EMK Center, Dhaka, 27 April 2017 Sean Anderson: A Talk about Moma’s Young Architects Program around the world Pathshala South Asian Media Institute, Dhaka, 21 April 2017 Rehearsing The Witness: The Bhawal Court Case, A Talk By Zuleikha Chaudhari Pathshala South Asian Media Institute & Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy, 10 - 11 April 2017 Breathe In Breathe Out: Susan Philipsz Soni Mongol Adda, Segun Bagicha, 4 April 2017 Tarun Nagesh: the Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art: Art and Curating in the Asia Pacific Srihatta- Samdani Art centre & Sculpture Park, Sylhet, 20 - 28 February 2017 A Sculptural Congress: Pawel Althamer and the Neighbours National Art Gallery, Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy, 19 February 2017 Sebastian Cichocki: Art in Post Artistic (and Post Democratic) Times 7 - 8 April 2015 Workshop and Presentation with Tori Wranes Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy, 2 - 6 April 2015 Performance Workshop by Nikhil Chopra, Madhavi Gore and Jana Prepeluh Faculty of Fine Arts, University Of Dhaka, 24 March 2015 'Death Class' and Draftmen's Congress' by Pawel Althamer Lecture Theatre, Faculty of Fine Arts, University Of Dhaka. 23 March 2015 'Painting Performs' - A Presentation by Sandeep Mukherjee The Samdani Residence, and Alliance Francaise De Dhaka, 21 - 22 March 2015 'Introduction to Council'- A Presentation by Sandra Terdjman and Grégory Castéra 20 - 21 March 2015 Performance Workshop Tour by Myriam Lefkowitz Year Seminars The annual Samdani Seminars are a lecture and workshop programme that facilitates engagement between international arts professionals and local communities across Bangladesh through participatory artworks, lectures, and workshops. Open to all and free, the Seminar programme complements the existing syllabi of Bangladesh's leading educational institutions covering the mediums and subjects not currently included while expanding the audience engaging with art. LOAD MORE

Ishara Art Foundation, Dubai, 6 September - 7 December 2024 Fragility and Resilience Brussels Where Do The Ants Go? at the Horst Arts and Music Festival 20 Feb- 24 May 2024 Kather Nripati at Diriyah Contemporary Art Biennale Thailand Biennale, Chiang Rai, Chiang Rai International Art Museum (CIAM) Weaving Chakma 8 December 2023 — 1 September 2024, Kunstinstituut Melly, Netherlands My Oma Museum of Modern & Contemporary Art in Nusantara, Jakarta Voice Against Reason Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art Stepping Softly on the Earth Museo Moderno in Buenos Aires 55th CIMAM Annual Conference 6 September- 10 December 2023, Sao Paulo, Brazil Choreographies of the Impossible, 35ª Bienal de São Paulo 31st August - 29 October 2023 EVA International - Ireland's Biennial of Contemporary Art Co-curated by Diana Campbell and Akansha Rastogi with Ruxmini Choudhury Very Small Feelings 19 May- 16 July 2023, Timișoara, Romania- Mizanur Rahman Chowdhury My Rhino is not a Myth, Art Encounters Biennial 22 April- 18 June 2023, Melbourne, Australia MOTHERTONGUE, Australian Center for Contemporary Art World Weather Network Jeddah The River Remembers at Islamic Arts Biennale 2023 6 Nov 2022 Voice to Voice, Screen to Screen Tate, London Let me get you a nice cup of tea 14 September - 31 December 2022, Lyon, France Manifesto of fragility, 16th Biennale de Lyon Documenta Fifteen, Kassel AFIELD Study #3 Let's Share! December 2021- April 2022, Queensland Art Gallery, 10th Asia-Pacific Triennale in Brisbane, Australia The Fibrous Souls Select Year SAF Around The World The Samdani Art Foundation participates in a variety of projects, outside of the Foundation's regular programming, as part of a commitment to increasing world-wide engagement with the work of Bangladeshi and South Asian contemporary artists and architects. The Foundation assists in funding travel grants that enable artists to attend residencies or undertake research abroad and supports international institutions and festivals to include South Asian artists within their exhibitions and programmes. The Foundation also regularly loans works from its collection of modern and contemporary South Asian artists to international institutions and festivals. LOAD MORE

