasa. In the hopes that a victim of a snake bite could miraculously be brought back to life, it was customary that the dead body would float down the river rather than be cremated. Behula accompanied her husband’s dead body on a raft towards heaven, facing many dangers and praying to Manasa and all of the gods to revive her husband. Once in heaven, Behula pleased all of the gods with her beautiful and enchanting dancing and earned her husband's life back. Behula’s sacrifice and isolation from society are regarded as the epitome of a loving and loyal wife in Bengali culture. This popular mythological love story is translated through the lens of feminism in Ashfika Rahman’s work. Idolizing such a sacrifice and celebrating such isolation through the reverence of Behula, while villainizing Manasa (the goddess of the snakes) who needed devotion from a man in order to reach heaven, speaks to ongoing systemic violence against women. Behula and the many women she represents float without agency on their own lifes’ paths. Rahman’s epic investigative project traces the footprints of Behula through the riverline and landscapes mentioned in the epic story. She collected stories of violence against women on the river bank, which is isolated and almost impossible to navigate during the many floods there. The women illustrated their stories on their own portraits displayed here, which reconsider this epic love story from the lens of contemporary reality. Death rates during floods do not have gender balance; more women die in floods, speaking to the gendered nature of climate-based violence, which is tied to societal beliefs about a woman’s role at home. Rahman’s practice explores and experiments with photography, using media ranging from historical techniques like 19th-century printmaking to documentary approaches and contemporary media. Photography is the predominant medium that she uses to express her views on complex systemic social issues such as violence, rape, and religious extremism – often overlooked by the administrative machinery of the state. In her practice, she creates a conceptual timeline of the stereotypes of victims, repeated across history, notably in regard to minority communities in Bangladesh. b. 1988, Dhaka; lives and works in Dhaka Bhasha Chakrabarti নরম অতিক্রমণ (Tender Transgressions), 2022-2023 Site Specific Installation Made from Jute, Bamboo, and Tropical Plants Commissioned and Produced by Samdani Art Foundation with support from EMK Center, Dhaka Courtesy of the artist and Experimenter নরম অতিক্রমণ (Tender Transgressions) is a site specific installation which explores the concept of Bonna as the feminine form of bonno, meaning wild, untameable, and excessive, all words historically used to denigrate women’s sexuality. The large-scale work transforms nine columns that structurally hold up the building of the Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy into a jungle of anthropomorphic feminine forms. It materially references Navapatrika, a Hindu practice common in Bengal, where plants are wrapped in sarees and worshiped as embodiments of the goddess Durga. Here, the plant being venerated is jute: essential to the economy of Bangladesh, dependent on excessive rainfall, and commonly used as a fabric support in Western painting. This transformation of rigid architectural supports into supple caryatids of cloth and crop, breaks down binaries of strong and soft, functional and decorative, necessity and excess. Chakrabarti engages with art-making as a process of mending, which is primarily associated with clothing, and then extended to relationships. As opposed to other forms of repair, traditionally undertaken by men in a professional capacity, mending is largely non-transactional and often delegated to women. Working across painting, weaving, sound, and installation, her work explores how art can function as a mode of public discourse rather than being a self-contained discipline, bringing feminist ways of being to the fore in a patriarchal world. b. 1991, Honolulu; lives and works in New Haven Bishwajit Goswami ঋতু, 2022-2023 Mural and interactive performance Commissioned by Samdani Art Foundation Courtesy of the artist The word ঋতু (Reetu), meaning ‘seasons’, is also a commonly used first name for Bengali girls, culturally and symbolically related to the name ‘বন্যা (Bonna)’. Bangladesh has six seasons (and some would argue “had” as climate change has made two of the seasons difficult to recognize anymore) each harkening a particular mood, feelings and cultural practices. (Human) life can also be measured in seasons. Goswami connects these personal stories of land, nature and seasons with words, pigment and touch. Fragments of memory enable a sensorial, intimate exchange of feelings and words to take place with the artist, and within the self, manifesting in moving drawings connecting our inner and outer worlds. Bishwajit Goswami began his career as a figurative, hyper-realist painter. Inspired by the Bangla language and its written formation, the artist has been breaking down and rearranging and reconstructing his artistic language into abstract forms and shapes. Institution building and education is also a core-part of his creative practice as the founder of Brihatta Art Foundation and as a professor at the Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Dhaka. B. 1981, Netrakona; lives and works in Dhaka Roman Ondák Measuring the Universe, 2007/2023 For the whole duration of the exhibition, gallery attendants offer to the exhibition visitors marking their height on the gallery walls along with their first name and the date on which the measurement was taken. Performance, felt-tip pens, guards, audienceFrom the collection of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York As we grow(up), our scale to the world and our understanding of time changes. Flood lines and people are measured in similar ways; vertical markings on walls. Measuring the Universe extends out of Roman Ondák’s interest in blurring lines between art and everyday life, and using simple means to create complex images that can metaphorically compete with cutting-edge technology. Ondák got the idea to create this work after frequently taking measurements of his sons’ heights at home as they were growing up, and he created this instruction-based work by extrapolating this personal, intimate act into an exhibition space where guards write visitors’ measurements on the wall, creating the presence of people into a physical object. The work begins with a blank, white, room, but over time, a thick black band of names will begin to encircle the walls, almost resembling a galaxy where each black mark of a visitor’s name could resemble a star. These marks are part of registering the passage of time, the public experience of Dhaka Art Summit. Ondák’s artistic interventions blur the boundaries between art and the everyday, challenging traditional hierarchies between artists and non-artists, the artwork and the spectator and between public and private domains. In presenting elements of everyday life in an art context, new perspectives on social relations and human experience arise. Ondak’s relational art practice breaks with the traditional idea of the art object - the constructed social environment becomes the art. Choosing immersion over representation, he invites viewers, friends and family, to play a vital role in his work, enlisting their own creativity in the process of