195 items found for ""
- Tarun Nagesh: the Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art: Art and Curating in the Asia Pacific
ALL PROJECTS Tarun Nagesh: the Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art: Art and Curating in the Asia Pacific Soni Mongol Adda, Segun Bagicha, 4 April 2017 Dhaka Art Summit 2018 Fellow Tarun Nagesh will talk about his experience as part of curatorial team of the Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art at Shoni Mongol Adda. TARUN NAGESH Tarun Nagesh is Associate Curator, Asian Art at the Queensland Art Gallery / Gallery of Modern Art in Brisbane, Australia. Tarun is part of the core curatorial team for the Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art (APT) and curated the South Asian and parts of the Southeast Asian components of APT8 (2015-16), including the focus project Kalpa Vriksha: Contemporary Indigenous and Vernacular Art of India. He regularly curates exhibitions from the QAGOMA Collection along with touring exhibitions and working with historical material. Tarun is currently working on the 9th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art (2018-19) as well as the exhibition program and development of the QAGOMA Asian Art Collection.
- Displays Of Internationalism | Asia Interfacing with The World Through Exhibitions, 1947-1989
ALL PROJECTS Displays Of Internationalism | Asia Interfacing with The World Through Exhibitions, 1947-1989 Curated by Amara Antilla and Diana Campbell The history of exhibitions has served an important role in art historical and curatorial research. Yet, even as the history of display has generated renewed scholarly interest, a critical reading of the trans-national function of exhibitions, which feature some of the most important non-Western presentations prior to 1989, has yet to be realised. How did exhibition practices create contact points between artists and thinkers from around the world? How were these transcultural networks indicative of larger political, social, and economic interests? How might exhibition histories in Asia expand our thinking about post-war global art histories? ‘Displays of Internationalism’ invited curators and scholars to examine seminal international or regional exhibitions; revisit major biennials and their role as important zones of exchange for artists, thinkers and cultural workers; and engage in self-reflective dialogues to investigate blind spots and methodological problems facing the field. Paper Presentation: Roots, Basics, Beginnings: The Textual and Curatorial Work of Raymundo Albano by Patrick Flores Session Date: 8 February 2018, 01.15 - 3.00pm Venue: 3rd Floor Auditorium, Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy Raymundo Albano was an artist and curator in Manila. His practice as a curator at the Cultural Center of the Philippines from 1970 to 1985 generated a level of density of both discourse and procedure. In his agenda, roots, basics, beginnings matter (taken from an eponymous exhibition in 1977), Albano constitutes the material through which the process or method takes place. Whatever may be inferred or alluded to, or implicated, emerges from lineage, rudiment, origin. Whether critique comes in to complicate, or relations intervene, the ‘intelligence’ of the material cannot be severed from the ‘integrity’ of the lifeworld from which it is generated and through which such lifeworld is reinvested. Some would call this ‘context,’ others would say it is ‘impulse’ or ‘urge.’ Whatever it is that may be brought to our attentiveness, as that which excites what we broadly reference as art, it should, in the imagination of Albano, stir up a world ‘suddenly turning visible,’ a condition quite akin to Michel Foucault’s ‘sudden vicinity of things.’ This paper introduces research on the relationship between Albano’s textual and curatorial work in the production of both situation and thinking. It dwells on the post-colonial mediation of the local and the international to complicate, or even exceed, the overdeterminations of the Western modern. Patrick Flores is a Professor of Art Studies at the University of the Philippines (which he chaired from 1997 to 2003), Curator of the Vargas Museum in Manila, and Adjunct Curator at the National Art Gallery, Singapore. Among his publications are: Past Peripheral: Curation in Southeast Asia (NUS Museum Singapore, 2008); Remarkable Collection: Art, History, and the National Museum (National Art Gallery - National Museum of the Philippines, 2007); and Painting History: Revisions in Philippine Colonial Art (National Commission for Culture and the Arts, 1998). As a curator he has co-organised, Under Construction: New Dimensions in Asian Art (Japan Foundation Asia Center and Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery (2000) and the Gwangju Biennale (2008). Flores was a grantee of the Asian Cultural Council in 2010, an advisor to the exhibition, The Global Contemporary: Art Worlds After 1989 at the Center for Art and Media in Karlsruhe in 2011, and is a member of the Guggenheim Museum’s Asian Art Council. Between the High-Altitude View and The Detail: A Study of ‘Two Decades of American Painting’ by Nancy Adajania Session Date: 8 February 2018, 1.15 - 3.00pm Venue: 3rd Floor Auditorium, Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy Adajania’s paper considers the political circumstances of the Cold War and the global cultural circulations that surrounded the 1960s travelling exhibition, Two Decades of American Painting, organised by the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York, and supported by the Museum’s International Council. A US soft-power initiative, the exhibition toured the world—with support from the US State Department—during a period when the Vietnam War was underway, China’s nuclear ambitions had become clear, and the US-USSR