ALL PROJECTS Samdani Art Award Exhibition Curated by Anne Barlow The Samdani Art Award 2023 presents new works by twelve emerging Bangladeshi artists who reflect on various social, economic and ecological concerns in the midst of one of the most difficult climatic periods for South Asia. While each project is distinct in its focus and material form, collectively, the artists in the exhibition engage with critical societal issues by questioning mainstream and binary thinking, advocating for change, and imagining spaces of possibility in the future. The ongoing impact of industrialisation and climate change are key topics for Purnima Aktar, Sohorab Rabbey and Habiba Nowrose. Through references to folklore and mythology, Aktar’s work highlights the uncertain future and diminishing biodiversity of the Sundarbans, the largest contiguous mangrove forest in the world known as the ‘lungs’ of Bangladesh. Rabbey’s spatial intervention, whose forms are partly inspired by dams and barrages on the Teesta river, acts as a critical commentary on the geopolitical, topographical and ethnocultural transformation of the Bengal Delta region. Reflecting on ancient flood myths that span diverse cultures and religions, and on our current-day emergence from a global pandemic, Nowrose’s installation of photographs and objects seeks to convey a utopian world in which humans might exist in harmony with other beings after a great deluge. Md Fazla Rabbi Fatiq and Rakibul Anwar consider how urban and rural environments are affected by construction that errs towards the invasive. Remnants of unfinished bridges in open fields, canals and agricultural land are seen as both symbols of ‘abandoned dreams’ and systemic corruption in Fatiq’s poignant photographs, whereas Anwar’s expansive wall drawings are informed by his observations of seemingly arbitrary urban planning that continues to alter the cityscape of Dhaka, as well as its social and communal spaces. Concerns around human rights, particularly in relation to the disenfranchised, are powerfully expressed in the work of Ashfika Rahman and Faysal Zaman. Rahman’s project resembles the interior of a home in an indigenous Santal community, and questions the responsibility of state security forces in relation to the burning of Santal homes during land ownership disputes. Incorporating extracts from interviews and archival images of victims of ‘enforced disappearance’, Zaman’s haunting installation gives material presence to victims’ own words and those of their loved ones. Through references to such acts of intolerance or brutality against people, and to the damage humans inflict on nature and its ecosystems, the topic of violence becomes a recurring subtext throughout the exhibition. Sumi Anjuman, Rasel Rana and Dipa Mahbuba Yasmin focus on the challenges faced by those with diverse sexual and gender orientation. Through her evocative photographs, Anjuman brings a human dimension to the oppression of non-binary people in Bangladesh, giving voice to their stories, while Rana encapsulates the struggles and hopes of diverse communities in a fantastical landscape in which every being is welcome. Referencing figures including the Bangladeshi artist SM Sultan whose identity was considered to be ‘elusive’, Yasmin similarly advocates for the legitimacy of sexual and gender fluidity and for individuals to be recognized and respected for who they are. Mojahid Musa and Dinar Sultana Putul share an interest in using natural or recycled materials in much of their work. Musa’s experimental and imaginative animal forms made first in clay, and then fused with other materials or ready-made objects, test assumptions around the relative value of such components in everyday life. Putul’s respect for agricultural and more traditional ways of life is borne out in the environment and hand-made objects she creates; at the same time, her work is influenced by historical figures such as engineer and architect Buckminster Fuller and utopian visions of a self-sustaining, egalitarian society. Purnima Aktar আঠারো ভাটির দেশ, A Tale of Eighteen Tides, 2022-2023 Installation Commissioned and Produced by Samdani Art Foundation for DAS 2023 The Sundarbans mangrove forest, known as the ‘land of eighteen tides’, is host to a vast range of flora and fauna, including the Bengal tiger. According to local folklore, the Sundarbans is watched over by Bonbibi, a revered female deity. It is said that for hundreds of years, woodcutters, honey collectors and others whose livelihoods depend on the forest, have prayed to Bonbibi to protect them from harm. Despite being a UNESCO World Heritage site, the fragile ecosystem of the Sundarbans is increasingly under threat due to climate change and environmental pollution. A Tale of Eighteen Tides is an allegorical work that explores this loss of biodiversity in the forest alongside the cultures and traditions that are in danger of dying out with it. Comprising eighteen parts, the installation depicts the figure of Bonbibi alongside a Bengal tiger and other wild animals, with those species that are already extinct painted in monochrome. Aktar’s work is inspired by nature and the myths and symbols of the Bengal Delta, as well as by artistic source including Mughal miniatures, Tantric paintings and Bangla folk art. She often combines these in her work to address issues around social and environmental justice. b. 1997, Narayanganj; lives and works in Dhaka Rakibul Anwar মহানগর, Mohanagar, 2023 Drawings on paper Commissioned and Produced by Samdani Art Foundation for DAS 2023 Rakibul Anwar’s life is intertwined with the city of Dhaka where he has been living since childhood. For Anwar, the transformation of Dhaka from a former Mughal outpost to a developing metropolitan centre with its different neighbourhoods, languages, symbols and sounds, is an endless source of inspiration. His work brings together direct observations of daily life with visual imagery derived from his ongoing research into the history of Dhaka through novels, articles and archival sources. These new drawings, one of which resembles the form of a scroll, are made on dictionary pages that have been randomly joined together, creating a kind of subliminal ‘noise’ that for Anwar feels like the sensation of living in Dhaka itself. Capturing moments of daily life, they depict the shifting ‘footprint’ of the city: people, places and objects are out of proportion with one another and viewed from various perspectives from aerial to eye level. This agglomeration of images – including street scenes, bullfights, and architectural elements – present a disorientating and almost surreal ambience. Anwar also considers the loss of Dhaka’s ecological heritage that continues to occur through planning and construction projects that fail to take existing ecosystems into account, leading to a critical imbalance between the built and natural environment. Images of beehives and animals act as signifiers for a loss of biodiversity that results in part from Dhaka’s dying lakes, polluted rivers, and lost gardens. Collectively, these new drawings present a poignant reflection on the complex and ever-changing physical and psychological state of the city. B. 1993, Dhaka; lives and works in Dhaka Rasel Rana একজন বাগানির স্বপ্ন , The Gardener’s Dream 2023 Acrylic on canvas Commissioned and Produced by Samdani Art Foundation for DAS 2023 The Gardener’s Dream presents an idyllic scene of a gardener surrounded by various species of plants - a beautifully crafted universe in which all living things co-exist in harmony. The garden acts as a metaphor for a world in which everyone and everything has equal importance and equal rights, in contrast to the discrimination and trauma often faced by those who have diverse genders. This new work follows on from Rana’s Gender Bird series in terms of its