Samdani Art Foundation (SAF) has been collaborating with artists, architects, curators, writers, and thinkers to shift how culture is experienced around the world by creating opportunities for profound encounters with Bangladesh Connect with Bangladesh's Cultural Narratives Go PRESS NEWSLETTER Samdani Art Foundation (SAF) has been collaborating with artists, architects, curators, writers, and thinkers to shift how culture is experienced around the world by creating opportunities for profound encounters with Bangladesh Founded in 2011 by collector couple Nadia and Rajeeb Samdani, Samdani Art Foundation (SAF) believes that the planet has much to learn from Bangladesh and South Asia and it supports research for curators to ground their thinking with experience thinking and working in the region. Its international collaborations (which know no geographic borders) seek to expand creative horizons and collapse outdated frameworks for considering art and culture within the limited frameworks of North American and Eurocentrism. All of SAF’s education and exhibition programs are free and ticketless, and the foundation supports the production of new thinking through residencies, exhibition opportunities, and other programs that it produces with its partners. The foundation has developed and continues to produce the Dhaka Art Summit, the world’s highest daily visited contemporary art event that is now entering its seventh edition. DAS is part of the foundation’s ongoing work of expanding The audience engaging with contemporary art across Bangladesh and increasing international exposure for artistic practices that do not lie within the "art capitals of the world” or which have not yet been written into the limited canon of art history. OUR STORY PARTNERS TEAM ALL PROJECTS SAF produces and participates in a variety of projects in Bangladesh and around the world as part of its ongoing commitment to increasing cultural engagement in Bangladesh and broadening the creative horizons of the country’s artists and architects. Initiatives SAF participates in a variety of projects, outside of the Foundation's regular programming, as part of a commitment to increasing world-wide engagement with the work of Bangladeshi and South Asian contemporary artists and architects. SAF assists and supports Bangladeshi artists in participating in art exhibitions and festivals around the world, and follows the international tours of projects it has produced as they grow and develop in the world. SAF AROUND THE WORLD VIEW The Samdani Artist-Led Initiatives Forum is an initiative committed to supporting the work of Bangladesh’s independently established and self-funded art collectives and initiatives. Launched in 2017, this program will be revitalized in 2025 in partnership with Srihatta. ARTIST-LED INITIATIVES VIEW SAF participates in a variety of projects, outside of the Foundation's regular programming, as part of a commitment to increasing world-wide engagement with the work of Bangladeshi and South Asian contemporary artists and architects. The Foundation assists in funding travel grants that enable artists to attend residencies or undertake research abroad and supports international institutions and festivals to include South Asian artists within their exhibitions and programmes. COLLABORATIONS VIEW The annual Samdani Seminars are a lecture and workshop programme that facilitates engagement between international arts professionals and local communities across Bangladesh through participatory artworks, lectures, and workshops. Open to all and free, the Seminar programme complements the existing syllabi of Bangladesh's leading educational institutions covering the mediums and subjects not currently included while expanding the audience engaging with art. SEMINARS VIEW Most SAF publications are available for free download on our website. SAF partners with institutions who publish books related to ongoing collaborations in Bangladesh, which can be ordered online. PUBLICATIONS VIEW The Art Mediation Program plays a pivotal role in bridging the gap between art and its audience, enriching the cultural experience for visitors through meaningful engagement and interpretation. Established in 2018, the program began with 25 Art Mediators at the Dhaka Art Summit, and as our February 2023 the program has grown in depth and scope with the collaboration of 123 mediators. These art mediators come from diverse backgrounds, ranging from fine art to political studies, mechanical engineering, journalism, etc, all sharing a common enthusiasm for art. ART MEDIATION PROGRAMME VIEW Recent Projects PREVIOUS ALL NEXT VIEW A collaborative film project developed at Srihatta, exploring Bangladesh’s six seasons through a poetic collaboration between Driant Zeneli and young Bangladeshi artists. When Winds in Monsoon Play, the White Peacock Will Sweep Away (2025) VIEW A project commissioned by the Samdani Art Foundation, uniting ten Bangladeshi artists with international curators and mentors to create score-based works that explore the space between dreams and reality, unfolding across global partner institutions in 2026. TONDRA VIEW The Six Seasons of the White Peacock VIEW Srihatta Love- Power- Fall , Master Class VIEW Srihatta Crafting Togetherness VIEW Ishara Art Foundation, Dubai, 6 September - 7 December 2024 Fragility and Resilience Load More @samdaniartfoundation @dhakaartsummit Load More About Upcoming DAS 2023 2020 2018 2016 2014 2012 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. Dhaka Art Summit INITIATIVES EXPLORE