confrontation was being played out in various theatres. Originally intended for presentation in Tokyo and New Delhi, its itinerary was expanded to include Melbourne and Sydney. Reflecting on the reception of Two Decades… in India (1967), Adajania explores how the exhibition challenged Indian artists and art critics to revisit and critically recast their debate, including many key contested themes: cultural identity and artistic autonomy; tradition and modernity; abstraction and counter-abstractionist strategies; the global turn; the creation of a universal canon; the establishment of a national ‘style;’ and canonical medium (modelled on Clement Greenberg’s ‘American-type painting’). Dwelling on the individual figures involved in the exhibition and its Indian reception, the paper engages with personal preoccupations and motivations, and the ground of their agency, as opposed to official scripts of cultural diplomacy or curatorial policy. Nancy Adajania is a cultural theorist and curator based in Bombay. Her book, The Thirteenth Place: Positionality as Critique in the Art of Navjot Altaf (Guild Art Gallery, 2016), goes beyond the mandate of a conventional artist monograph to map the larger histories of the Leftist and feminist movements in India. She recently edited the transdisciplinary anthology Some things that only art can do: A Lexicon of Affective Knowledge (Raza Foundation, 2017). She was Joint Artistic Director of the 9th Gwangju Biennale in 2012, and has curated many exhibitions including: No Parsi is an Island; A Curatorial Re-reading Across 150 Years (National Gallery of Modern Art, Delhi, 2016); Sights and Sounds: Global Film and Video, Jewish Museum, New York (2015); and the hybrid exhibition-publication project Sacred/Scared at Latitude 28/ TAKE on Art magazine, New Delhi (2014). Adajania taught the curatorial practice course at the Salzburg International Summer Academy of Fine Arts (2013/2014) and was a juror for Video/Film/New Media fellowship cycle of the Akademie Schloss Solitude, Stuttgart (2015-2017). Revisiting Thai Reflections on American Experiences, Bhirasri Institute of Modern Art, Bangkok, 1986 by Gridthiya Gaweewong Session Date: 8 February 2018, 1.15 - 3.00pm Venue: 3rd Floor Auditorium, Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy Organised by renowned art historian Dr. Piriya Krairiksh at the Bhirasri Institute of Modern Art in Bangkok, Thai Reflections on American Experiences brought together the work of twenty-four artists executed before, during, and after their journeys to the United States. The exhibition, which was funded in part by the United States Information Service, sought to make a fair assessment of the impact that American experiences might have had on the development of Modern Art in Thailand. Although eight artists declined to participate, those who did included Damrong WongUpparat, Santi Isrowuthakul, Apinan Poshyananda, Kamol Phaosavasdi, and Chumpol Apisuk, using the exhibition as a platform to critically examine the hegemony of American art in the twilight of Cold War politics. In conjunction with the exhibition, a seminar was organised where issues of authenticity, appropriation and identity played out among local artists, art historians and critics. The debates continued in local media coverage, and through editorials written by various artists, provoked reaction in embodied discourses around national identity, representation and originality in 1980s. Gridthiya Gaweewong is currently Artistic Director of the Jim Thompson Art Center in Bangkok. Her curatorial projects have addressed the issues of social transformation confronting artists from Thailand and beyond, since the Cold War. In 1996 she founded the arts organisation, Project 304, to support contemporary artistic and cultural activities through art exhibitions and events. Gaweewong has curated exhibitions, and organised events internationally, including: Patani Semasa, MAIIAM Contemporary Art Museum (2017); Unreal Asia, Oberhausen International Short Film Festival (2010); Saigon Open City, Vietnam (2007 - 2006), with Rirkrit Tiravanija; the Bangkok Experimental Film Festival (2007 - 1997), co-founded with Apichatpong Weerasethakul; Politics of Fun, at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin (2005); and Under Construction: New Dimensions in Asian Art (Japan Foundation Asia Center and Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery (2000). From The Dawn of The 1st Asian Art Show to the 3rd Asian Art Show at the Fukuoka Art Museum, 1979-89 by Rina Igarashi Session Date: 8 February 2018, 1.15 - 3.00pm Venue: 3rd Floor Auditorium, Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy A milestone in the exhibition history of Asian art in Japan, the first Asian Art Show (AAS) was organised as the inauguration exhibition of the Fukuoka Art Museum (FAM) in 1979. Subsequent editions of the AAS were held almost every five years until the fourth show in 1994. Based on AASs accumulation of research on Asian Art, the Fukuoka Asian Art Museum opened in 1999. AASs played a pivotal role in connecting Fukuoka with Asian modern and contemporary art up to now. Initially, the American Contemporary Art Show was planned as the inauguration exhibition of FAM but was later cancelled and the new idea on AAS was created. Behind the background of realising AAS, there were two key persons who have strong interests toward Asia: then mayor of Fukuoka city, Shinto Kazuma and then committee member of founding FAM, Koike Shinji. In her paper, Igarashi talks about how the first AAS was prepared in the 1970s, the practice and structure of the 1st - 3rd AASs, the connection between AAS and the policy of Fukuoka city, and how the practice of AASs in the 1980s demonstrates the shift of inter-Asia collaboration and the conflict of defining Asia-ness. Rina Igarashi is a curator at