lush representation of a figure in a landscape, and a sense of longing for an individual to be accepted for who they are. In The Gardener’s Dream , this also manifests itself through the work’s unique shape, which for Rana, expresses the way in which queer lives are often ‘framed’ by society as being different. Informed by various sources including Voodoo art and symbols, the bright colours of Rickshaw painting and the figure of the TEPA PUTUL (folk doll), Rana’s work presents a multi-layered and deeply personal perspective on issues of identity and an individual’s place in the world. b. 1995, Dhaka; lives and works in Dhaka Sumi Anjuman হাওয়ায় নেওয়া চাঁদ, Winds carry moon , 2021-2022 Interdisciplinary medium Commissioned and Produced by Samdani Art Foundation for DAS 2023 Much of Anjuman’s photography engages with individuals or communities who have been oppressed or silenced by mainstream society. Her collaborative approach is guided by ideas of inclusivity and reflects the depth of the relationships she builds over time. Winds carry moon continues her work with those who, due to their gender identity, are frowned upon and considered unlawful in society to the extent that some have received death threats. Her photographs reflect on the restrictions and lack of equal rights that many individuals face in daily life, offering a sensitive insight into their inner psyches, and life journeys that commonly diverge from accepted norms in terms of prevailing societal and religious beliefs. Winds carry moon creates a space of possibility between this reality and a world in which LGBTQIA+ individuals in Bangladesh can concentrate on their love, hopes and dreams, instead of being in a constant state of angst and homophobic isolation, struggling to be perceived as human. Born in a conservative society, Anjuman has faced internal conflicts around being a woman that have helped her connect and empathize with others' oppression and trauma. Anjuman considers her photography practice to be more poetic than documentary in nature, verging on the abstract as a way of creating a non-violent dialogue about contemporary society. b. 1989, Bogura: lives and works in Dhaka and The Hague Md Fazla Rabbi Fatiq মরীচিকা, Mirage, 2022-2023 Photographs Commissioned and Produced by Samdani Art Foundation for DAS 2023 Mirage is a series of photographs that attempts to highlight the corruption that lies behind many construction projects in Bangladesh. Focusing on numerous bridges that started to be built in canals, open fields, and agricultural lands over the past two decades - but that now lie abandoned and unused – Fatiq draws attention to the ongoing impact and the sheer scale of this predicament. In several instances, his works depict bridges that have collapsed, with their approach roads in ruins if they were ever made at all. These monumental, almost surreal forms now dominate landscapes across the country, symbolising for Fatiq the systemic corruption in the construction industry where huge budgets are misused and projects left unfinished. Although this series of photographs is devoid of people, it nonetheless conveys lost hopes of connectivity between places and communities, particularly in rural areas where local populations have no option but to move around by water for much of the year. While his works can be hauntingly beautiful, Fatiq’s approach to his subject matter is shaped by an acute social and political sensibility. In Mirage , he deftly combines aspects of traditional photography with elements of abstraction, symbolism and ambiguity, giving rise to the question of what lies underneath the surface of an image. b. 1995 Cumilla; lives and works in Cumilla Sohorab Rabbey Almanac of an eroded land borrowed from our children, 2022-2023 Installation Commissioned and Produced by Samdani Art Foundation for DAS 2023 ‘Blocked’ is a form of protest that indigenous and marginalised local people use to rescue their lands, rivers and natural resources from authoritarian corporations. However precarious this resistance might be, their statement is clear and powerful enough to be visible. Inspired by their actions - and reflecting on how the navigability of the rivers from the upper stream to the lower stream in the Bengal delta region has been controlled, politicised, redistributed and transformed in the last decades - Sohorab addresses the aftermaths of human-led catastrophes. Alongside, he engages with the everyday practices of the people in the region in terms of their respect for natural ecosystems and their resistance towards the ‘patchy Anthropocene’. Almanac of an eroded land borrowed from our children continues Sohorab’s interest in channelling the geopolitical, topographical and ethnocultural transformation of the river delta region of South Asia. In this new installation, fragmented ‘edifices’ traced from the blueprint of dams and barrages built on the ‘Teesta’ river conjure up an abandoned eroded site. Hand loomed textiles made using non-toxic natural dye processes with domestic ingredients, techniques learned from local people, create a muted yet strong atmospheric spatial intervention. Injecting the idea of ‘blocked’ in a prudent sculptural and material play, Sohorab draws attention to the urgency of respecting indigenous knowledge and natural resources, beyond human possibilities and interspecies entanglements. b.1994 Dhaka, lives and works in London Habiba Nowrose Salvation , 2023 Photography Commissioned and Produced by Samdani Art Foundation for DAS 2023 In Salvation, Habiba Nowrose reflects on ancient flood myths that span diverse cultures and religions as a way of critically examining the times we live in today. In Hindu mythology, Lord Vishnu reincarnated as a fish to warn King Manu of a great deluge. The fish instructed Manu to build a boat and take with him every living creature that ever existed on Earth, in a male and female pair. When the flood came, the fish grew into a giant one and asked Manu to tie the boat to its horn, and the fish navigated the flood, taking them to safe land. Thus the world was saved from total destruction. Similarly, according to Abrahamic religious texts, Prophet Noah received a warning from God about a great flood that would be a punishment for the wickedness of humanity. Eventually, the great deluge came and washed away the wicked, leaving only the righteous to repopulate the Earth. In our current era, often referred to as the Anthropocene, Nowrose questions how humans have become the single most destructive species, causing an existential threat to the earth, and whether another deluge is needed in order to salvage the world. Habiba Nowrose explores human relationships and gender identities through photography. She makes photographic portraits that introduce different interpretations and perspectives on topics such as the life of HIV positive patients or mourning the death of a loved one. Nowrose takes careful mental note of objects, colours, patterns and locations that attract her on a repeated basis, which she then re-introduces in her carefully constructed compositions. These elements play a fundamental role in her interactive and psychologically poignant image-making process. b. 1989 in Sirajganj, lives and works in Dhaka Mojahid Musa Assimilated Musing VI , 2022-2023 Sculptural installation using recycled materials, clay, machinery parts, wood, metal, hair, jute, ornaments, found objects from nature, adhesive Commissioned and Produced by Samdani Art Foundation for DAS 2023 Assimilated Musing VI is a juxtaposition of the natural and manmade. A meticulous process of clay modelling is combined by Mojahid Musa with found materials to make extraordinary creatures that are ambiguous in their form. Merging traditional motifs through the techniques of assemblage, they fuse such disparate elements as jewellery, twigs, bird