following his instructions. The result is a controlled study of collective discovery and imagination. b. 1966, Zilina; lives and works in Bratislava Sumayya Vally They who brings rain, brings life, 2022-2023 Ceramic vessels activated by performance Performance 7pm daily Commissioned by Samdani Art FoundationCo-curated by Diana Campbell and Sean Anderson as an overlay of “To Enter the Sky” on the 2nd floor of DAS oletha imvula uletha ukuphila Translation: “They who brings rain, brings life” IsiZulu proverb Wielding the comings of rain is a tradition practiced by cultures across geographies. To possess the power to command rainfall is by inference possessing the power to dictate the flow of the natural cycle and climatic conditions. Across Southern Africa, rain-making rituals are directed towards royal ancestors because they were believed to have control over rain and other natural phenomena. One of these rare and powerful individuals is the Moroka of the Pedi tribe in South Africa: the traditional rain-making doctor. Here, a series of fired and unfired clay vessels are assembled as a temporal space to hold gatherings. Over the course of DAS, a series of performances which draw on the traditions of rain-making and harvest are performed in the space where the hands that formed the pots also work to un-form them. The rituals include the use of water, which allows the un-fired pots to dissolve over time, revealing areas and niches of gathering contained by the pots, as well as rhythmic drumming that evokes the sound of thunder at the end of each day. Vally’s design, research and pedagogical practice is searching for expression for hybrid identities and territory, particularly for African and Islamic conditions. Her design process is often forensic, and draws on the aural, the performative and the overlooked as generative places of history and work. B. 1990, Pretoria; lives and works in London LOCATION: SECOND FLOOR, GALLERY 4: STORMS HAVE EYES AND EYES HAVE STORMS Antora Mehrukh Azad Ground Zero, 2022-2023 Oil on Canvas Commissioned by Samdani Art Foundation Courtesy of the artist Ground Zero is a large-scale landscape painting that depicts the modern relationship between nature and humans. The work depicts how the natural Bangladeshi landscape has gradually been subdued and replaced by citified objects such as traffic signs, poles, and neon colors. It is a stylized, exaggerated rendition of common Bangladeshi flood scenes. Bangladesh is suffering from severe floods and rising sea levels, more extreme than in the past as a result of global warming. With the next flood perpetually around the corner, Bangladesh is frequently referred to as “ground zero for climate change.” The bright neon pink water body symbolizes how this situation is not entirely natural but rather manmade, and how silently Bangladeshis are metaphorically treading water as the sea level rises, finding new ways to survive. Azad’s work is based on the modern connection between nature and humanity. Exaggerating the increased toxicity in this relationship with an overtly artificial color palette, her paintings reveal how urban life is gradually taking over the natural world. b. 1994, Dhaka; lives and works in Dhaka Ayesha Sultana Breath Count, 2019 Mark-making on clay-coated paper Samdani Art Foundation Collection Nightfall, 2022 Acrylic and oil on canvas Samdani Art Foundation Collection Untitled, 2023 Aluminum Commissioned by Samdani Art Foundation with support from Experimenter Courtesy of the artist and Experimenter Untitled, 2023 Aluminum Commissioned by Samdani Art Foundation with support from Experimenter Courtesy of the artist and Experimenter 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 labor of a day’s work casting concrete, Sultana’s marks measure the labor of internal bodily systems, which are related to the toxicity of the world outside which are internalized as we breathe. Floor-based aluminum sculptures seem to freeze a flood of acid rain, holding toxicity back from its onward journey. A painting depicting the sea and a seemingly infinite space beyond can be seen as a portrait of the artist’s personal emotions as well as her constant return to looking at water as an amorphous, shape-shifting medium that holds more than what is apparent on its surface. Sultana works with drawing, painting, sculpture,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 characterized by repetition, variation, and rhythm. Sultana often draws inspiration from architecture and the natural environment. b. 1984 in Jessore; lives and works in Dhaka Hana Miletic Materials, 2022 Hand-woven and hand-knit textile (azure blue cottolin, cobalt blue repurposed mercerised cotton, dark blue peace silk, deep blue organic cottolin, gold repurposed polyester, indigo washed rub- ber cotton, ocean blue organic linen, variegated blue recycled wood, and white peace silk) Materials, 2022 Hand-woven (barley white organic cotton, beige repurposed mercerised cotton, brown variegated recycled wool, gold metal yarn, and organic hemp) Materials, 2022 Hand-woven textile (beige peace silk, and white repurposed polyester) Materials, 2022 Hand-woven and felt textile (copper repurposed polyester, dandelion yellow, dark brown, cinnamon brown, russet brown, and white-yellow raw wool) Commissioned by Samdani Art Foundation with the support of the Flanders Region of Belgium Courtesy of the artist, LambdaLambdaLambda and The Approach The positions, shapes, colors and textures of repairs and transformations in public space, often made in quick and improvised ways on buildings, infrastructure and vehicles as the material consequences of economic and political actions, can also be seen as marks of gestures of care and repair. They are core to the way the artist Hana Miletić experiences the world, and these woven sculptures are based on repairs and transformations that the artist observed after a recent flood in her home country, Croatia. The museum quarter where the artist was exhibiting flooded due to heavy rainfall combined with rising sea levels. As is the case of Bangladesh, but admittedly to a lesser extent, this huge influx of water is the result of climate change. The world outside seeped into the museum world inside, a normally pristine, utopian space. The artist photographed the repairs and transformations made by the city authorities and the individual residents the morning after the flood, and based on these photographs, she produced these works for Dhaka. Through these hand-woven textiles, Miletić is sharing in Bangladesh the soft power of care and resilience from her homeland, and proposing a dialogue between these two geographically remote yet familiar practices of repair. Miletić reflects on issues of representation and social reproduction by making linkages between photography and weaving. The artist models her handwoven textiles after her photographs that document vernacular, often do-it-yourself, repairs in public space. Remaking these repairs allows Miletić to understand and participate in the complexity of society, striving to tell alternative feminist stories of technology and progress stemming from the loom, the precursor of the computer today. Miletić uses the weaving process – which requires considerable time and dedication – as a way to counteract certain economic and social conditions at work, such as acceleration, standardization and transparency. b. 1982, Zagreb; lives and works in Brussels and Zagreb Krishna