the Fukuoka Asian Art Museum, Japan. She has worked on and curated a number of exhibitions at the FAAM, including Bengali Kantha, Embroidered Quilt: Its past and present (2001); Collecting India: Fascination with Indian Visual Culture in Contemporary Japan (2012); and Freedom in Blossom: Gangaw Village and Experimental Art in 1980s Burma (2012). She has also been the co-curator of 3rd (2005), 4th (2009) and 5th (2014) editions of the Fukuoka Asian Art Triennale. She has been involved in research in Bangladeshi contemporary art and visual cultures since the late 1990s and has recently expanded her research to Myanmar. Group 1890, Surrounded by Infinity by Atreyee Gupta Session Date: 8 February 2018, 3.30 - 5.00pm Venue: 3rd Floor Auditorium, Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy This paper focuses on the Group 1890, a short-lived artists’ collective established in 1962 by Jagdish Swaminathan, Jeram Patel, Rajesh Mehra, Ambadas Khobragade, Gulammohammed Sheikh, Himmat Shah, Nagji Patel, Reddappa Naidu, Jyoti Bhatt, Eric Bowen, and Raghav Kaneria. The group heralded its presence with just one exhibition, the resonance of which the Mexican poet Octavio Paz described as akin to being ‘surrounded by infinity.’ The use of the word infinity was not purely rhetorical—back in Mexico, Paz had already established an intimate association with non-modern philosophy, and the vibrancy of matter. In India, the artist Jagdish Swaminathan spoke of the numinous image while Jeram Patel affirmed the primal energy of material. The synergy between the Group 1890 artists and Paz, then the Mexican ambassador to India, was significant. However, even as a second exhibition was planned in Mexico, it was never realised, and the group unofficially disbanded around 1969. Given the transitory nature of the enterprise, the Group 1890 has thus far appeared as a mere footnote in South Asia’s art historiography. This paper proposes revisiting the group, not just to unravel the intertwined histories of India and Mexico, but also to draw out a different imagination of globality from the perspective of the Global South. Atreyee Gupta is Assistant Professor, in University of California, Berkeley’s History of Art Department, and was previously the Jane Emison Assistant Curator of South and Southeast Asian Art at the Minneapolis Institute of Art. Her area of specialism focuses on global modernisms and contemporary art, with an emphasis on South and Southeast Asia and its diaspora. Her research and teaching interests cluster around visual and intellectual histories of 20th century art, including: the intersections between the Cold War; the Non-Aligned Movement; art after 1945; new media and experimental cinema; and the question of the global more broadly. Gupta’s essays have appeared in edited volumes, exhibition catalogues, and journals including: Art Journal, Yishu, and Third Text. Museums that Move: Itinerant Solidarity Exhibitions in the 1970s and the case of Japan's Apartheid Non, International Art Festival by Kristine Khouri Session Date: 8 February 2018, 3.30 - 5.00pm Venue: 3rd Floor Auditorium, Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy The 1970s were marked by a number of exhibitions-cum-museum initiatives organised in support of political causes. Culture trains, touring exhibitions, and moving libraries were common practice around the world in mid-20th century, moving information, artworks, and objects around a country to disseminate knowledge and culture—most often by governments—to sites where people wouldn’t necessarily have access to them. In the 1970s and 1980s, these initiatives took a more explicit political turn, exhibiting and touring artworks donated in support of a political causes, creating sites of solidarity where the public engaged with art in a different frame. International collections were built and toured as precursors and in anticipation of future museums, for example, against apartheid in South Africa, in support of Allende's government in Chile, for the people of Nicaragua, and in support of the Palestinian struggle. These alternative museum-making practices were only possible due to the hard work of individuals around the world: artists, writers, gallery owners, governments, and community organisers, among others. This paper addresses a number of case studies from Palestine, Chile and Nicaragua, with a primary focus on the Art Against/Contre Apartheid collection, and its remarkable two-year long tour in Japan from 1988-1990—the longest and most complex tour. Kristine Khouri is an independent researcher and writer whose interests focus on the history of arts circulation and infrastructure in the Arab world. Together with Rasha Salti, she is a co-founder of the History of Arab Modernities in the Visual Arts Study Group: a research platform focused around the social history of art in the Arab world. Their current focus includes the history of the International Art Exhibition in Solidarity with Palestine that opened in Beirut in 1978 and transformed into the exhibition, Past Disquiet: Narratives and Ghosts of the International Art Exhibition for Palestine,1978 at the Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona (2015) and later the Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin (2016). She curated The Founding Years (1969 – 1973): A Selection of Works from the Sultan Gallery Archives at the Sultan Gallery, Kuwait (2012); and co-led a Digitising Archives Workshop with Sabih Ahmed (Asia Art Archive) in Kuwait as part of Art Dubai’s Global Art Forum (2015). Diasporic Cosmopolitanism, Making Worlds, Imagining Solidarity by Ming Tiampo Session Date: 8 February 2018, 3.30 - 5.00pm Venue: 3rd Floor Auditorium, Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy Histories of the Global South have a tendency to consider alternative histories that emerge