feathers and various types of metal. These ‘composites’ intend to suggest that an earth consisting of diverse naturally occurring substances exists. Musa’s artistic language draws on the enormously rich history of clay culture, as well as Bangladeshi traditional motifs and folk art, but it does so in a way that actively connects with contemporary issues. For Musa, these sculptures of animal forms play with notions of ‘civilized’ and ‘uncivilized’; they also implicitly critique the position of the domestic animal as an industrial by-product of our time. Overall, his work aims to challenge assumptions about what we require, how we utilize it, and how we value it in society – looking critically at how we assess these shifting factors, and how the decisions we then make affect our daily lives. As a way of interrogating these questions, Musa draws on his own experience of his surroundings, as well as on his interest in how, more broadly, human social behaviour relates to its environment. He often speaks about a ‘robotic’ cosmopolitan and materialistic lifestyle, where people yearn to return to their roots, but how, in the rush of life, they miss out on the innocence of nature. b. 1990, Narshingdi; lives and works in Dhaka Dipa Mahbuba Yasmin In association with Md.Solayman, Md. Dulal & Jagannath Das ঠাউর, Gaze , 2022-2023 Commissioned and Produced by Samdani Art Foundation for DAS 2023 In Gaze , Dipa Mahbuba Yasmin presents an installation of paintings, several of which were created in collaboration with cinema and rickshaw painters. In society, Gaze is established on the basis of a 'higher power key'. Who do we make a hero, what will the hero look like? Have we thought about the politics of power behind the ‘gaze’ of all these things? Cinema banner painting is one of the mediums of popular culture in Bengal. Gaze is an attempt to deconstruct the male protagonists seen in movie banners or rickshaw paintings. Cinema banner artist Md. Dulal, rickshaw painter Md. Solaiman and Jagannath Das worked with her on this series. Gaze continues Yasmin’s interest in SM Sultan, a key figure in modern Bangladeshi art, and more specifically, in how his identity has been perceived primarily through the heteronormative gaze. While many books and films have focused on his life, SM Sultan nonetheless remains an intriguing figure, particularly as he spent many years living as a recluse. For Yasmin, Sultan’s way of thinking was ahead of his time. Sultan used to wear saree often, and there are many documentary photographs and movies that show him in shirt/pant/lungi at a young age. When his art began to be appreciated in the West, and his paintings exhibited, photographers in Bangladesh showed him in suits/coats/pants. Has a picture of SM Sultan wearing a saree ever been seen in this country? Would it have been insulting to do so, and is it still too much to question the politics of 'respect' and 'insult' in our way of thinking? We have seen the convergent gaze of society. Are we not yet ready to accept the divergent gaze? Dipa Mahbuba Yasmin works across disciplines from photography, collage and installation to film and animation. She often collaborates with people from communities of different gender and sexual identities and has established a safe space gallery for artists who work with queer issues. b.1990, Dhaka; lives and works in Dhaka Dinar Sultana Putul A space without a ship , 2023 Mixed media Commissioned and Produced by Samdani Art Foundation for DAS 2023 Putul adopts an almost archival, quasi-scientific method of categorizing and documenting various hues, forms, textures, surfaces, as well as materials such as clay, coal, graphite, pulp made from newspapers (to demolish written language and establish visual language), and a slew of other discarded ephemera found in nature - all in pursuit of understanding its materiality. Putul’s respect for traditional ways of life is borne out in the hand-made objects she creates, and many of these elements are like fossils to her. At the same time, she is influenced by historical figures such as the engineer and architect Buckminster Fuller and utopian visions of a self-sustaining, egalitarian society. These new works draw on ideas expressed in Fuller’s book Grunch of Giants and the formal characteristics of cartographer and architect Bernard J. S. Cahill’s Butterfly map, which she then merges with her own artistic language and world view. Her interest in cosmology and imaginative cartography is inherently connected with pressing concerns around income and resource inequality. A space without a ship alludes to Fuller’s concept of ‘Spaceship Earth’, a phrase Fuller used to describe the entire planet. In this case however, the title implies that our trajectory is adrift, as we forge ahead without adequate care for the planet itself or humanity. Her work advocates, as Fuller did, for a collective rebalancing, or global cooperation around human intelligence and the earth’s resources, in a way that allows for an ‘integrated regenerative system’. b. 1988, Dhaka; lives and works in Dhaka Ashfika Rahman Death of A Home , 2023 Installation Commissioned and Produced by Samdani Art Foundation for DAS 2023 The eviction of ethnic minorities in Bangladesh is highlighted as a major concern in Ashfika Rahman’s Death of a Home , as the authorities find different excuses to uproot communities from the lands they have been living in for centuries. Created in dialogue with Santals (l ower caste Hindu communities), this installation brings to mind the interior of a lost home. A boot and ethnic poetry carved on the traditional Sil Batta (an age-old home appliance collected from a Santal village) lies on the ground, while protest songs from the community play on an archival radio that once aired protest songs for the Bengali nation during the Bangladesh Liberation War. The rhythm of the space questions the freedom of such ethnic groups within Bangladesh after half a century of liberation. Rahman’s practice explores and experiments with photography, using media ranging from historical techniques from 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 with regard to minority communities in Bangladesh. b. 1988, Dhaka; lives and works in Dhaka Faysal Zaman (অ )পূর্ণ , (un)filled , 2021-2023 and Produced by Samdani Art Foundation for DAS 2023 (অ )পূর্ণ, (un)filled , brings together a distinctive materialistic procession that evokes the sense of limitlessness, conveyed through cyberspace-sourced archives, of the sufferers of enforced disappearances in Bangladesh. In parallel, extracts of re-collected interviews with their loved ones outline their endless condition of agony and uncertainty. At times, the trajectory disturbingly blinks yet invites the onlookers to consider the tale of 'Enforced Disappearances' in Bangladesh from spiritual, material and emotive perspectives. Zaman’s artistic practice investigates the psychical compass of socio-political currency, which is often rooted in implied experiences. At the same time, his practice confronts and criticizes the socio-political structures rather than simply demonstrating or elucidating them. Thus, his artistic landscape synthesizes a sense of abstractness and translucent reality conveyed by a transdisciplinary manner that encircles research-led archival components, moving snippets, digital and found imagery along with individual photographs that are often scorched, burned, scratched, and re-photographed. b. 1996 Madaripur; lives and works in The Netherlands

ALL PROJECTS One Hundred Thousand Small Tales MMCA, Colombo, 12 Dec 2019 - 12 Mar 2020 Dhaka Art Summit 2018 exhibition one hundred thousand small tales travels to The Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Sri Lanka. Commissioned by the Dhaka Art Summit, the exhibition was first shown at DAS in February 2018.