Reddy River, 1959 Whirlpool, 1963 Samdani Art Foundation Collection Krishna Reddy’s prints consider elements of nature and his life experiences in diverse landscapes. Early representational works including Insect (1952) and Fish (1952) explore the physical structure of those animals, physically bringing about the image by mixing liquid inks of different densities together at the same time, freezing them in time by printing them on a single plate. Through the 1950s, his works became progressively more abstract, and River (1959) refers to the movement of its subject but avoids direct representation. Reddy’s prints of the 1960s reflect a strong sense of dynamism, as Wave (1963) and Whirlpool (1963) each reveal the immediacy of water in motion, and through color variation and modulation of line show the fleeting collision of water with air and light. Reddy was born in rural Andhra Pradesh, India and educated at the idyllic Kala Bhavan at Santiniketan. As a student of pioneering artist Nandalal Bose at Santiniketan in the mid 1940s, Reddy absorbed India’s great heritage of figuration by traveling to historical sites including Ajanta and drawing the goddesses represented at the caves. He later studied sculpture under famed British artist Henry Moore, whose work shaped Reddy’s abstracted figurative sculptures. Reddy then moved to Paris where he joined Stanley William Hayter’s intaglio printmaking studio, Atelier 17. He approached the intaglio plate from the perspective of a sculptor, lending a sculptural quality to his printmaking throughout his career. At Atelier 17, Reddy invented the technique of simultaneous color printmaking by experimenting with the use of several colors of different viscosities on a single plate. Reddy is best known for this innovation, and it can be seen in the fluid layering of colors in the works on view here, especially from the 1960s onwards. b. 1929, Nandanoor; d. 2018, New York Lala Rukh Mirror Image II 1, 2 & 3, 2011 Graphite on carbon paper Samdani Art Foundation Collection Gazing deep into the dark black carbon paper, subtle, almost flickering glimpses of water’s movement on a moonlit night reveal themselves to the viewer. In the words of the artist and art historian Mariah Lookman, the subtle graphite markings appear “like phosphates that are able to absorb and reflect back barely visible traces of light. The marks one can see are like those signs of life that are reflected back onto the paper by hand of the artist, who [was] living through perhaps the bleakest of times in Pakistan’s history. Given the high level of violence that is perpetrated on innocent civilians, the darkness in the work speaks volumes of the horror and tragedy that is witnessed in everyday life. And yet, in the fine lines against the darkness of the paper, I can see signs are still symbolic of hope, of anticipation, expectation, and a force and belief against pure forces of nihilism.” One of the foremost feminist activists of South Asia, Rukh’s contribution to art and culture spans far beyond the visual arts and into politics, music, and countless other parts of civic life in Pakistan and the wider region. Her works often chart horizons and draw together the waves we experience in nature as sight and the waves we experience within as sound, bridging inner and outer worlds and asking for heightened sense of perception from the viewer. b. 1948, Lahore; d. 2017, Lahore Lucas Arruda Untitled (from the Deserto-Modelo series), 2018 Untitled (from the Deserto-Modelo series), 2020 Untitled (from the Deserto-Modelo series), 2020 Untitled (from the Deserto-Modelo series), 2021 oil on canvas Courtesy of the artist and Mendes Wood DM who also provided support for this presentation The first image of Earth taken from outer space, Blue Marble, captures the image of a cyclone over the Bay of Bengal; it is fitting that Arruda’s cyclones find their debut here in Bangladesh.“Light constitutes an essential aspect of Lucas Arruda’s paintings, even though it’s never as much a representation of light as a representation of the presence of light; indirect, subtle, glowing not shining. Only a hint of the sunlight, whose rays struggle through dark clouds above the seas, is nervously reflected by countless waves. Or are these foreboding images of impending climate change, of toxic skies and a world void of inhabitants?” “The small format, the repetitiveness of Arruda’s imagery may strike one as minimalistic, yet it is anything but mechanical. There’s a physical dimension: Arruda presses his brush into the paint, roughens it up. Turned and turned while pressed, the brushes move in circles and in angular strokes. They scratch the paint. The handle of the brush incises the paint, cutting the surface up like with a knife or a burin, revealing what lies below the surface, revealing more than meets the eye. It reminds us on an etching and yet the quality of the engraved paint is not a one-dimensional image as in a print. The landscape visibly becomes a painted construct. The hair of the brush transforms into bristle scratching the wet painting away in a manner that is as forceful as it is elegant. Arruda’s subtractive method of painting is like writing a story in beautiful calligraphy, one that goes under the skin. Paintings that glow from within.* ” *Text by Till-Holger Borchert edited by Diana Campbell Between sky and earth, ethereal and solid, imagination and reality, Arruda presents meditations on the infinite drawn from his memory while highlighting the materiality of the media he works with, from paint to film. As we move above and below horizon lines, the artist puts us before atmospheres that are charged with visual as well as metaphysical questions. b. 1983, São Paulo; lives and works in São Paulo Marina Tabassum Photograph of Khudi Bari structure photo credit: Asif Salman, 2022 Marina Tabassum and her team are among a generation of architects and designers who see the power of design as a generative resource; a significant creator of value even in the face of meager financial resources and plentiful contextual challenges. To quote her, a paucity of means should not limit hopes and dreams. The Khudi Bari (Bengali for ‘Tiny House’) is an example of this kind of thinking and action, a modular, mobile home that can be fabricated for as little as 500 dollars that provides elevation to save goods and lives in the wake of flash floods on tiny “desert islands” of sand known as 'chars' that are dotted precariously across the Bengal delta (and also visible in the background of SM Sultan’s painting exhibited next to this photograph). Land is fluid on the floodplains of Bangladesh, and these islands often break off and erode into the water, making it necessary for people to physically move their home as the land it was originally placed on may no longer exist. Tabassum’s design mimics the traditional language of architecture on the Bengal delta to create modular mobile housing units that are low cost, durable, and can be assembled and disassembled within a short time with minimum labor, taking advantage of a rigid space-frame structure. Khudi Bari reminds us to look to locally rooted knowledges to innovate solutions for uncertain futures. As an architect, Marina Tabassum has established a language of architecture that is contemporary to the world yet rooted to the place. She rejects the global pressure of consumer architecture, a fast breed of buildings that are out of place and context, pledging to