DAS 2023 aimed to listen to the lands and waters of Bangladesh and its people to tell stories and imagine futures where people regard what the planet and non-human bits of intelligence have to say, as opposed to the clock or the calendar. DAS 2023 was about the power of water and the double paradox of how floods and their impact may be (mis)understood. Bonna was also concerned with the power of translation– how do Bangladeshi understandings of life challenge those who might have only understood the flood and its manifestations as a mistranslation and those now experiencing similar climatic challenges? Bonna DAS EXPLORE Inspired by the geological reading of the word ‘summit’ as the top of a mountain, Seismic Movements: Dhaka Art Summit 2020 (DAS 2020) considers the various ruptures that have realigned and continue to shift the face of our spinning planet. Seismic movements do not adhere to statist or nationalist frameworks. They join and split apart tectonics of multiple scales and layers; their epicentres don’t privilege historical imperial centres over the so-called peripheries; they can slowly accumulate or violently erupt in an instant. Seismic Movements DAS EXPLORE The fourth edition of the Dhaka Art Summit (DAS) took place from 2 to 10 February 2018, featuring both an Opening Celebration Weekend (February 2–4) and a closing Scholars’ Weekend (February 8–10), and several tiers of new programming. Produced and primarily funded by the Samdani Art Foundation, DAS 2018 was held in a public-private partnership with the Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy, the country’s National Academy of Fine and Performing Arts, with support from the Ministry of Cultural Affairs and Ministry of Information of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh, the National Tourism Board, the Bangladesh Investment Development Authority (BIDA), and in association with the Bangladesh National Museum. 2018 DAS EXPLORE The third edition of Dhaka Art Summit welcomed 138,000 visitors in four days, of which 800 were international visitors, and 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. The Summit attracted visitors from over 70 international institutions, who attended to extend and further their research into the region. 2016 DAS EXPLORE The 2nd edition of the Dhaka Art Summit unfolded from February 7 to 9, 2014 at the Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy. Marking a strategic shift, the Summit decided to concentrate its focus on South Asia starting from this edition. DAS 2014 showcased a diverse array of programs, including five curatorial exhibitions by both international and Bangladeshi curators, along with 14 solo art projects curated by Diana Campbell Betancourt, the Artistic Director of the Samdani Foundation. These projects celebrated artists from across South Asia. The summit encompassed a citywide public art initiative, performances, the screening of experimental films, speaker panels, and the active participation of 15 Bangladeshi and 17 South Asia-focused galleries. 2014 DAS EXPLORE The 1st edition of the Summit was held in collaboration with Shilpakala Academy and Bangladesh National Museum and showcased the works of 249 artists and 19 galleries. The 1st edition of the Summit focused only on the local artists and galleries. The Summit was visited by over 40,000 visitors The Summit also organised talks. 2012 DAS EXPLORE Our curators and art mediators have been dreaming up the 7th edition of DAS - TONDRA. In TONDRA we will float between dreams and reality. The meaning of the word TONDRA in Bangla can be described as a state of existence where reality and dreams collide; a lucid dream that captivates the soul. Upcoming DAS DAS EXPLORE No events at the moment Notices 74 The Samdani Art Foundation collaborates with artists and creatives globally, fostering a diverse and inclusive artistic community. Countries 6 The 6th edition of the Dhaka Art Summit was held in February 2023 Dhaka Art Summits 248 Projects 1919 Participants Rising from the red tinted alluvial soil of Sylhet , Northeast Bangladesh, Srihatta is the future home of the Samdani Art Foundation, rooted in the plurality found in Bangladesh’s history to conjure a more inclusive future through art, architecture , and culture. A unique combination of sculpture park, exhibition, residency, and education programme , Srihatta imagines what an experimental artist-centric institution can be in the 21st Century, beyond of western-centric paradigms. Founded by Nadia and Rajeeb Samdani and led by Artistic Director Diana Campbell, this art centre and sculpture park will also feature works from their collection and will be free and open to the public in 2025. INITIATIVES EXPLORE

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

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 2020 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.