ALL PROJECTS Architecture In Bangladesh Curated by Aurélien Lemonier A JOURNEY THROUGH ARCHITECTURE IN BANGLADESH (1947-2017) THE LEGACY OF MUZHARUL ISLAM Curated by AurÉlien Lemonier How to present the challenges that contemporary architecture faces in Bangladesh? The fluvial landscape of the Ganges Delta and the Brahmaputra could be a starting point. The incredible paradoxes of the country’s economic development could be another. Bangladesh is just as much concerned by the climatic changes of today as it is by the consequences of globalisation that followed the decolonisation of the Indian sub-continent and the subsequent struggle to build an independent nation. Muzharul Islam (1923-2012) was an architect who would pursue, from as early as the 1950s, a “humanist modernity” in Bangladesh’s architecture. The producer of public edifices of great quality, his commitment made him a prominent cultural figure in the country. For instance, it was he who called upon Louis Kahn to construct the Dhaka parliament building, rather than accept the commission himself. However, Islam’s achievements are not limited to simply enabling the construction of this masterpiece of modern architecture. A group of intellectuals emerged from Islam’s initiative, bringing forth in the 1980s the millenary culture of Bengal in order to contribute to the emergence of a new architecture for the country. All creative fields were summoned to partake in the reconstruction of a continuous cultural consciousness that had been affected by Partition. The “archaeology” of Bengali monuments (Buddhist, Mughal and modern), undertaken by architects, is synchronous to the regionalist theories that develop in Europe, the United States and India. For the last fifteen years, as Bangladesh has been taking part in the free market economy, a third generation of architects is now trying to redefine the terms of contemporaneity. As the urbanism of large cities demands new housing strategies, the concepts of sustainable and responsible development require the creation of new modes of action. An exhibition on the Bangladesh contemporary architecture scene would precisely respond to these ambitions: the identification and diffusion of architectural endeavours that are of great formal quality, as well as the work of the “Bengal School” which explores strategies of responsible development, through a social, economic and environmental scope. Architects: Bashirul Haq Shamsul Wares Raziul Ahsan Saif Ul Haque Jalal Ahmad Uttam Kumar Saha Nahas Khalil Chetana Rafiq Azam Ehsan Khan Nurur Rahman Khan Mustapha Khalid Palash Enamul Karim Nirjhar Kashef Chowdhurry Urbana Marina Tabassum Salauddin Ahmed Potash Stéphane Paumier

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

ALL PROJECTS Geographies of Imagination Envisioned by SAVVY Contemporary with Antonia Alampi, Bonaventure S.B. Ndikung, and Olani Ewunnet with Jothashilpa in association with the Goethe Institut, Bangladesh and Samdani Art Foundation Geographies of Imagination is a growing research and exhibition project that manifests itself as a cartographic time-line, a performative process of un-mapping the geography of power and a space of discourse. The project is an attempt to rethink, reconfigure and pervert history-at-large and cartographic histories in particular. Each iteration of Geographies of Imagination assumes a different point of departure, situates itself within another real or fictional geography, and thus brings about differing bresearch processes and outcomes. For this rendition in Bangladesh, Geographies of Imagination had two vantage points. For its first point, it takes the partition of 85 million people throughout Bengal in 1905 implemented by the British Raj in an effort to ‘reorganise’ but ultimately to divide and rule, by cutting through the middle of the Bengali-speaking ‘nation’. Its second point is the Congo Conference hosted in Berlin in 1884, a moment in which fourteen Western ‘great powers’ partitioned the African continent amongst themselves for their geopolitical, exploitative economic and colonial agendas and fantasies, thereby re-imagining the cartography of the African continent irrespective of the peoples, cultures, and languages of Africans. This incomplete timeline winding across the South Plaza of DAS features significant socio-political and cultural movements that pre-defined identities and nationhood, as well as rebellions and revolts against colonial rule, such as those that forged forms of resistance that planted seeds for future emancipation across different geographies. This includes how the socio-political movements on the African continent informed resistance movements in Asia and vice-versa. One such example is the Indigo revolt (ca. 1859–1862), through which Bengali farmers organised against plantation owners who severely undercut the price of indigo, thereby forcing farmers to sell their products at a price far below their own cost of production. We trace lines that move across centuries and oceans, looking for instance at the Anlu revolt (1958–1961), brought forth by Kom women in western Cameroon against the British administrative interference in agriculture (which was a female domain) and the alleged plan by the ruling political party to sell Kom land to Nigerian Igbos. The rebellion, which was crucial for the victory of the democratic party at the time of independence from colonial rule, had at its core women stripping naked in front of men as a weapon of rebellion – a practice implemented by other groups like the Takembeng. We weave in connections between conferences and alliances that have strengthened positions of emancipation in contexts facing similar conditions of oppression. Novel forms of trans-national solidarity, from the first Pan-African conference held in London (in 1900), through the Baku Congress (1920), the Asian Relations Conference (1947), the Bandung Conference or African-Asian Conference in Indonesia (1955) and to the foundation of the Movement of the Non-Aligned that followed in Belgrade (1961–ongoing), among others. We pause on movements for independence and listen to fragments of charismatic political speeches bearing witness to new proposals and ideas with regards to justice, and sovereignty. But we also look at populistic and nationalistic speeches of more recent political leaders, at new border control monitoring systems, visa regulations, economic trades, and import and export of labour forces, that create and multiply invisible frontiers and partitions, and at how recent technological developments have facilitated novel forms of cartographic scarification and forced constructions of spaces and communities. In a time when in Cameroon the lines of citizenship are drawn upon remnants of colonial language structures between Anglophones and Francophones, in a time when the Citizen Amendment Act and national register of citizens want to make Indian Muslims foreigners in their own country, in a time when black Africans are kicked out of South Africa in several waves of xenophobic attacks, in a time when the Rohingyas are openly persecuted in Myanmar, we must reconsider the powers that make geography be. This iteration of Geographies of Imagination was developed through a wide range of interviews with academics and researchers from various disciplines, artists, curators, and researchers based predominantly in Dhaka in collaboration with the Samdani Art Foundation and Goethe Institut, Bangladesh. The timeline recurs with dates held in Bengali, Ethiopian and Gregorian calendars, to emphasise how the system of time itself is situated and subject to different representations and variations. The visualisation is the outcome of a close dialogue with the Dhaka based Jothashilpa collective, working with master cinema banner painter Ustad Mohammad Shoaib, artist and researcher Shawon Akand, and artists Sharmin Afroz Laboni and Alia Kamal. RESEARCH: Antonia Alampi, Bonaventure S.B. Ndikung, Olani Ewunnet and Shawon Akand. VISUALIZATION: Jothashilpa PRODUCTION MANAGEMENT: Hamayet Himu PAINTERS : Mohammad Shoaib, Didarul Dipu, S., M. Sumon, Abdur Rob, Mohammad Yusuf, Rafiqul Islam Shafikul, Md. Rahim Badir, Mohammad Iqbal, Mohammad Dulal, Aftab Alam, Mohammad Javed, Md. Selim Dhaka Art Summit 2020 "Seismic Movements" CURATOR: Diana Campbell Betancourt ASSISTANT CURATOR: Ruxmini Reckvana Q Choudhury RESEARCH ASSISTANCE: Eshan Kumer Maitra and Taiara Farhana Tareque Thanks to the many conversations had with Dhaka-based artists, researchers, historians, professors, and designers, including Sadya Mizan, Yasmin Jahan Nupur, Tayeba Begum Lipi, Mahbubur Rahman, Emran Sohel, Jewel A Rob and Sanjid Mahmud, Reetu Sattar, Mustafa Zaman, Rezaur Rahman, Tanzim Wahab, Kabir Ahmed Masum, Nurur Khan, Amena Khatun, Sanjoy Chakraborty, Shayer Gofur, Nazrul Islam, Wakilur Rahman, Shishir Bhattacharjee, Huraera Jabeen, Imtiaz Ahmed, Marina Tabassum, Parsa Sanjana Sajid and Sayeed Ferdous.