root architecture to the place informed by climate and geography. She and her team engage in extensive research on the impacts of climate change in Bangladesh, working closely with geographers, landscape architects, planners and other allied professionals. The focus of her studio, Marina Tabbasum Architects (MTA) and the Foundation for Architecture and Community Equity (FACE) which she founded, also extends to the marginalized ultra-low income population of the country with a goal to elevate the environmental and living conditions of all people. b. 1968, Dhaka; lives and works in Dhaka Marzia Migliora Paradoxes of Plenty #51 (Big Wave), 2022-2023 Ink on paper Courtesy of the Artist and Lia Rumma Commissioned by Samdani Art FoundationPresentation realized with the support of ARAV s.r.lSilvian Heach, SH, John Richmond, JR kids, Trussardi Kids, Marcobologna Marzia Migliora’s ongoing series of drawings, I Paradossi dell’abbondanza (Paradoxes of Plenty, 2017-2023), is a continuation of the artist’s studies over the last years reflecting on the relationship between food production, commodities and surplus value of the capitalist system and the exploitation of natural, animal and human resources. A visual exploration of the paradoxes that govern consumer society, this series outlines the limitations of an anachronistic model antithetical to present-day environmental and social emergencies. Reflecting on the dramatically visible consequences of climate change in Bangladesh, such as frequent flooding, tropical cyclones, riverbank erosion, and high salinity levels in groundwater, Paradoxes of Plenty #51 is a large-scale drawing depicting the rush of a giant wave that reveals the depths of a sea. Ecosystems of a multi-species universe are animated in this work by schools of fish realized using the gyotaku technique, used by Japanese fishermen in the nineteenth-century. This technique is a direct printing method that involves fish covered in cuttlefish ink as a matrix imprinted directly on Washi rice paper. The presence of fishing nets lying on the bottom of the work points to the consequences of intensive fishing and the phenomenon of ghost nets, which constitute 85% of the plastic waste in the world's marine waters. In the metaphorical sense, the words ‘Big Wave’ in the title also refer to the surfing practice of looking for the perfect wave. The artist pays homage to Ayesha, a young surfer from Cox's Bazar, who defied social norms and dared to surf in the ocean, becoming the subject of the award winning Bangladeshi documentary Nodorai (I'm not Afraid). Marzia Migliora uses a wide range of media including photography, video, sound, performance, installations and drawing to focus on everyday life. She investigates themes like identity and desire, delving into present and past history and putting memory into relation with places and spaces. Her projects are like questions that trigger the active engagement of the observer, who becomes the protagonist without whom the work cannot be resolved. The artist’s goal is to propose an experience that can be lived and shared by the audience. B. 1972, Alessandria; lives and works in Turin Michael John Whelan And they did live by watchfires 1, 2020 pigment print on paper, 50 x 40cm, edition 1/3 And they did live by watchfires 2, 2020 pigment print on paper, 200 x 160cm, edition 1/3 Courtesy of the artist and Grey Noise These analog photographs explore light pollution, specifically skyglow, as an eco-marker of humanity’s unbridled global population growth and subsequent effects on the environment. Today over half the world’s population live in cities. According to research from the UN, by 2050 2.5 billion more people will be living in cities. Michael John Whelan has been documenting urban densification from an array of locations (including Dubai, Vienna and Dublin) and elevations, focussing on the abstract visual gradient caused by the artificial light refracting in the night sky. The light sources themselves are excluded from the image, focusing only on the effects. Abstraction becomes a tool for accessibility and contemplation on how our ways of life affect the circadian rhythms of the planet. Working across film, video, photography and sculpture, Whelan’s practice asserts the landscape as a place where traumatic narratives overlap with the evidence of anthropogenic processes. Whelan undertakes extensive long-term projects documenting elusive but ever-present phenomena like light pollution or darkness. Animals, people or places, like the last Irish wolf, a young marine biologist struggling with the effects of climate change, or the world’s most radioactive ocean, are given agency within his work. b. 1977, Dublin; lives and works in Berlin Pol Taburet Out the womb, 2022 Parade, 2022 alcohol based paint and raw pigment Courtesy of the artist and Mendes Wood DM who also provided support for this presentation with alongside Alliance Francaise de Dacca For millennia, humans have invoked their minds and bodies through prayers, rituals, songs, and dances to summon rain from the sky. These bold, spiritually charged paintings depict that age-old human desire to extend our power of movement on earth to universes above us. Ghostly figures in the foreground dance and pulse with the energy of thunder and lightning inside of them to make it rain and bring about abundance. There is something haunting, even sinister about these figures, who seem to conjure dark magic. In the language of hip-hop, the term “make it rain” refers to a hypothetical relationship between the rapper and the devil invented by fans, where the rapper conjures the devil in a quest to make money manifest itself as if falling from the sky. Taburet’s work brings a complex range of reference including his Caribbean background and its syncretic voodoo traditions and belief systems, wider contemporary culture, and Western classical painting. He developed his unique painting style by incorporating the use of airbrushing alongside traditional brush painting with acrylic colors, symbolic of his work which mixes the old and the new. Working across painting, sculpture, installation, and performance, his work speaks of life and death, and the passage from one state to the other. b. 1997, Paris; lives and works in Paris Rithika Merchant Transtidal, 2022 Gouache, watercolor, and ink on paper Commissioned by Samdani Art Foundation Courtesy of the artist and Tarq who also provided support for this presentation River deltas are environments, gateways between rivers and seas that offer challenges and opportunities, where the conditions for sustaining life change throughout the days and seasons. Deltas are cradles of life and tell a story of evolution from the sea, by the river, to the land, possibly representing what the future holds. We now have to go backwards as the sea gains ground and makes land hostile. Like the mudskippers floating in the foreground of this work, we too will have to learn to be amphibious as waters rise. This watercolor is inspired by the nomadic river based Bede community of Bangladesh. They reap the benefits of water as a life giver and have adapted to overcome the more destructive aspects of the water. As waters rise, their amphibious way of living on the river is something many of us may have to adopt on our ever flooding planet in order to survive. Figures from Bangla lore such as crocodile djinns and snakes appear in the work, speaking to fertility, prosperity, and