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

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

The Samdani Art Award, Bangladesh's premier art award, has created an internationally recognised platform to showcase the work of young Bangladeshi Artists to an audience of international arts professionals. 2023 2020 2018 2016 2016 Samdani Art Award The Award aims to support, promote, and highlight Bangladeshi contemporary art, and was created to honour talented emerging Bangladeshi artists between the ages of 22 and 40. In the year between each Dhaka Art Summit, the Samdani Art Foundation, in partnership with the Delfina Foundation —with whom the Samdani Art Award has partnered since 2013—sends an open call for applications. The Delfina Foundation then identifies twenty semi-finalists, and the guest curator selects the shortlist of ten finalists following one-to-one sessions with each of the artists. The winner is selected by an international jury board. The winner of the Samdani Art Award receives an all-expenses-paid, six-week residency at the Delfina Foundation in London. A residency at the Delfina Foundation can be a career-defining moment for an artist to develop their ideas, sharpen their practice, and widen their networks. The Samdani Art Award, Bangladesh's premier art award, has created an internationally recognised platform to showcase the work of young Bangladeshi Artists to an audience of international arts professionals. Samdani Art Award 2023 The Samdani Art Foundation has announced Bangladeshi artists Purnima Aktar and Md Fazla Rabbi Fatiq as joint winners of the biannual Samdani Art Award. It is the first time two finalists have been awarded the prize which aims to support, promote and highlight the country’s emerging contemporary artists. Purnima Aktar and Md Fazla Rabbi Fatiq were selected from a shortlist of 12 artists whose work was part of an exhibition curated by Anne Barlow (Director at Tate St Ives) at the DAS 2023. The members of the international jury included Ibrahim Mahama, artist; Tarun Nagesh, Curator of Asian Art at the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art (QAGOMA) in Brisbane, Australia; Roobina Karode, Chief Curator, Kiran Nadar Museum of Art; and Simon Castets, Former Samdani Art Award Curator and Director of Strategic Initiatives, LUMA Arles. Md Fazla Rabbi Fatiq is the recipient of the residency at the Delfina Foundation and Purnima Aktar is the recipient of the residency in Ghana, hosted by Ibrahim Mahama’s Savannah Centre for Contemporary Art and Red Clay. EXPLORE The 2020 Samdani Art Award was curated by Philippe Pirotte, supported by Goethe Institut. The winner was selected by a jury chaired by Aaron Cezar of Delfina Foundation with Adrián Villar Rojas, Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, Julie Mehretu, and Sunjung Kim. The 2020 Samdani Art Award was curated by Philippe Pirrote and the winner was Soma Surovi Jannat. This was also the first time a Jury Award was provided to Promiti Hossain. Samdani Art Award 2020 EXPLORE EXPLORE EXPLORE For the 2018 edition of the Samdani Art Award, each of the eleven shortlisted artists exhibited newly commissioned work in an exhibition at the Dhaka Art Summit (DAS) from February 2-10, 2018, guest curated by Simon Castets, Director of the Swiss Institute, New York. During the summit, the jury selected Mizanur Rahman Chowdhury as the recipient of the 2018 award. Announced during the DAS 2018 Opening Celebratory Dinner on the 2 February by Tate Director, Dr. Maria Balshaw, Rahman Chowdhury will receive a six-week residency with the Delfina Foundation in London. In association with the Liverpool Biennial, each of the shortlist artists have also received curatorial mentoring support from the New North and South network. Samdani Art Award 2018 EXPLORE The 2016 edition of the Samdani Art Award exhibition was guest curated by Daniel Baumann, Director of the Kunsthalle Zurich, assisted by Ruxmini Choudhury, Assistant Curator Samdani Art Foundation, and artist Ayesha Sultana. During the Summit, the jury selected Rasel Chowdhury as the recipient of the 2016 award. Announced during the DAS 2016 Opening Dinner on the 5 February by Kiran Nadar, Chairperson of the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art and Trustee of the Shiv Nadar Foundation in New Delhi, Chowdhury received a six-week residency with the Delfina Foundation in London which he undertook in the Autumn of 2016. Samdani Art Award 2016 EXPLORE The ten shortlisted artists for the 2014 edition of the Samdani Art Award exhibition were selected by the Delfina Foundation's Director, Aaron Cezar. During the Summit, the jury selected Ayesha Sultana as the recipient of the 2014 award. Announced during the DAS 2014 Opening Dinner on the 5 February, Sultana received a three-month residency with the Delfina Foundation in London which she undertook in the Autumn of 2014. Samdani Art Award 2014 EXPLORE The first edition of the Samdani Art Award had two prize categories: the Samdani Artist Development Award and the Samdani Young Talent Award. From 29 shortlisted artists, the jury selected artists Khaled Hasan and Musrat Reazi as the recipients of the 2012 awards. Samdani Art Award 2012 EXPLORE