ALL PROJECTS A Sculptural Congress: Pawel Althamer and the Neighbours Srihatta- Samdani Art centre & Sculpture Park, Sylhet, 20 - 28 February 2017 Polish artist Paweł Althamer, along with members of his community (neighbours) from Bródno, Poland—Maciej Karbowiak, Brian Halloran, Marcin Althamer, and Michal Parnas—travelled to Bangladesh to engage alternative communities in an eight-day-long creative and collaborative Sculptural Congress workshop as part of the Samdani Art Foundation's continued Seminar programme. Paweł and his neighbours engaged with patients of Protisruti (the Promise) drug rehabilitation centre in Sylhet, creating the communal work of art, Rokeya , with the aim of bridging understanding across social and cultural divides through the power of creativity. Arriving in Sylhet with only a basic sketch and a rough concept for the final sculpture, Pawel spent the first three days of Sculptural Congress in a series of workshops with patients from Protisruti and local school children. Together, they created elements of a communal sculpture in clay. These elements were then merged into one sculptural form and fired within Rokeya ’s internal kiln—a creative fire at the heart of the sculpture’s structural belly—around which the community’s, Paweł’s and his neighbours’ collaborative sculptures were exhibited. To create Rokeya ’s main form, a group of patients from Protisruti came to Srihatta to assist Paweł and his neighbours with weaving the bamboo frame, alongside children from local schools. Rokeya ’s colourful fabric costume was stitched from local textiles by nearby village women who also helped to drape the fabric. The title Rokeya was given by the village children after Paweł shared his concept for this communal work of art—its interior space—to become a place for creative activity within the community, which reminded them of Begum Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain (1880 – 1932), a Bengali writer, educator, social activist, and advocate of women's rights who pioneered female education in Bangladesh. The interactive sculpture has already engaged hundreds of local school children and community members and will continue to do so as a collective space for art workshops. Althamer's Rokeya is the first project completed for the Samdani Art Foundation's new home, Srihatta – Samdani Art Centre and Sculpture Park, to open in late 2018. PAWEL ALTHAMER Pawel Althamer is a contemporary Polish sculptor and performance artist working with video, installation and action art. Some of his work is based on live sculptural and performative traditions, which hardly leave any material trace. His primary focus is on art that is communicative, believing that art can impart changes in society. For 20-years, Pawel has run workshops for the Nowolipie Group—a group of people suffering from multiple sclerosis. Here, he discovered a different kind of academy. Pawel uses his work to activate a broader concept of community in an increasingly isolating world. The “Sculptural Congress” workshops, which he initiated in Sylhet, were heavily informed by his prestigious works, The Neighbours and Draftsmen’s Congress , focusing on the essential role of collaboration and community. In 2007, Althamer incited a community project involving both his neighbourhood in Brodno and other artists. This resulted in the creation of Brodno Sculpture Park, an ongoing project in which everyone is invited to discuss and share ideas for this public space. Pawel studied at the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts. He was a co-founder of the Kowalnia ("Smithy") group, a leading collective of young Polish artists in the 1990s. In 2004, Althamer received the prestigious Vincent Van Gogh Biennial Award, founded by the Broere Charitable Foundation of the Netherlands. His most recent solo exhibition was held in New Museum, New York in 2014. He also participated in many international group exhibitions including the 2013 Venice Biennale, 8th Gwangju Biennial (2010), Skulptur Projekte Münster (2007), 4th Berlin Biennial (2006), and the 9th Istanbul Biennial (2005).

ALL PROJECTS World Weather Network Climate can be seen as a collage of world weathers, and we are a proud member of this global coalition of 28 arts agencies around the world formed in response to the climate crisis and biodiversity loss. Learn more about the World Weather Network. Please watch our recent contributions to the network which include Echoes , a new video contribution by Gidreebawlee Foundation for the Arts, and the Dhaka Art Summit panel discussion on Artistic Process and Climate Change . Echoes is an inter-regional performance project that engaged young people aged 13–18 years from Thakurgaon and Khulna and created a collaborative art performance by exploring their collective voices with their respective experiences of climate change.

ALL PROJECTS The Missing One Curated by Nada Raza Gaganendranth Tagore, Resurrection, c. 1922, courtesy the Samdani Art Foundation Collection. Photo courtesy of the Dhaka Art Summit and Samdani Art Foundation. Photo credit: Jenni Carter “…the deeper we seek, the more is our wonder excited, the more is the dazzlement for our gaze”Dr. Abdus Salam, Nobel Prize banquet speech, Stockholm 1979 Nirrudesher Kahani or The Story of The Missing One – written in 1896 by Jagadish Chandra Bose (1858-1937) is thought to be one of the first tales of science or speculative fiction in Bangla. It was a tale of miracle; a cyclone quelled with physics, by pouring oil on water. Bose was a pioneering inventor of instruments for wireless technology and the study of nature, and a crater on the moon was named after the research scientist. The encounter with modernity and scientific progress at the turn of the twentieth century generated lively intellectual debate in South Asia. Its influence sparked radical ideas and encouraged fresh approaches to religion and culture, particularly in Bengal, even as the idea of freedom and self-governance took hold. Bose was close to the Tagore family who were central to the intellectual world of what is called the Bengal Renaissance, generative for art, music and literature; Gaganendranath Tagore painted a portrait of him that now hangs at the Bose Institute in Calcutta. It would have been against this backdrop that the artist painted Resurrection around the early 1920s. It is an ethereal painting, with a circular vortex of clouds and rays of light circulating around a raised central formation, as if we are staring up at the heavens. And here is the enigma; at the centre of this futuristic work is a religious icon. A celestial cross is clearly visible within an arch, and a saintly glowing figure, refracting the light. Tagore’s vision confronts us from almost a century ago and presents modern progress and religious faith in cerulean blue harmony. We time-travel a hundred or so years to the turn of the millennium in South Asia, from the late 1990’s to the present, to see how the experiences of artists who benefited from the advancements of the modern age might respond to the themes of science and spirituality central to our genre. The exhibition is arranged in three broad movements, united by the visual metaphor of looking up at the sky. The first is enchantment, the second, alienation and the last, dystopia and the possibility of redemption. It follows, in some loose sense, the plot of a generic science fiction novel or film – a happy,innocent world, the hostile appearance of a foreign or extra-terrestrial being and finally, at the climax, apocalyptic threat with the potential for salvation via faith and human will. Participating artists include Ronni Ahmmed, David Alesworth, Shishir Bhattacharjee, Fahd Burki, Neha Choksi, Iftikhar Dadi and Elizabeth Dadi, Rohini Devasher, Marzia Farhana, Aamir Habib, Zihan Karim, Ali Kazim, Sanjeewa Kumara, Firoz Mahmud, Mehreen Murtaza, Saskia Pintelon, Sahej Rahal, Tejal Shah, Zoya Siddiqui and Janet Meaney, Himali Singh Soin, Mariam Suhail, and Hajra Waheed.