out of South-South contacts and circumvent Western hegemonies. This paper argues that some of the most potent anti-colonial encounters that produced the notion of the Global South inevitably took place in the context of the colonial metropole. Using the history of the magazine Présence Africaine as a starting point to reimagine the metropolis as a site of ‘minor transnational encounter’ (Shih and Lionnet, 2005), this paper examines the role of Rasheed Araeen and the journal Third Text in worlding Asia and creating Afro-Asian solidarities, while retheorising the place of the metropolis in creating an imagined community of the Global South. Ming Tiampo is a Professor of Art History and the Director of the Institute for Comparative Studies in Literature, Art and Culture, Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada. Tiampo has published on Japanese modernism, war art in Japan, globalisation and art, multiculturalism in Canada, and the connections between Inuit and Japanese prints. Tiampo’s book Gutai: Decentering Modernism (University of Chicago Press, 2011) received an honourable mention for the Robert Motherwell Book award, and she later co-edited Art and War in Japan and its Empire: 1931-1960 (Brill Academic Press, 2013). In 2013, she was co-curator of the AICA award-winning Gutai: Splendid Playground, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York. Tiampo is a founding member of the Center for Transnational Cultural Analysis at Carleton University, serves on the advisory boards of the Institute for Cultural Inquiry Berlin, Tate Research Centre Asia, and on the editorial boards of the Archives of Asian Art, the Canadian Art Review (RACAR), and the Journal of Asian Diaspora Visual Culture and the Americas (ADVA). Temporal Exchanges: East and West Pakistan Exhibition Programmes, 1961-77’ by Saira Ansari Session Date: 8 February 2018, 3.30 - 5.00pm Venue: 3rd Floor Auditorium, Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy From 1947 to 1971, Pakistani Modernist artist, patron and gallerist Zubeida Agha (1922-1997) ran the Rawalpindi Art Galleries: Pakistan’s first art gallery since its founding in 1947. Agha worked closely with artists across West and East Pakistan (current day Bangladesh) curating numerous exhibitions in Pakistan and on international platforms. This paper introduces the history of the Rawalpindi Art Galleries, it’s engagement with artists from Bangladesh, and the shared artistic activities between Pakistan and Bangladesh, especially when they were one nation (1947-1971). Examining the role of the gallery through a selection of its exhibitions, printed catalogues and other collected ephemera, this paper seeks to articulate the role of the State in the art world during the early years of Pakistan—when the lines between public and private programming were still blurry—while shedding light on this often-overlooked moment of shared history. Saira Ansari is a researcher and a writer with a focus in South Asian art history. She works in Publications and Research at the Sharjah Art Foundation and is a Contributing Editor for the South Asian literary journal Papercuts. Her curatorial projects include: The importance of staying quiet (Hong Kong, 2014). She was the recipient of the Lahore Biennale Foundation Research Fellowship (2016), granted in conjunction with Asia Art Archive (Hong Kong). Saira has contributed to various international publications including: Art Asia Pacific, The Rio Times, The State, Canvas, Harper’s Bazaar Art Arabia, Khaleej Times, Folio, ArtNow Pakistan, Herald Magazine; with essays in Rupak, Lala Rukh’s commission for Documenta 14, Grey Noise (UAE, 2017), Syntax Freezone: Anthology of Essays on Language and Accent, THE STATE and Maraya Art Centre (UAE, 2015) and Sohbet: Journal of Contemporary Arts and Culture, Vol. 2 (Pakistan, 2011), amongst others. Panel Discussions: Imaging Internationalism Moderated by Ming Tiampo (Department of Art History and the Institute for Comparative Studies in Literature, Art and Culture, Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada) With Nancy Adajania (Independent scholar), Patrick Flores (Art Studies Department, University of the Philippines, Manila), Gridthiya Gaweewong (Jim Thompson Art Center, Bangkok), and Rina Igarashi (Fukuoka Asian Art Museum) Session Date: 8 February 2018, 1.15 - 3.00pm Venue: 3rd Floor Auditorium, Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy Displays of Internationalism - Asia and the Global South Moderated by Patrick Flores (Art Studies Department, University of the Philippines, Manila) With Atreyee Gupta (History of Art Department, University of California Berkeley), Ming Tiampo (Department of Art History and the Institute for Comparative Studies in Literature, Art and Culture, Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada), Kristine Khouri (Independent scholar) and Saira Ansari (Sharjah Art Foundation). Session Date: 8 February 2018, 3.30 - 5.00pm Venue: 3rd Floor Auditorium, Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy
- Performance Workshop by Nikhil Chopra, Madhavi Gore and Jana Prepeluh
ALL PROJECTS Performance Workshop by Nikhil Chopra, Madhavi Gore and Jana Prepeluh Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy, 2 - 6 April 2015 The 2nd phase of Spring session of Samdani Seminars 2015 started with closed door performance conducted by leading Indian performance artist Nikhil Chopra, Madhavi Gore along with Slovenian artist Jana Prepeluh. 15 Bangladeshi artists were selected for the 5 days’ workshop that ran from 2nd till 6th April. The workshop worked as incubator for the emerging artists which would eventually lead to further performance workshop at the Heritage Hotel, Nikhil Chopra’s residency programme in Goa. On 8th open house performances were arranged as a final output of the workshop all day long.