ALL PROJECTS Voice Against Reason Museum of Modern & Contemporary Art in Nusantara, Jakarta Samdani Art Foundation supported the transportation of Kamruzzaman Shadhin's 'Pathraj Chronicles 2023' from Bangladesh to Indonesia for the exhibition Voice Against Reason, at museum MACAN in Jakarta. To learn more about the exhibition, please visit: https://www.museummacan.org/exhibition/voice-against-reason

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Statement from the Artistic Director Diana Campbell ARTISTIC DIRECTOR Welcome to the new web portal of the Samdani Art Foundation! We thank you for being here, as your visit speaks to a desire to connect with our work in Bangladesh, and a commitment to widen your worldview by including points of view that institutionalized knowledge historically belittled or omitted entirely. We see our role as being interlocutors in this ongoing process of learning unlearning and relearning; where we elevate histories of Bangladesh and other contexts from the global majority world (i.e. the world outside of Europe and North America) above the space relegated for footnotes (a nod to DAS 2018 participant Nancy Adajania). We call ourselves a research platform – which we build through the careful acts of collecting, producing, convening, mentoring, and sharing. We created this platform through a unique collaborative process linking the passion and dedication of collectors with the creativity of artists, architects, designers, curators, writers, historians and educators executed through the hard work of our team, our partners, and our volunteers, encouraged by the enthusiasm of our growing number of participants and visitors. We recognize that what is happening outside of the room is often the site of the most radical reimagining, where artists come together to create the conditions for great art to be made, and also activate tremendous social change in the world. At Samdani Art Foundation we are interested in art on the scale of life , far bigger than any exhibition in a gallery space can contain. Life in Dhaka pulses with a collaborative, hopeful, and can-do energy unlike anywhere else in the world; it is one of the most densely populated cities on the planet, the front line of where we feel the impacts of the world’s climate catastrophe. Dhaka Art Summit 2018 speaker Gayatri Chakravarty Spivak hit upon that when commenting that “Unless this kind of wonderful effort [of Dhaka Art Summit] is supplemented by another kind of effort, we cannot achieve the impossible possibility of a socially just world.” Our work at Samdani Art Foundation seeks to blur those boundaries between what is in the room and what is outside of the room – seeking to make a freer and more porous atmosphere for dialogue, understanding that beauty can change the world. Beauty can be impact, and impact can be beauty. This portal is an entry point to our ongoing and evolving work fostering connections between artists and architects of the past, the present, and the future with the Bangladeshi public, and welcoming in sensitive collaborators and visitors from all over the world to learn how to connect differently with cultures and geographies that they might not yet be familiar yet. Tied to our desire to strengthen and re-establish links that colonialism tried to sever between humanity and nature, we work to cultivate, maintain, and grow relationships, and to build confidence that these relationships can create the conditions to change how the (art) world functions. This is why Dhaka Art Summit can best be described as a family reunion, where more and more members join in, and you can see how this familiar family friend named DAS grows up more and more each time you visit her, but retains her childlike wonder, curiosity, and joy. One of the best compliments we’ve ever received at Samdani Art Foundation is that “Dhaka Art Summit is where the art world goes and they turn into people – accessible human and vulnerable.” Dhaka Art Summit is also a place that launches many careers, partially because international CVs hold no meaning where most of our visitors are unfamiliar with traditional markers of prestige, making it possible to really talk about the work and the intentions of the artist in ways that are difficult to do on the international art circuit. As we grow, acknowledging the limitations of communicating in English, we work to build our work around concepts and words in Bangla, making them accessible to both Bangla and non-Bangla speaking audiences. We are working to step off of the institutionalized timelines of biennales and step closer into life’s rhythms – and long-term collaborative projects related to culture and agriculture that will soon be visible at Srihatta, the Samdani Art Centre and Sculpture Park – will give a glimpse into our stretched-out timelines of the future, inspired by projects in the previous bi-annual (but not ‘a biennial’) format Dhaka Art Summit such as Otobong Nkanga’s Landversation