The Samdani Art Award, Bangladesh's premier art award, has created an internationally recognised platform to showcase the work of young Bangladeshi Artists to an audience of international arts professionals. Since it was founded in 2012, the Samdani Art Award has steadily developed into an internationally recognised platform, highlighting the most innovative work being produced by young Bangladeshi artists. Created to honour one talented emerging Bangladeshi artist, the award does not issue the winner with a monetary prize, and instead funds them to undertake an all-expenses paid, six-week residency at the Delfina Foundation in London: a career-defining moment for the artist to further their professional development. The award’s latest winner, Mizanur Rahman Chowdhury, travelled to London earlier this year in July to undertake his residency. Providing him with the time and space to revisit old ideas, and explore new, while expanding his networks. I caught up with Chowdhury while he was in residence to discuss his ongoing practice and how winning the award has impacted his career to date. Samdani Art Award 2018 INTERVIEW: MIZANUR RAHMAN CHOWDHURY Emma Sumner: You initially studied printmaking, how did your practice evolve to become what it is today? Mizanur Rahman Chowdhury: It is very interesting for me to talk about this shift. When I studied printmaking at Faculty of Fine Art, University of Dhaka. I tried to embrace the fact that many of the printing processes I learnt were all steeped in tradition, but no matter what I tried, I never felt that the process fitted with what I wanted to achieve and communicate within my practice. While I was studying, I tried to experiment with mixing and matching various print making techniques and introducing found photography into my lithograph prints, although it was prohibited in our academy at that time, so in parallel to my studies, I continued my own experimental art practice. ES: So, printmaking did not allow you to communicate what you wanted to get across to your audience? Did this change at all after you graduated and had more freedom with the way you were able to work? MRC: Even after graduating I was never really convinced that printmaking would give me the tools to communicate what I wanted through my practice. The sensibility of printmaking was a way to develop my ideas, but the outcome always became something else, like a form of assemblage, or an installation. During my study, I became interested in the moving image—especially the genres of psychedelic and experimental film—and wanted to explore them in my practice. Later, after graduation, I also began to experiment with performance, photography, collage, object sculpture and video installation. These multiple approaches helped steer my practice into the direction it has taken today. ES: Do you still make prints now? MRC: I love woodcarving, and I did begin working in this way during my graduation but my lifestyle doesn’t allow me to practice like this anymore. Its partly for this reason, and the limitations of the media itself, which have moved my practice in a very different directioN. ES: Your practice today is interdisciplinary and embraces installation and many other media. How do you decide what media you want to work with? Do you keep objects of interest to you in stock that you feel you might use later, or you source everything after you have devised an idea for a project? MRC: My work has always been sensitive to the time and space in which I create it so my processes are never fixed and I allow my intuition to guide me when developing new works. I usually find an object which forms the basis of an idea which I then begin to ‘open-up’ through my working processes to explore its core subject in greater depth I only ever select objects that appeal to me, a process which is very subjective as the same object might not appeal to others in the same way it does to me, making the process very much about my connection to the objects I work with. ES: Where do you go to source your materials? Is there anywhere particular where you feel more inspired? MRC: I find my materials in all sorts of places but generally I never go looking for things as I tend to just come across things as I go about my daily tasks, making most of the objects I source ephemeral. For one of my more recent projects I collected a lot of boxes over the period of Ramadan. The boxes contained oranges which had been imported from Egypt, but I was drawn in by the striking logo on the front of the box. Ramadan was the only time that the boxes had been in stock in my local market. As I was already familiar with the store owners, I took the time to talk to them and gained a lot of information about how the boxes had come from Egypt to Bangladesh, making me question the ideas of globalisation and international trade and how these matters might affect the everyday person. This formed the foundation for a new work which I am still developing the work in my studio now. ES: So the conversations that you have with other people as you develop your ideas are also a key part of your working process? MRC: In my project The Soul Who Fails to Fly into the Space (2017), which I exhibited during the Dhaka Art Summit, the chairs on which the television was placed were rented from a local company in Dhaka. The man who owned the company was very open and welcoming towards me, and he was very excited to be playing a small part in my project. But when he showed the chairs to me, every chair had a very shiny sticker of his company logo placed prominently in the centre of the back rest, which wasn’t part of how I’d originally envisaged the work. I thought about it all night but slowly realised that I couldn’t remove the logos, as the interactions between us had helped us to build a relationship of respect, a love that had an impact on my decision making and led to me keeping the logos as they were and allowing in the unexpected. In the end, the logo fitted magically on that installation. All the interactions and discussions that I have with the people I meet during my working process are very important to me and often influence my work in positive ways. The curator, Simon Castets also played an important role while installing the works as we discussed at length about how my work could respond to the space to create a more meditative and playful exhibit. ES: Since arriving in London for your residency at the Delfina Foundation have you started work on any new projects? or is there anything that you are working on now? MRC: I lived in London previously back in 2014 when my wife was undertaking her MA. During that time, I was struck by how many road signs there were and I began taking photos of the streets. I had began working on a project called Land, and now I am back in London for this residency, I have had a chance to restart and develop the ideas I was working on further. While I have been here, I visited the National History Museum and I saw that they had analysed Bangladesh by looking at the structure of our land, particularly our rivers, and the types of our soil. What interested me most about this display, was seeing how Bangladesh is divided by a tectonic plate that goes through the centre of the country which means that my native land could, at some point in the future, be shifted by nature dispelling the concept of land that we conventionally perceive through mapping. Overall, I am more interested in the land inside us, our spirituality and how this connects us to the cosmos and defines who we are and which land we ultimately belong to. SAF: After you have finished your residency at Delfina Foundation and return to Dhaka, what’s next for you? Do you have any upcoming exhibitions or are you planning to work on any new projects? MRC: It’s a big question, currently I’m a little overwhelmed by the spotlight of winning the Samdani Art Award and having many curators and fellow artists wanting to meet me, but it has been a great opportunity to develop my network which I know will be helpful in moving forward with my career. I am very thankful to Samdani Art Foundation and Delfina Foundation for establishing such a valuable platform for young artist in Bangladeshi artists. While I have been here, I’ve had the time and space to open up new critical perspectives on my practice and developed my approach to research and new projects. After developing them further in Dhaka, I am hopeful to show them in exhibitions soon.