abundance tied to river based life. Snakes are a source of livelihood for the Bede community who earn income from snake charming, snake catching and snake selling, generating possibility from a place others may cower away from in fear. Both the Goliath Heron and the Peregrine Falcon inhabit the mangrove and can be seen as sacred animals integral to the ecosystem, immortalized here as constellations and stars reflecting in the winding rivers connecting the desert to the mountains to the sea to the sky. Merchant is fascinated with navigation. She is inspired by how old maps and celestial charts are folded and stored, and how they are built up with water-based paint on paper, transformed by exposure to the sun and the elements over time, appearing very different to us now than when they were originally made. After she finishes her paintings, she folds them up into geometric shapes and unfolds them to create and reveal a narrative of the paper’s journey. She imagines that in the future, someone might come across her folded drawings in a book or in a drawer and when they unfold them, they would find strange and otherworldly maps, with creatures and clues from another time. b.1986 Mumbai, lives and works in Barcelona and Mumbai Safiuddin Ahmed Flood, 1994 Flood 8, 2004 Gusty Wind, 2005 Bare Trees-2, 2004 Charcoal on paper The Cry, 1980 Copper engraving print Courtesy of the Shilpaguru Safiuddin Ahmed Memorial Storms have eyes and eyes have storms. Safiuddin Ahmed emblazoned the relationship between Bangladeshis and the storms plaguing them from inside their bodies and outside through floods and wars in his iconic prints and lesser-known, haunting charcoal drawings, which are rarely exhibited. Pulsing with emotion, these works speak to Bangladesh’s ongoing cry for freedom from both natural and manmade violence. Their symbolism speaks to the entanglement of human and non-human life on the Bengal delta. Ahmed helped raise the profile of printmaking in Bangladesh, a discipline often considered of secondary importance, by adopting it as his main medium and inspiring others to engage with the medium through his teaching practice. His work addresses the violence of water and the storms, literal and metaphorical, that Bengali people live with culturally. Many of his titles address strong emotions such as anger, sadness, and fear paired with symbolic scenes of water, fishing, and flooding. b. 1922, Calcutta; d. 2012 in Dhaka Sana Shahmuradova-Tanska The Womb of the Land, 2022 People of De-occupied Territories, 2022 Oil on Canvas Courtesy of the Artist Voluptuous female forms keep a violent sky at bay, feeding and fuelling a counter-apocalypse with their life-giving energy. Sana Shahmuradova-Tanska has been painting harbingers of life in the midst of war-torn Ukraine, depicting the role that women play in keeping the world alive in the midst of man-made horrors, both today, and also historically in her homeland with countless injustices including man-made famine, the Holodomor, which parallel histories in Bangladesh when it, too, was a colonially occupied territory. As a visual artist, Shahmuradova-Tanska she mainly works with graphics and painting, searching for the barely explored roots of her ancestry through collective and personal archetypes. Women are the main protagonists in her work, which is also inspired by her experience training in ballet and studying drawing with an elderly Jewish artist who introduced her to Jewish frescoes, among other references. b. 1996, Odessa; lives and works in Kyiv SM Sultan Untitled, 1987 Natural dyes on unprimed jute canvas Samdani Art Foundation Collection While South Asian art history describes him as a landscape painter, S.M. Sultan is remembered in Bangladesh for his energetic paintings of bulbous-muscled farmers made after 1975. These large-scale paintings, primarily made with natural pigments on unprimed jute canvases, celebrate the strength of Bengali peasants, both male and female, in their struggle against colonial and ecological disasters. Famine had been plaguing the country on and off from the era of the British Raj until just the year before Sultan first painted these icons of physical might. In this context, his depiction of the weak and downtrodden as invincible forces cultivating the future of Bangladesh can be seen as subversive. Small islands, known as chars, dot the landscape in the background of this painting, an integral part of the Bangladeshi landscape. While still violent, the storms and floods impacting Bangladesh’s landscape during Sultan’s time are different from those experienced now, yet architects and designers are turning toward traditional solutions from Bangladesh’s wetlands to imagine ways to survive on wetter and wetter land. Sultan’s work as both an artist and an educator highlight the importance of rural culture in the collective identity of Bangladesh. After traveling extensively as a celebrated artist both internationally and within South Asia, Sultan retreated from urban life, moving to his home village of Narail, where he founded the Shishu Shwarga art school. His devotion to rural art education has had a lasting legacy, inspiring many initiatives to promote personal growth outside of urban centers through art. b. 1923, Narail; d. 1994, Jessore Veronika Hapchenko Shelter, 2022 Acrylic and Ink on Canvas Samdani Art Foundation Collection This painting is Veronika Hapchenko’s contemporary interpretation of the mosaic Windfighter, a depiction of a bird fighting the wind that was created by the legendary artist Alla Horska in 1967 for Mariupol’s restaurant Ukraina, recently destroyed by shellings in July, 2022. This work commences a new series by the artist devoted to the topic of Soviet avant-garde mosaics and murals from the 1960s and 1970s located on the territory of Ukraine. These works of art once spoke of a bright, peaceful future of the republic, and are now being destroyed in the course of the Russian invasion and bombardment of Ukrainian cultural heritage sites. A first glance at this painting reveals two figures of long-haired women flanking a mysterious shape placed in the center of the scene. Upon a closer look, one notices that the women’s strands of hair form a roof over the heads of the multitude of figures whose faces emerge from the body outlines. With silhouettes infinitely looped in the composition, it is difficult for the viewer to establish the number of people who are sheltered in this painting. Like Bengal in the 1940s, Ukraine also suffered a man-made famine in the 1930s known as the Holodomor. Responding to violent, ongoing histories of oppression, Hapchenko, as well as the iconic Bangladeshi painter SM Sultan, paint figures with bulging muscles of epic strength, refusing to be reduced to skin and bones by occupying forces and rising up to protect their communities and ways of life. Coming from a stage design background that migrated into painting and object making, Hapchenko’s practice has a strong research foundation. Looking to philosophical theses, cultural archives and oral history in her work, the artist traces legends and taboos surrounding revolutionary artists and political gurus to deconstruct and rethink the cultural tropes of the former USSR, which oscillated between esotericism and militarism throughout the twentieth century. This work was commissioned by KANAL- Centre Pompidou, Brussels to mark their inaugural feminist conference and garner support for the crisis in