and Damian Ortega’s work Sisters, where we learned first-hand that nothing you can possibly try to do can make a cornfield grow in less than 90 days. We are drawn to acts of imagination informed by knowledge. Since day one, we have been planning for what does not exist yet -- trying to design a space where anyone from any background can come and have a profound encounter with art and culture, and imagine that they can play a part in building a more beautiful, socially, and environmentally just world. We would be delighted if you were to join us and our growing number of collaborators in this endeavor. Read more about the thinking behind Diana's vision: Forging Artistic Connections_Stories from the Dhaka Art Summit by Diana Campbell from the upcoming publication of Frame Contemporary Art Finland . Considering Dhaka Art Summit from a CHamoru Perspective by Diana Campbell from the book American Art in Asia: Artistic Praxis and Theoretical Divergence . “It is deposited under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ ), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way." https://www.routledge.com/our-products/open-access-books/publishing-oa-books/chapters

FAQs Frequently asked questions General What makes the Samdani Art Foundation (SAF) unique? The Samdani Art Foundation is a solely non-commercial entity, which is unique to both Bangladesh and a rarity across the South Asian region. While there are other art foundations in Bangladesh, SAF is the only one not tied to commercial activities within the art world. SAF also rejects the art camp model of other local foundations, which ask artists to produce works for free in return for participating in their programs. SAF is privately funded and does not sell any artworks, nor does it generate income by engaging with the commercial activities of galleries or art fairs. All of SAF’s programmes are free and never require registration or participation fees. In 2012 the Samdani Art Foundation founded the bi-annual Dhaka Art Summit (DAS), an international non-commercial research and exhibition platform for art and architecture related to South Asia, which re-examines how we think about these art forms in a regional and wider context. DAS’s interdisciplinary programme creates a generative space for art and exchange, and is unique in that it commissions, funds, and produces works as opposed to merely exhibiting them. Many projects commissioned and produced by SAF for DAS—such as those by Shilpa Gupta, Rashid Rana, Jitish Kallat, and Munem Wasif—have travelled to international institutions such as the Berlin Biennale, NYU Abu Dhabi, San Jose Museum of Art, Gwangju Biennial, and the Singapore Biennial. This is not a collection building strategy; works commissioned for DAS often travel to other international exhibitions after the event and will continue to belong to the artists. SAF does not recover production money or take commissions pertaining to the work it produces. The Foundation has been successful in providing a non-commercial platform for international institutions to consider art from Bangladesh in their curatorial research process, which has led to the inclusion of work by Bangladeshi artists and architects in international exhibitions. Munem Wasif, Ayesha Sultana, and Rana Begum have recently showcased their work in Korea at the 11th Gwangju Biennale–the Biennale’s first inclusion of Bangladeshi artists. Architect Kashef Chowdhury’s work in the 2015 Venice Architecture Biennale was the Biennale’s first inclusion of a Bangladeshi architect, which speaks to the rising role of Bangladeshi architecture on the international scene. Munem Wasif participated in fifth edition of the Singapore Biennale after its curator reached out to SAF for information about Bangladeshi emerging artists. SAF supported Naeem Mohaiemen’s solo exhibition at the Kunsthalle Basel in 2014, leading to the artist’s inclusion in documenta14. In 2017, Kunsthalle Zürich included two Bangladeshi artists from the Samdani Art Award (Samsul Alam Helal and Raqiful Shuvo) in the group exhibition Speak, Lokal, curated by DAS 2016 guest curator Daniel Baumann. Raqiful Shuvo and Farzana Ahmed Urmi recently participated in the 11th Shanghai Biennale with the support of SAF. There has been unprecedented mobility for emerging Bangladeshi artists in recent years, which SAF is proud to have supported and will continue to do so through its various initiatives. The Samdani Art Foundation has a great number of projects including the Samdani Seminars, the Samdani Artist Led Initiatives Forum, the Samdani Art Award, the Samdani Architecture Award, the Dhaka Art Summit, and the recently launched DAS Research Fellows programme. SAF also supports a great number of global events and the participation of artists from Bangladesh in international exhibitions. For further information about our projects, please visit the dedicated section on our website here . What is the Samdani Art Award? The bi-annual Samdani Art Award, organised in partnership with the Delfina Foundation, has created an internationally recognised platform to showcase