ALL PROJECTS Lifeblood Curated by Rosa Maria Falvo Water is the lifeblood of all living things, of humanity itself, and the very lifeblood of our planet. Satellite images reveal its tireless circulation and intricate connectivity, unifying the earth’s surface and sustaining its populations. Bangladesh is home to the largest delta in the world, and the single most important resource in the Subcontinent. Majestic rivers intersect across the entire country, at the confluence of the Ganges (Padma), Brahmaputra (Jamuna) and Meghna rivers, and their countless tributaries. Travelling through this region you quickly become aware of the fluidity of nature and the comparatively contorted predicaments of human urbanisation. Dhaka’s overpopulation, relentless traffic, open air burning, and industrial wastes are just some of the many, growing reminders of what it means to impose ourselves on our environments. And yet Mother Nature eventually self-corrects, like the homeostatic processes found in all living organisms. Across the Bay of Bengal, the wet season systematically washes away debris, and sometimes its people, powered by rain bearing winds from the Indian Ocean. Major flooding is a recurring reality. At the same time agriculture is heavily dependent on such rains and delays severely affect the surrounding economies, as evidenced in the numerous droughts over the ages. Bangladeshis have a unique relationship with water. Their urban and rural sensibilities to its bounty and destruction are a tangible part of the national psyche, which is inevitably reflected in its artistic expressions. The Bangla axiom •(‘water is another name for life’) aptly demonstrates the unique and determinative influences of the more than fifty transboundary rivers it shares between India and Myanmar, with all their hydrologic, cultural, social, economic, and political ramifications. This new century has ushered in the kind of development that is literally choking waterways and wreaking havoc on Bangladesh’s cultural patrimony and its people. Focusing on water as the ultimate protagonist, Bangladesh’s native photographers are also its vital and most compelling storytellers. They too are the lifeblood of national and international perceptions about this country, its beauty, potential, and problems. Through their insiders’ perspectives we can access more intimate sensations and insights than previously clichéd and foreign representations of local realities. These photographers speak the language of their subjects, share their culture and concerns, and even some of their experiences; frequently they are welcomed into homes and individual lives. The photographic movement in Bangladesh began in the mid-1970s, largely as a camera club where professionals and amateurs shared ideas. Early pioneers such as Golam Kasem Daddy, Manzoor Alam Beg, and Anwar Hossain played an essential role in shaping a strong humanistic style of image-making. Documentary photography practice was later pioneered by Shahidul Alam, who went on to set up the Drik Picture Library, the Pathshala South Asian Media Institute, the Chobi Mela Photography Festival, and the Majority World Agency. The scene has since blossomed into some of the best photographic and multimedia practice found and taught in the world today. This exhibition aims to present various angles on this nation’s sensibilities to water, and the palpable and often precarious existence of living in and around the water’s edge. It explores how that same water, in very specific and profound ways, determines our landscapes – physical, social, economic, political – and sculpts the very psychospiritual architecture of a people and a region. As if on a river boat through life, we are metaphorically subject to its rhythms and struggles, constantly at the central source of destruction and renewal. Offering a floating record of Bangladesh, these brave artists challenge our awareness of and empathy with the world around us. Abir Abdullah Abir Abdullah is a Dhaka-based photographer and a well-known figure in Bangladeshi photography. He is one of the most acclaimed graduates of the Pathshala South Asian Media Institute, where he now teaches. He is a photojournalist for the European Press Photo Agency (EPA) and its sole Bangladeshi correspondent. Abdullah’s work has appeared in numerous publications worldwide, including The New York Times, Asia Week, Der Spiegel, The Los Angele s and a book entitled New Stories , published by World Press Photo. Among his many achievements are winning the 2001 Phaidon 55 photography competition, and the first prizes in the South Asian Journalists’ Association Photo Award and the Asian Press Photo Contest. Hinduism is the second largest religious affiliation in Bangladesh, with more than 8% of the population, according to the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics. Ritual bathing, vows, and pilgrimages to sacred rivers, mountains, and shrines are annual practice. In this series of images Abdullah looks at the Hindu festivals developed around the rivers of Bangladesh, such as Punnyosnan (holy bath) and Bishorjwan (‘immersion’), as well as the vibrant cultures along the water’s edge. Shahidul Alam An internationally renowned photographer, teacher, writer, curator and activist, Shahidul Alam obtained a PhD in chemistry at London University before switching to photography and returning to his hometown of Dhaka in 1984, where he made his base. He set up the Drik Picture Library (1989) and the Pathshala South Asian Institute of Photography (1998), and is also the founding director of Chobi Mela, the biggest photography festival in Asia. His work has been exhibited at various galleries and museums, including MoMA (New York), Centre Georges Pompidou (Paris), and Royal Albert Hall (London). Alam is also an acclaimed public speaker, with frequent appointments throughout the world. This series of images began as a creative longing to transcend boundaries, reaching beyond issues of time, political space, race, culture, and religion; to return to nature and retrace the ancient origins of the great Brahmaputra River (son of Brahma), the ‘main artery’ of the Bangladeshi way of life. Over a period of four years (2000-2004), Alam travelled to the source of this great river, from a small glacial trickle at Mt Kailash to Lhasa, through Assam, and down into the Bay of Bengal, and the warming seas of the Indian Ocean. He followed this mighty river through some of the most inhospitable regions in the world, witnessing its many incarnations and the myriad cultures and landscapes of Tibet, China, India, and Bangladesh. Rasel Chowdhury Rasel Chowdhury is a young documentary photographer represented by MoST Artists Agency in Bangkok, currently based in Dhaka. A graduate of the Pathshala South Asian Institute of Photography, he has gained important professional recognition, including the finalist for the Magnum Expression Photography Award (2010), nominations for the Joop Swart Masterclass (2011 and 2012), the Ian Parry Scholarship Award (2011), nominations for the Prix Pictet Award (2012 and 2013), and the Getty Image Emerging Talent Award (2012). Chowdhury is dedicated to representing changing landscapes and the chronic environmental issues affecting his generation. He has documented the dying city of Sonargaon and newly transformed spaces around the Bangladesh railway, exposing the increasing degradation of nature and human culture. Chowdhury’s work has been published in a book entitled Under the banyan Tree, and in The Sunday Times Magazine, Courier International, 6Movies, Punctum Magazine, Business Times and Daily Star . He has shown in Chobi Mela VII (Bangladesh, 2013), CACP Villa-Porochon (France, 2013), Photoquai Festival (France, 2013), Mother Gallery (UK, 2012), Dhaka Art Summit (Bangladesh, 2012), Photo Phnom Penh Festival (Cambodia, 2012 and 2013), Getty Image Gallery (UK , 2011), Noorderlicht Photo Festival (Netherlands, 2011), and Longitude Latitude (Bangladesh, 2011). This series on the Buriganga River (‘Old Ganges’) in the southwest outskirts of Dhaka reveals a dying river; with his characteristically pallid and atmospheric