- MOTHERTONGUE, Australian Center for Contemporary Art
ALL PROJECTS MOTHERTONGUE, Australian Center for Contemporary Art 22 April- 18 June 2023, Melbourne, Australia mOTHERTONGUE surveyed the past two decades of Mithu Sen’s compelling art practice, including a series of major new installations. The exhibition was presented as an illuminated mind map. As a constellation of image and word associations that move between visible surfaces and interior states, mOTHERTONGUE charts how language is channelled into forms as diverse as drawing, sculpture, media and performance to create complex artworks which elude definitional categories, institutional power structures and imposed identities related to race, gender, ethnicity and location. Her work 'Batil Kobitaboli (Poems Declined), 2014' from DAS 2014 was also in display. Rather than celebrate her success or importance as a South Asian artist, Mithu Sen used her invitation to DAS 2014 to create a project called Poems Declined that celebrates the work and efforts of poets whose work was not previously given prominence or attention, to those whose work was declined or rejected. In her experience in Dhaka, Sen realized that poetry was not limited to poets, the Bangla language itself was poetry, and poetry itself is a language in Bangladesh, sharing that “In Bangladesh, the language is not Bengali but Poetry.” This exhibition is presented in partnership with Kiran Nadar Museum of Art (KNMA) .
- My Rhino is not a Myth, Art Encounters Biennial
ALL PROJECTS My Rhino is not a Myth, Art Encounters Biennial 19 May- 16 July 2023, Timișoara, Romania- Mizanur Rahman Chowdhury We are delighted to partner with the Art Encounters Biennial to support DAS 2018 Samdani Art Award winner Mizanur Rahman Chowdhury (Sakib) to further develop his practice as he prepares to create a new installation for Srihatta , our permanent space. The curator of the biennial, Adrian Notz shares: "I got to know Sakib in late 2021 in Zurich during his residency there, where I saw his installation “Fear of Social Bin” in real life. Immediately, I was triggered to write a small text about it. So much even, that I thought I need to be a bit poetic about it. On a skiing lift, where we went sledging in the mountains Sakib told me about how he mixes different realities and spiritualities in the research for his work. I like to call his works community based performative installations. For the 5th Art Encounters Biennial Sakib expanded the collaborative and performative community to the whole European cultural capital Timisoara. Using the eternally stretched time in his installations Sakib got to know Timisoara and its hidden stories and treasures in no time. Like a detective and forager, a hunter and gatherer he brought back small precious ingredients from different personal archives and stories around the town that composed his “Weltraum” (German for outer space, literally meaning “world room”) under the title “Waiting for the Becoming Song”. Ganda, the rhino we referred to in the title “My Rhino is not a Myth”, may have the same Bengali homelands like Sakib, but it is the subtitle “art science fictions” that describes best, what he was doing. He created a real world artistic and scientific fiction of our present and future world and reality. It was a great honour and pleurae to be working with Sakib thanks to the support of the Samdani Foundation."