Ukraine. B. 1995, Kyiv, lives and works in Krakow LOCATION: SECOND FLOOR Amit Dutta Mother, Who Will Weave Now?, 2022 Digital AnimationCommissioned by MAP (Museum of Art and Photography) Bangalore on the Textile Collection of the Museum Mother, Who Will Weave Now? attempts to sample and mirror the grand tapestry of Indian textile traditions and histories by interweaving snippets of Indian cloth on an editing table, using poetic elements of classical Indian literature sewn together with the words and motifs of the weaver-saint Kabir. Dutta attempts to create in film what he sees in painting, and describes all of his formal work as an attempt in that direction. Whether examining India’s contemporary artists, traditional weavers, or classical painters and the scholars who know their every brushstroke by heart, Dutta’s process-oriented films attest to the ardor of art history. b.1977, Jamu; lives and works in Palampur Kamruzzaman Shadhin Irrelevant Field Notes, 2020-2023 Two-channel video, sound, sculptures Commissioned by Samdani Art Foundation Courtesy of the artist This installation traces the seasons and cycles of indigenous rituals, poetry, myths, and practices that have been intertwined with agricultural landscapes and the act of cultivation in Bangladesh. Drawing from Kamruzzaman Shadhin’s childhood memories of deeply ingrained community practices rooted in agriculture, the work tells the story of how the move towards an extractive nature of cultivation has slowly rendered a disconnection in the intimate/intrinsic ties between humanity and land. Incorporating sculptures, video, and sound and using materials related to land and rituals, Shadhin creates an imaginary landscape where the old rhymes, songs, fables, and other “irrelevant beings” hover around in apparent aimlessness, disconnected from the earth. They are displaced, but linger on as a distant and fragmented memory of a forgotten link, almost as if to stage a secret rebellion against this capitalist aggression on soil, water, and many ways of life. Made over a three-year period, this two-channel video chronicles the fields at different seasons through movements of masked figures who also appear in this space as various forms, linked through an immersive soundscape where the disappearing songs and rhymes come alive again. Shadhin's participatory practice incorporates installation, sculpture, performance, video and public art interventions. His work is shaped by long-term engagement with communities, exploring themes of the environment, migration and local history, and their connection to personal and collective memory. He usually works with locally sourced materials, drawing inspiration from the techniques and practices of the past to comment on the present. He is the founder of the Gidree Bawlee Foundation of Arts (f. 2001). b. 1974, Thakurgaon; lives and works in Dhaka and Thakurgaon Najmun Nahar Keya বর্ণগীতি(Symphony of words), 2022-2023 Soft Sculptures Made from Antique Sarees Commissioned by Samdani Art Foundation Courtesy of the artist and Aicon Gallery Bengali script seems to drip from the ceiling as rain, or flow through space like a river, similar to how the words of Khana have flowed across time in Bangladesh. Khana was a poet and an astrologer active in Bengal somewhere between the 9th and 12th centuries, and her verses are among the earliest compositions of lyrical Bengali verse and tied to wisdom gleaned from observing nature. According to legend, Khana attracted the attention of King Vikramaditya by solving problems that neither her husband nor her father-in-law, who were both court astronomers, could answer. Threatened by her knowledge and divinatory power, her father-in-law had her tongue cut off and forced her into exile. In another version, Khana cut off her own tongue to spare her father-in-law the shame of being upstaged by a woman. Both scenarios speak to how the fragility of male egos threatens the basic wellbeing of women. Putting Khana’s words into the air as sayings and/or writing them into physical form as text, or inscribing them as an artwork as the artist Najmun Nahar Keya has, speaks to the power of orality and of collective memory to keep alive the wisdom that oppressive forces, such as patriarchy, have tried in vain to silence. These sayings that are still alive in rural Bangladesh today, known as Khanar Bachan (Khana’s words), are also a collective memory of climate, and how human behavior and weather could interact to produce fruitful results. These adages must have worked at some point; otherwise it is unlikely that they would have been carried across so many generations, but they don’t all make sense anymore as weather does not move over the lands in the same way it once did. Like the Tangail sarees that Keya and her elder sisters used to craft these sayings into soft sculptural form, they are likely to become obsolete as these generationally passed down wisdoms are at risk of being forgotten. Najmun Nahar Keya is primarily a painter, but also employs old photographs, gold gilding, drawing and printmaking, which she juxtaposes to create nostalgic settings. Having grown up in the old part of Dhaka, Keya draws her inspiration from the rapid social, economic and environmental changes happening in the area as a result of urbanization. She is interested in the duality of society focusing on lifestyle, culture, cityscapes, urban motifs, customs and architecture. b. 1980 in Dhaka, lives and works in Dhaka Miet Warlop The Board II, 2014/2023 Performance Commissioned by Samdani Art Foundation with support from BGMEA In a dynamic collaboration with female garment factory workers in Bangladesh, this performative installation challenges preconceptions of “who wears the pants” in society. A group of trunkless, armless, and headless pants in heels walk across the Dhaka Art Summit venue, taking stock of the artworks and the exhibition, laughing hysterically that anyone could take life so seriously and releasing their own irreverent gestures in paint for the audience to take in. Warlop’s work is about making the static-dynamic and making the dynamic-static. She treats art as an experience, like ritual concerts or objects animated by choreography. She works in cycles rather than in projects and believes in the attitude that accompanies an idea, using a combination of performance, choreography, theater, and sculpting skills to make her shows. Her work amplifies the dynamics of personal relationships that are created between memories, skin, objects and sounds. b. 1978, Torhout; lives and works in Brussels Rana Begum No.1234, 2022-2023 Fishing Net and Bamboo Commissioned by Samdani Art Foundation with support from British Council BangladeshCourtesy of the artist and Jhaveri Contemporary Inspired by the fragile drape of fishing nets and the filtered reflections of light across water, No. 1234 Net is closely connected to Begum’s childhood memories growing up in Bangladesh. The work sweeps above the visitors, layering veils of color and form. This organic expression marks a departure from Begum’s language of ordered geometric abstraction, growing in the space to create a dramatic, site specific installation. Begum utilizes industrial materials such as stainless steel, aluminum, copper, brass, glass, and wood in her minimalist sculptures and reliefs. Her contemplative works explore shifting interactions between geometry, color, and light, drawing inspiration from both the chance encounters