imagery. The impact of tanneries, sewerage waste, industrial chemicals, dockyards, and brickfields portend the death of the natural world and the ultimate unraveling of communities. Khaled Hasan Khaled Hasan is a documentary photographer based in Dhaka. He received his Masters in Accounting from the National University of Bangladesh, and then graduated from the Pathshala South Asian Institute of Photography in 2009. He has worked as a freelancer for several daily newspapers in Bangladesh and international magazines and newspapers, including The New York Times, The Sunday Times Magazine, American Photo, National Geographic Society, Al Jazeera, Better Photography, Saudi Aramco World Magazine, The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Independent, The New internationalist, Himal Southern and the Women’s e-News . Hasan won the National Geographic Society All Roads Photography Award for this ‘Living Stone’ documentary project. He aims to cultivate a deep communication and trust with his subjects, and believes in the educational power of images to penetrate “the lives and experiences of others” in order to effect social change. Hasan is now also working as a filmmaker and artist in the residency programme of the Samdani Art Foundation in Bangladesh. This series of poignant images documents the ravaging effects of the stone-crushing industry in Jaflong, north eastern Bangladesh, endangering the health of workers, causing sound and air pollution, and shrinking the biodiversity of the region. Hasan’s direct relationship with his subjects and portrait style is a strong indictment of failing government interventions. Saiful Huq Omi Saiful Huq Omi is a documentary photographer and activist based in Dhaka. He first studied telecoms engineering, before taking up photography in 2005 at the Pathshala South Asian Institute of Photography. His images have been published internationally, including The Arab, News, Asian Photography, FotoFile USA, The Guardian, New Internationalist, Newsweek, and Time . Omi’s first book, Heroes Never Die: Tales of Political Violence in Bangladesh, 1989-2005 , was published in 2006. Among others he has exhibited in Bangladesh, Germany, India, Nepal, the Netherlands, Pakistan, Russia, the USA, China, Norway and Japan, and received the National Geographic All Roads Photography Award (2006), the China International Press Photography Contest silver medal (2009), and the DAYS JAPAN International Photojournalism Award special jury prize (2010). Omi was selected for the World Press Photo’s Joop Swart Masterclass (2010) and was a finalist for the Aftermath Project (2009) and the Alexia Grant (2009 and 2010). The Magnum Foundation Emergency Fund, European Union, Equal Rights Trust, Open Society Institute, and the Royal Dutch Embassy all support Omi’s ongoing and much acclaimed work on Rohingya refugees. He set up an international photography school named Counter Foto in Bangladesh in 2013, which aspires to be a global platform for photographers and activists. This series of evocative images documents life in a ship-breaking yard in Bangladesh, where whole stretches of beach turn into a hellish vision of human exploitation. Caught up in a veritable parable of the worst consequences of globalised industry, hundreds of young men brave extremely dangerous conditions, clambering off the hulk of a ship to cut and tear away at its carcass with their bare hands and oxyacetylene torches, feeding a world market for everything that can be retrieved. Manir Mrittik Manir Mrittik – from the ‘Soul Flow’ series, image courtesy of the artist Manir Mrittik is a Dhaka-based artist, who graduated with a Masters in Fine Arts (painting) from the University of Chittagong in 1996. He is a member of the Britto Arts Trust in Dhaka and has participated in various initiatives involving the representation of ethnic groups from Bangladesh. His uses photography to explore notions of hyper reality and utopian issues, and aims to dissolve the usual distinctions between art forms. This series of images explores the theme of natural beauty through a dream-like state. The central focus is on the relationship between the human body and soul, and vis-à-vis with water bodies. Mrittik’s fascination with ‘unnatural’ light photography (ultraviolet, infrared, and full spectrum) calls our attention to a myriad of details and Mother Nature’s mutable contours, which together offer a more holistic and fluid representation of the physical world. His work aims to project and promote the beauty and symmetry both within and beyond ourselves. Munem Wasif Munem Wasif – from the ‘Salt Water Tears’ series, image courtesy of the artist Munem Wasif grew up in the small town of Comilla, but later moved to study photography in Dhaka where he has since been based. An acclaimed graduate of the Pathshala South Asian Institute of Photography, his work has been nothing short of life changing for him. Dedicated to telling stories as they evolve ‘on the ground’, he photographs his own culture and people with an intensely intimate and humanistic eye. Wasif won the ‘City of Perpignan Young Reporter’s Award’ (2008) at Visa pour l’image, the Prix Pictet commission (2009), the F25 award for Concerned Photography from Fabrica (2008), and participated in the Joop Swart Masterclass (2007). His images have appeared in various publications, including Le Monde, The Sunday Times Magazine, Geo, The Guardian, Politiken, Mare, Du, Days Japan, L’espresso, Liberation, and The Wall Street Journal . His work has been shown at the Musee de Elysee and FotWinterthur (Switzerland), Kunsthal Museum and Noordelicht Festival (Netherlands), Angkor Photo Festival and Photo Phonm Phen (Cambodia), Whitechapel Gallery (England), Palais de Tokyo and Visa Pour l’Image (France), and Chobi Mela (Bangladesh). He is represented by Agence Vu in Paris and recently published his book Belonging, (Galerie Clémentine De La Féronnière, Paris, 2013). This series explores Bangladesh’s tragic paradox of abundance and scarcity: water is everywhere, but in several subdistricts in the southwest of the country there is not a drop to drink, with entire families having to walk miles for their daily supply of fresh water, as a result of the voracious shrimp farming industry. Having lived among these communities for substantial periods, Wasif’s poetic images narrate their daily struggle and impossible environmental predicament.

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

ALL PROJECTS Novera Ahmed's Work from the Samdani Art Foundation Collection Exhibited at The Hepworth Wakefield The Samdani Art Foundation is delighted to support Mrinalini Mukherjee: Unbound Forms – Women Sculptors of India and Bangladesh at The Hepworth Wakefield, an exhibition that brings together key women sculptors whose practices shaped the history of modern sculpture in South Asia. Among the artists featured is pioneering Bangladeshi sculptor Novera Ahmed, whose work continues to be reassessed for its foundational contribution to the region's artistic history. Widely regarded as the pioneer of modern sculpture in Bangladesh, Novera Ahmed helped define a new sculptural language in South Asia. Yet despite her foundational contribution to the country's artistic development, her work remained underappreciated for decades, making the continued reassessment of her legacy especially significant. The Samdani Art Foundation has lent Standing Figure from its collection to the exhibition. Created during Novera's time in Lahore in the early 1960s, the work belongs to a rare body of sculptures produced during a pivotal chapter of her practice outside Bangladesh. Unlike many of the works for which she is best known, Standing Figure emerged from a distinct period of experimentation and artistic exchange across what was then East and West Pakistan. Co-curated by Tarini Malik in partnership with the Royal Academy of Arts, Mrinalini Mukherjee: Unbound Forms – Women Sculptors of India and Bangladesh opened on 3 May 2026 and remains on view at The Hepworth Wakefield until 1 November 2026. The Samdani Art Foundation is a major supporter of the exhibition, along with other institutions.