- MAHASSA
ALL PROJECTS MAHASSA Modern Art Histories in and across Africa, South and Southeast Asia The Dhaka Art Summit, Institute for Comparative Modernities (ICM) at Cornell University, and Asia Art Archive, with support from the Getty Foundation’s Connecting Art Histories initiative, launch a new research project entitled Modern Art Histories in and across Africa, South and Southeast Asia. The project brings together a team of leading international faculty and emerging scholars to investigate parallel and intersecting developments in the cultural histories of modern Africa, South Asia, and Southeast Asia. These regions have been shaped by shared institutional and intellectual developments during the twentieth century, including the rise of modern art practices associated with the withdrawal of colonialism and the consolidation of nationalism, the founding of institutions such as the art school and the museum, and increasing exchange with international metropolitan centres via travel and the movement of ideas through publications and exhibitions. Viewing them in terms of statist and national art histories obscures their analysis in a comparative framework. By contrast, this programme emphasises a connected and contextualised approach to better understand both common developments as well as divergent trajectories. The curriculum will cover both core concepts and emerging perspectives from postcolonial, decolonial, transnational, transcultural, and global discourses, with seminar topics that range from art and social difference, creolisation, exhibition histories, postcolonial nationalisms, media and popular culture, multiple modernisms, pedagogy, and transnational networks, among others. Participants will be actively engaged in the sessions as experts in their own respective disciplines. By presenting two papers during the course of the programme, early career scholars will be encouraged to pursue their research informed by the theoretical and art historical contexts of this project. By integrating presentations by participants with core faculty lectures, the programme is envisioned as a reciprocal process of learning exchange. Presentations will also take place at peer institutions in Hong Kong and Bangladesh, as well as at the Dhaka Art Summit. Field trips such as collection, museum, and modernist architecture visits and guest lectures will be organised during both the Hong Kong and Dhaka sessions. With the goal of optimising the impact of in-person workshops, virtual meetings will be held in addition to the respective Hong Kong and Dhaka sessions. Emerging scholars from and with connections to Africa, South Asia, and/or Southeast Asia currently enrolled in a graduate programme in Art History, Architectural History, or Cultural Studies, or who have finished their graduate training in these fields in the last three years, were encouraged to apply. Twenty-one scholars were selected from a competitive international applicant pool. The scholars and their research proposals can be found on the right-hand column. Building on the initial convening at AAA in August 2019, the MAHASSA curriculum in February will focus on methodologies and specific histories, through seminars, panels, guest talks, and field trips with core and invited faculty. Working closely with host and partner, Dhaka Art Summit, topics such as architecture, art schools, and the place of collectives will be explored in depth from a conceptual and practical approach. This was a closed-door event. The open call for participation ended on 28 Feb 2019. Image: Muzharul Islam, College of Arts and Crafts, Dhaka. Photo: Randhir Singh. Afropolitan: Contemporary African Art as Paradox Fri, 7 Feb 2020 Respondents: Simon Soon and Sanjukta Sunderason, Diana Campbell (mod.) Art historian and curator Salah M. Hassan (Cornell University) delivered a keynote on contemporary African art and its global significance. Respondents art historian Simon Soon (University of Malaya) and historian Sanjukta Sunderason (University of Leiden) engaged with Hassan in a discussion on parallel developments that emerged in South and Southeast Asia since the 1980s. Art and Hunger: Transnational Frames Sat, 8 Feb 2020 Art and Hunger: Transnational Frames Panelists: Elizabeth Giorgis and Sanjukta Sunderason, Noopur Desai (mod.) This panel by art historian Elizabeth Giorgis (Addis Ababa University) and historian Sanjukta Sunderason (University of Leiden) explores the politics of famine in the context of anti-colonial and antiauthoritarian struggles in South Asia and North Africa, and how competing narratives of nationalism were articulated through social realism and abstraction in response to Bengal (1943), Vietnamese (1945), and Ethiopian famines (1984–85). Modern Architecture Sun, 9 Feb 2020 Modern Architecture Panelists: Sean Anderson, Farhan Karim, Simon Soon, Nurur Rahman Khan, Sneha Ragavan (mod.) This panel by architectural historians Sean Anderson (Museum of Modern Art), Farhan Karim (University of Kansas), architecture historian and architect Nurur Rahman Khan (Muzharul Islam Archives) and art historian Simon Soon (University of Malaya) examines modernisms as they played out in the built environment of the Global South. Panelists will discuss how innovations in domestic and urban life engendered hybrid building typologies and visual motifs that simultaneously resonated with universal modernist tropes, while incorporating local vernacular traditions. Rise of the Art School Mon, 10 Feb 2020 Rise of the Art School Panelists: Ming Tiampo, Sneha Ragavan, Chuong-Dai Vo, Shaela Sharmin, John Tain (mod.) This panel investigates the role of art schools as important sites of transcultural encounter, knowledge sharing, and art production during the modern period. By discussing case studies such as Santiniketan, Baroda, Dhaka and Chittagong Charukala, and Slade, among others, panelists will explore the relationship between pedagogy and community. Panelists include art historian Ming Tiampo (Carleton University), researchers Sneha Ragavan and Chuong-Dai Vo (Asia Art Archive), artist collective The Otolith Group, and Dean of Visual Arts at University of Chittagong and artist Shaela Sharmin. Collectives from the 1950s to the Present Fri, 14 Feb 2020 Collectives from the 1950s to the Present Panelists: Melissa Carlson, Samina Iqbal, Dana Liljegren, Dhali Al Mamoon, Michelle Wong (mod.) By reviewing four case studies: Pakistan in the 1950s, multiple sites in the 1960s, Bangladesh in the 1980s, and presentday Senegal, panelists will examine how artists fashioned modes of resistance and solidarity through new forms of collectivity. Here, formal and informal artist groups created frameworks for negotiating between international, national, and local agents. Panelists include MAHASSA participants Melissa Carlson, Samina Iqbal, Dana Liljegren, and artist and art historian Mustafa Zaman. Reflections on Modern Art Histories in and across Africa, South and Southeast Asia Thu, 25 Jun 2020 Reflections on Modern Art Histories in and across Africa, South and Southeast Asia Panelists: Iftikhar Dadi, Diana Campbell Betancourt, Elizabeth W Giorgis, John Tain (mod.) Organised by Asia Art Archive in America, this panel gather four of the MAHASSA faculty members, Dr. Iftikhar Dadi, Diana Campbell Betancourt, Dr. Elizabeth W Giorgis, and John Tain, who provide an overview and share their thoughts on the impetus behind and outcome so far of this evolving project. Programme Partners: Sponsor: THIS PROJECT IS MADE POSSIBLE WITH THE SUPPORT OF THE GETTY FOUNDATION THROUGH ITS CONNECTING ART HISTORIES INITIATIVE.