of city life and the intricate patterns of Islamic art and architecture. b. 1977, Sylhet; lives and works in London Sahej Rahal Black Origin, 2022 Digital Collage Courtesy of the artist and Chatterjee and Lal This series of images, rising from the artist’s imagined world of digital “storm sisters,” gathers a collection of digital collages conjured in collusion with AI-driven image generation programs. The images portend visions of an Earth exhausted of all human life. In this aftermath, new denizens populate the planet, petroleum-drenched beings, draped in the ruins and refuse of humankind. They rise under mangroves that rest over ramshackle housing complexes, highway lines, boulevards, banks, and bureaucratic enclaves, mounting insurrections on the other side of extinction. Rahal’s work builds up mythology that he weaves together by drawing upon local legends and hidden histories and bringing them into conversation with the world today. He manifests his myth-making in sculptural installations, paintings, performances, films, and video games that he creates using found materials, ranging from digital technology as well as ephemera, found footage, salvaged furniture, and scrap material. b. 1988, Mumbai; lives and works in Mumbai Shawon Akand ধীরে বন্ধু ধীরে (Slow friend, be slow), 2022-2023 Hand-woven installation Commissioned by Samdani Art Foundation Courtesy of the artist Turtles are icons for slowness, and slowness is necessary to keep certain cultural practices alive that fall outside of the speed necessary for mechanical reproduction. Shawon Akand worked with traditional jamdani weavers to transform turtle motifs in his paintings into a woven installation. ধীরে বন্ধু ধীরে (Slow friend, be slow) questions where in the fast paced world the need for slow process work falls, and how slowness can be adapted in this timeline of urgency. When a slow-pace culture merges with a fast paced life, will any good come out of it? Akand’s body of work questions cultural norms with a critical perspective on social and political structures through painting, printmaking, installation, photography and video. He is passionate about empowering and amplifying the reach of Bangladeshi craftspeople in his creative work which extends from art making to curating to entrepreneurship. He founded the organization Jothashilpa which has been a melting pot where various categories of arts (such as fine art, folk art, native art, crafts etc.) are brought together to create a new art language rooted in cultural history. Since its inception Jothashilpa has been working with artisans and traditional folk artists living in rural as well as urban areas. This includes women who are experts in hand embroidery, jamdani weavers, cinema banner painters and rickshaw artists who he regularly collaborates with. b. 1976, Kushtia; lives and works in Dhaka Tanya Goel Botanical Studies (Monsoon Flowers), 2020-2023 Crushed pigments on paper Commissioned by Samdani Art Foundation Courtesy of the artist and Nature Morte who also provided support for this presentation Like flowers, we are formed by feelings that follow our relationship to sunlight and moonlight that illuminate our time on this planet, transforming what we perceive with our eyes into emotions that we feel with our hearts. The artist Tanya Goel has been meditatively studying flowers and the role that color plays in lived experience especially when it comes to the “laws of attraction.” As part of that process, she has been building what she refers to as “a collection of dust”; an archive of pigments that reminds her that color is ground. Ground: both in the sense of being a pulverized material (a physical process she actively engages with when making pigments), but also as coming from the surface beneath our feet (such as chalk and titanium dioxide). This series of Botanical Studies is inspired by monsoon flowers, forms that grow when the ground is wet and flooded with rainwater, just as beautiful as flowers blooming in the spring, but often overlooked when the global imagination around flowers relates to a world of “four seasons” that does not correspond with the seasons in South Asia. The artist perceived new universes when observing the pistils of flowers under a magnifying glass, zooming closer and closer in order to understand how the interplay of color around the reproductive parts of flowers serves to attract bees while also attracting our eyes. Goel reminds us that color is a powerful harbinger that life will go on in a duration that defies the limits of the optics of a human life-span. Goel’s compositions, noted for their density and complexity, are mathematical formulas which are established and then violated, resulting in a balance between structure and chaos. The artist makes her own pigments from a diverse array of materials including charcoal, aluminum, concrete, glass, soil, mica, graphite and foils, many sourced from sites of architectural demolitions in and around New Delhi. She is interested in the textures of her pigments as well as their colors, which is a direct result of how they reflect light. b. 1985, New Delhi; lives and works in New Delhi LOCATION: THIRD FLOOR Anthony McCall Line Describing a Cone 2.0, 1973/2010 Digital projection with fog machine Samdani Art Foundation Collection Like watching the sunset, experiencing the work Line Describing a Cone requires a duration of 30 minutes to watch a white curve appear and transform in space. This iconic work by Anthony McCall, key to the artistic movement that opened up the visual arts towards cinema, was inspired by the artist observing how projections in a cinema hall - where dust swirling in the air interacts with light spewing from the projector - can produce sculpture-like effects. Here, a thin mist flows into the room, allowing the viewer to progressively see a large cone of light which simultaneously becomes a light sculpture that the audience can walk into, almost like a portal into another universe. This work is not just something to watch, it is a universe to be absorbed in and to participate in. The artist inverts the relationship between the projector and the audience. Here, the public faces the projector, not the movie, destroying the illusion of a moving image while opening up another kind of space of wonder. The process of the realization of the film becomes its content. During the 1970s, Anthony McCall was one of a number of filmmakers who rejected the narrative demands of Hollywood cinema as well as the more abstract content of independent films, addressing instead the specific properties of the film medium itself–light, surface, projection, frames, and time. His work spans across drawing, installation, and performance, one of his preferred mediums. He is an indispensable reference to a younger generation of artists working in video and installation, including Matt Copson whose work is found at the entrance of DAS. b. 1946, Saint Paul's Cray; lives and works in New York Daniel Boyd Untitled (GPS Coordinates), 2022-2023 Vinyl on glass Co-commissioned by Samdani Art Foundation and Artspace Courtesy of the artist and Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery with Curatorial Contributions from Alexie Glass-Kantor and Michelle Newton Daniel Boyd’s works often explore the ways in which Indigenous people and histories are seen, interpolated, and represented within a western or colonial vision. In this site-specific window installation, circular cut outs