the work of young Bangladeshi artists to an international audience at the bi-annual Dhaka Art Summit. Inviting applications through an open call, Bangladeshi artists between the ages of 20–40 are eligible to apply. Applications are then shortlisted by an invited jury of international artists and curators who chose ten finalists to receive one-on-one sessions with an invited guest curator. The winner will receive an all-expenses paid, six-week residency at the Delfina Foundation in London. Each short-listed artist will be given an international curator as a mentor as part of the Biennials’ Associate Artists programme and at least two of the short-listed artists will be commissioned for the upcoming Liverpool Biennial. Many past short-listed artists have since shown their work at international exhibitions and institutions including; 11th Gwangju Biennale (2016), curated by_Vienna (2016), 11th Shanghai Biennale (2016), 4a Centre for Contemporary Asian Art (2017), and Kunsthalle Zürich (2017). For further information about the Samdani Art Award, please visit the dedicated section on our website here . Who is behind the Samdani Art Foundation (SAF)? Nadia Samdani is the President of the Samdani Art Foundation, which she co-founded with her husband Rajeeb Samdani in 2011. SAF is led by Diana Campbell, its Artistic Director, an International Advisory Committee, and a local organising committee, chaired by Farooq Sobhan, President and CEO of the Bangladesh Enterprise Institute (BEI), an independent research institute in Bangladesh. What is the source of these private funds? Rajeeb Samdani is the Chairman of Golden Harvest. Golden Harvest is a diversified Bangladeshi conglomerate with over 5,000 employees, involved in numerous business sectors: food, real estate, information, technology, agro, infrastructure development, dairy, aviation, insurance, commodity, and logistics. Rajeeb Samdani is also the Secretary of the General of the Bangladesh Human Rights Foundation, which is one of the largest Human Rights organisations in Bangladesh. Mr. Samdani is also the Founder of the Taher Ahmed Chowdhury Charitable Hospital in the city of Sylhet. The Samdani family financially supports both of these initiatives as part of their corporate social responsibility efforts. Is there a tax exemption from the sources invested in the Samdani Art foundation (SAF)? Due to local regulations, there is no tax benefit for any of the funds invested in the Samdani Art Foundation or any of its projects. Does the Samdani Art Foundation (SAF) plan to expand outside Dhaka? The Samdani Art Foundation has offices based in Dhaka and Mumbai, which facilitate its work across South Asia. SAF does not currently plan to open any international offices or exhibition spaces, but it is developing a permanent art centre in Sylhet, Bangladesh–a forty-minute flight from Dhaka. The majority of SAF’s funds are spent on activities in Bangladesh in order to support the local art scene. SAF engages with institutions outside the region by supporting curatorial research and exhibition-making in Bangladesh. Such an example is SAF’s Artistic Director Diana Campbell’s current work with the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago to lend many artworks from the SAF collection for the exhibition MANY TONGUES: Art, Language, and Revolution in the Middle East and South Asia , curated by Omar Kholeif, set to open in November 2018. This will be the largest showing of work by Bangladeshi and South Asian modern and contemporary artists in the United States. What is the arts centre in Sylhet? Srihatta – Samdani Art Centre and Sculpture Park is currently under development with plans to open in 2021. Srihatta is being designed by Aga Khan prize winning Bangladeshi architect Kashef Mahboob Chowhdury. It will be located in a 100+ acre outdoor site in Sylhet, Bangladesh with a 5,000 square foot indoor exhibition space to house works from the Samdani Collection. Srihatta will also include ten rooms to be used as residency spaces for local and international artists and curators to contemplate art and nature. SAF will also commission new works for Srihatta by South Asian and international artists. This space will aim to improve the existing public art infrastructure in the country, as well as increase accessibility to contemporary art, reaching a wider Bangladeshi audience. The first realised project on this site was Rokeya – an interactive sculpture created by leading Polish artist Paweł Althamer in collaboration with the local community, completed in early 2017. For further information about the development of Srihatta – Samdani Art Centre and Sculpture Park, please visit the dedicated section on our website here . Why Sylhet? Located in northeast Bangladesh, surrounded by rain forests, hills, rivers, and valleys, Sylhet is one of the leading tourist destinations in the country. As the Samdani Art Foundation seeks to promote international artistic exchange between Bangladesh and the rest of the world, Sylhet has proven to be an easily accessible international Bangladeshi city–an ideal location for