- Uronto Artist Community
ALL PROJECTS Uronto Artist Community Samdani Artist-Led Initiatives Forum 2020 URONTO Artist Community came up with their first VR project in 2019. This project was supported by the Annual Grant of Artist-Led Initiatives Forum from Samdani Art Foundation. Uronto always works out of Dhaka in Rural and remote areas in abandoned heritage buildings. They interact with the local community of those rural areas and they do their open studio there only. The City based audience cannot always visit their exchange program or the open studio for many practical reasons connected to their busy urban life. So Uronto came up with this alternative Idea to create accessibility to their work and sites for a wide range of audience. The VR project was produced around the 8th and 9th Episode of Uronto Residential Art Exchange Program activities. That took place in Naogaon at Dubolhati Palace by November 2019. The VR consists of all the site-responsive works by almost 30 artists coming from different countries together to explore the lost narratives of the fascinating site. It gives the audience a unique opportunity to be present at the site virtually, have a 360 experience of a 200 years old fragile and abandoned palace. Also allows them to see how artistic expressions are merged into the space with a local interaction in and around them.
- Mining Warm Data
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)
- Srijan-Abartan
ALL PROJECTS Srijan-Abartan A Workshop for Exhibition Making and Unmaking led by common interest with support from Pro Helvetia-Swiss Arts Council How is the practice of exhibiting—be that of art, design, history, or science—fundamentally implicated in the imminent threats of climate change? And, conversely, how can exhibition-making help us attain political momentum and agency around ecology? How can it support communities fighting on the frontline of climate change who are leading the way in safeguarding our collective future? These are the fundamental questions that prompted the start of a workshop for exhibition-making and unmaking at the heart of DAS. Srijan-Abartan was a cross-cultural and cross-disciplinary research project aimed at developing new tools and methodologies for creating culturally rooted, ecologically sustainable, and socially responsible exhibition displays. Its international team consisted of artists, designers, researchers, architects, engineers, exhibition-makers, curators, and producers from Bangladesh, Switzerland and beyond. They worked alongside to discuss, problematise, envision, conceive, conceptualise exhibition displays, and support structures that take sustainability as their core concern. The generated design strategies and solutions developed collaboratively made up the exhibition design for the DAS 2020. Nodding to the summit’s impetus of igniting a movement beyond the confines of an art exhibition, Srijan-Abartan’s process, methodology, and learning outcomes has been compiled and shared in the form of open-access research. The goal was to provide thinking tools to help others and also to start reimagining exhibition-making as a practice of resistance that strives for more just and sustainable forms of living. Background Often referred to as the ‘ground zero’ for climate change, Bangladesh has long been trailblazing innovative strategies to adapt to threats such as rising sea levels, water-logged land, and increased salinity. Ecology and sustainability are core concerns for DAS which happens biannually at the Shilpakala Academy. Dr. Huraera Jabeen, a core member of Srijan-Abartan, assessed the environmental impact of DAS 2018 utilising the Equity Share Approach. The aim is to create a baseline to determine the upcoming DAS 2020. The operational process will follow PDCA (Plan-Do-Check-Act). Based on the information received on materials, venue design, communication materials produced, estimated waste generated, and energy usage, the estimated total emission for DAS 2018 comes to 18043 tons of CO2 emission. Which is equivalent to: An average car could be driven for 80.02 years Non-stop A 747 could fly for 23.73 days non-stop Taking 3,538 cars off the road for a year Producing 1,357 tons of Beef A 42-inch LCD TV could be used for 12,334 years continuously The assessment points to multiple strategies that can be used to reduce the negative ecological effects of DAS 2020, for example: venue design accounts for about 77% of the emission. The use of particleboards with timber frames forms 58% of the 77%. Although they are assumed to be reused by vendors, management of them as waste accounts for almost 14% of the emission. Additional new surfaces also require additional paint. Therefore, CO2 emissions can be significantly reduced intelligently through venue design. One possible way could be to use the existing spaces and infrastructure of the building rather than creating new temporary structures that cannot be reused or recycled multiple times. Plastic films used for printing communication account for 15% of the total emissions, and they have no options for recycling or reusing and end up fully as waste. Paper-based publications for communication form 0.03% emission production and 0.09% for managing waste. Consideration can be given to how to reduce