re-frame the views outside, transforming them into a web of illuminated dots, and spilling new light patterns across the gallery. As in Boyd’s artworks re-working colonial imagery, he uses a simple technique for mediating the audience’s vision to transform and reorient how things are seen. The work disrupts any kind of passive consumption of the landscape as usually framed by the architecture, while creating a new immersive visual spectacle. These circular forms are used to perform a complex re-envisioning wherein dark matter becomes part of a total image, connecting a multitude of flashes of detail beyond. Daniel Boyd is an Indigenous Australian multidisciplinary artist. His paintings, installations, and sculptures are informed by his Kudjla/Gangalu heritage, and examine Eurocentric narratives around Australia's colonial history. Through his signature 'dot' painting technique, Boyd presents visual manifestations of Indigenous collective memory and perception, suggesting a form of lens with which to view the world. b. 1982, Cairns; lives and works in Sydney Marina Perez Simão Untitled 1-9, 2022Oil on canvas Commissioned by Samdani Art Foundation Courtesy of the artist and Mendes Wood DM who also provided support for this presentation In a world where we are supposed to know everything through the touch of a screen, Marina Simão paints in order to conjure the wonder and awe that comes with experiencing a sense of being that was previously unthinkable. Her paintings open up possibilities for new states of matter beyond known solids, liquids, gasses, and plasmas. What colors might suffuse the smoldering gasses of yet-to-be-discovered atmospheres in far-off extraterrestrial landscapes? These paintings could be window portals of a spaceship, imagining rivers and waterbodies in yet-to-be-known planets in yet-to-be-known galaxies. Our minds are left free to wander in the myriad paths that open up in her paintings and reach far beyond the limits of the canvas. She takes us to the edge of an abyss with no solid place to step, but with no need to touch the ground. Simão uses a variety of techniques, such as collage, drawing, and oil painting, as starting points in order to marry interior and exterior landscapes, she composes visual journeys that sometimes traverse the unknown, the abstract and the nebulous, but also include visions and memories. With interests ranging from science to literature, the artist is on a constant quest to surprise viewers and herself by creating new worlds with visions we might have never imagined before. B. 1980, Vitória; lives and works in Sao Paulo Munem Wasif পতন / Collapse, 2021-2023 Spatial design in collaboration with Architect Salauddin AhmedArchival pigment prints, Variable sizesMetal structures, Wooden frames With additional support from Samdani Art Foundation Courtesy of the artist and Project88 Munem Wasif brings forward the conflicted relationship between the idea of development and the larger ecosystem. On one side flows a mighty river while on the other stands an intrusive structure made out of rods, cement, sand and stones. In these photographs, we see a man-made structure, geometric, brutal and monumental in scale, standing tall against the forces of vigorous currents of the Jamuna river that race down on the horizontal plane amidst soft and fragile elements of nature. Bangladesh is born out of the nerves and veins of numerous rivers spurring out of the Himalayas. These rivers move through the mountains, deciding the very nature of the land they pass through, the ecology, human character, life’s rhythm, politics and economy. Neo-liberal development processes in the last few decades have neglected the natural flow of water, climate and the lives around these areas. With human-centric notions of development, economic gain and consumption of natural resources as the basis of modern life, the voices of other species have been excluded resulting in the consequent loss of biodiversity. Grains of sand particles glisten like stars in these black and white photographs, a ferocious body of water bends hurriedly down the curves, and tall mutilated parts of the structure pierce through the skin of the river silently witnessing the flat plane. Bringing forward this juxtaposition of a horizontal and vertical axis, Munem Wasif’s image based installation discloses a contradictory tale of climate, life, nature and development. One can’t help but ask “What is the definition of development?” Wasif’s image-based works explore the notion of trace in its various forms. His complex installations often mix photographs with moving images, archive documents or collected paraphernalia to reveal notions of impermanence and insecurity. Never exhaustive and always open to interpretation, the narratives they develop simultaneously test the limits of documentary representation and the possibilities of fiction. b. 1983, Dhaka; lives and works in Dhaka Shahzia Sikander Singing Suns, 2016 Digital animation with music by Du Yun Samdani Art Foundation Collection Shahzia Sikander recontextualizes traditional motifs from Indo-Persian miniature painting, such as the hair found on gopis (female worshippers of the Hindu god Krishna), into dynamic forms in motion in her animation practice that makes painting sing and dance. Gopi hair swirls in orb-like-forms of varying densities, reminiscent of the shape-shifting movements of flocks of birds or colonies of bats, creating an illusion of singing suns that light up the room. We often think about the sun as singular, but every star is a sun and there are billions of stars in billions of universes. The music accompanying this piece by the Chinese composer Du Yun rejects linearity, and through working cross-culturally across musical traditions, her collaboration with Sikander speaks to the way that cultural practices have developed new forms in circulation, taking new paths by way of collision and deep integration. Sikander reinterprets the tradition of Indo-Persian miniature painting in a vibrant multimedia practice that considers colonial legacies, orientalizing narratives, and current events, pairing ancient traditional painting techniques with the latest digital technology. She introduces postcolonial and feminist perspectives into rigorous compositions that feature scenes and abstractions related to trade, migration, and imperial histories. b. 1969, Lahore; lives and works in New York

ALL PROJECTS DOCUWALK KASSEL, GERMANY | JUNE - SEPTEMBER 2012 Mahbubur Rahman and Tayeba Begum Lipi visited Documenta 13 which was supported by Samdani Art Foundation.

ALL PROJECTS Rasel Chowdhury At The Delfina Foundation During the Dhaka Art Summit 2016, an international jury, comprised of Cosmin Costinas, Catherine David, Beatrix Ruf, and Aaron Seeto, 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. Rasel Chowdhury is a Dhaka-based artist whose passion lies in documenting environmental issues using camera. Born in Jamalpur, he started working in photography without a conscious plan, and eventually became addicted and decided to document spaces in and around Bangladesh. He obtained a degree from Pathshala, South Asian Media Institute in 2012. His body of work deals with unplanned desperate urbanization, the dying River Buriganga, the lost city of Sonargaon, the Mega City of Dhaka, and newly transformed spaces around Bangladesh railroads to explore the change of the environment, unplanned urban structures and new form of landscapes.