Srihatta – Samdani Art Centre and Sculpture Park . Sylhet is also the hometown of the Samdani family. What initiatives will Srihatta – Samdani Art Centre and Sculpture Park promote? Once open, Srihatta – Samdani Art Centre and Sculpture Park will house part of the Samdani Art Foundation’s permanent collection and have exhibitions dedicated to contemporary art from Bangladesh and South Asia, as well as to international artists. It will also have a performance programme and a vast outdoor area for sculpture and architectural pavilions. As part of an international exchange initiative, Srihatta will host the Samdani Seminars, which currently take place in Dhaka. Srihatta will also have an international residency program. Visiting the space, as with all SAF’s programmes, will be free. What are the Samdani seminars? The Samdani Seminars are a free lecture and workshop programme, which facilitate engagement between international arts professionals and local communities across Bangladesh through participatory artworks, lectures, and workshops, to engage a broader audience with the arts. The Seminars complement the syllabi of Bangladesh’s leading educational institutions by covering the mediums and subjects not currently included, accessible to those of all ages, to encourage an inclusive dialogue around art. Curated by the Samdani Art Foundation’s Artistic Director Diana Campbell, the first annual Samdani Seminars began in 2015 and focused on exploring the possibilities of the body and the space it occupies. The premise was for artists to consider the body as the primary tool of expression, a tool that also allows the engagement with traditional arts such as painting, sculpture, and photography. The 2017 Samdani Seminars focused on sound and listening as tools for art-making. The Seminars also consider Arte Util, institution-building, and organisational strategies for local artist-led initiatives and collectives. For further information about the Samdani Seminars, please visit the dedicated section on our website here . Who takes part in the seminars? Twelve leading international artists and curators from eight countries participated as visiting faculty in the previous series of Seminars in 2015. They worked alongside individuals from theatre, music, dance, and architecture backgrounds which ensured the programme facilitated collaborations across creative disciplines. Half of the Seminars were open to the public and enjoyed by audiences of over 300 art enthusiasts and students. The other half of the 2015 Seminars were closed-door discussions, each with a group of around 16 participants, selected by the visiting faculty and artists from a strong applicant pool. The current 2017-18 Seminar programme,featured Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Haroon Mirza, Asim Waqif, Pawel Althamer, Susan Philipsz, Tarek Atoui, Sebastian Cichocki, Nick Aikens, Council, and Open School East. Many of the ideas and movements introduced in these sessions fed into the Dhaka Art Summit 2018’s Education Pavilion. Why Dhaka and Bangladesh? Besides being the current home of Nadia and Rajeeb Samdani, Bangladesh and Dhaka, in particular, have a vibrant art scene still in need of support to flourish on both a local and international stage. By producing the Dhaka Art Summit and funding international events to encourage cultural exchange, the Samdani Art Foundation provides an opportunity for leading figures of the international art world not only to engage with South Asian art, but also to become familiar with the Bangladeshi art scene. Furthermore, it is important for SAF to provide opportunities for the local community to engage with regional and international art. Bangladesh does not have a dedicated contemporary art museum, making SAF’s collection an important bridge for Bangladeshi art enthusiasts and students to experience first-hand examples of international modern and contemporary art. What is the Samdani Architecture Award? The inaugural Samdani Architecture Award was launched in 2017, and was open to all third and fourth year architecture students from Bangladesh to propose a design for DAS 2018’s Education Pavilion. Creating much needed opportunities for young architects, the first prize winning entry was realised and animated with the Education Pavilion programme, during the Dhaka Art Summit 2018. For further information about the Samdani Architecture Award, please visit the dedicated section on our website here . What is the Samdani Artist-led Initiatives Forum? The Samdani Artist-Led Initiatives Forum recognises the importance of Bangladesh’s independently established and self-funded art initiatives and collectives. Supporting these initiatives’ ongoing efforts, the Forum will help each to continue to work locally while building their profile internationally through SAF’s network. For further information about the Samdani Artist-Led Initiatives Forum, please visit the dedicated section on our website here . How does the Samdani Art Foundation sustain itself financially? The Samdani Art Foundation is privately funded by Nadia and Rajeeb Samdani.