waste, especially for communication. Waste management accounts for around 20% of the emissions. Food and water waste accounts for 6% of emissions. Vendors running food stalls can be given recommendations to reduce waste as much as possible. About 0.02% of emissions result from electricity usage for lights and air conditioning. Considerations can be given to make spaces less environmentally controlled if not needed. Process Srijan-Abartan officially started in February 2019, when the Bangladeshi and international participants met in Dhaka for the first time. They visited museums, galleries, cultural sites, monuments, artist studios, factories, workshops, and more. In the process, they spent time together and slowly started to get acquainted with each other. At the end of the eight-day visit, the team agreed on a working structure: the project’s core members would assemble again in Switzerland to conduct an intense schematic design workshop. At that point, the team started collectively brainstorming the project’s name, and unanimously agreed it should be formulated in Bangla. ‘Srijan-Abartan’ in English means creation and revolution/ rotation, speaking to the idea of creating something new using existing structures with negligible changes. In other words, why not see the Bangladesh Shilpakala Building for its potential rather than its shortcomings, and enhance the existing building with local materials and know how, reducing waste and bettering the building for future exhibitions? The resulting plan would be subsequently developed by the Bangladeshi team, with the international participants regularly following up on the process to provide alternative perspectives, thoughts, and ideas on the design. Methodology The schematic codesign workshop took place in Basel in April 2019. The local participants hosted the Bangladeshi participants, which helped strengthen the bonds between the group. Each workshop day started with a collective breakfast, also meant to foster an informal space of togetherness. Through different group dynamics, participants shared references, thoughts, and perspectives around display practices and discussed strategies to challenge the so-called ‘white cube’. Inteza Shariar shared samples of local recyclable, biodegradable, and alternative materials that could be used to build up temporary exhibition displays, for example bamboo, mud, coconut straws, canes, hogla leaves, recycled board, and corrugated boards, jute, coconut ropes, fishing net ropes, cotton ropes, and etc. Considering the widespread vernacular usage of such materials, Shariar stressed the importance of ‘tweaking’ those elements so that they do not appear ordinary or banal to local audiences. The team worked with a 1:50 scale model of the Shilpakala Academy, which could be stacked and unstacked to reveal the different floors and levels of the building. The model helped the participants to analyse the spatial opportunities of the Shilpakala Academy and provided a common ground for discussions. Participants were able to intuitively place the artworks that had been confirmed up to that point, which were also rendered as scale models. The set-up ultimately allowed for team members to play different roles, for example, for the curator to act as an architect or exhibition designer and vice versa. The process eventually led to the sketching of different schematic solutions, which were discussed and consolidated into one plan. The schematic design is currently being developed, refined, and tested. It is supplemented by the set of guidelines overleaf, which were also generated by the group. Guidelines Approach environmental impact holistically Take into account other types of sustainability alongside environmental (i.e. social, cultural, economic, etc.) Design for the experiences of the local audiences instead of those of international audiences (i.e. privilege the use of local language, local script, and local artists/practices/works) In case the minimized displays generate any savings, these should be re-allocated into wages (first local wages and secondly into international wages) Work with the building instead of against it Minimise material resources by building as little as possible (new walls or structures should be essential and sized to support a given set of artworks and not more than that) Place artworks site-specifically where the building already provides the best support (i.e. artworks that require darkness should be allocated to windowless rooms, artworks that require climate control should be placed in rooms with pre-existing air-conditioning, artworks that require security should be allocated to enclosed galleries, etc.) Harness natural light whenever possible (new lights should be added only when necessary, opt for LED tubes as night lights, and a few intentional dramatic/spotlights). Make use of natural ventilation and avoid the use of air-conditioning whenever possible (i.e. AC rooms should be used only for artworks that require climate control or museum conditions) Minimise, recycle, and reuse Opt for reusable or recyclable materials whenever possible Opt for sea freight over air freight whenever possible Opt for local labor, local materials, and local modes of production/fabrication whenever possible Minimise size, page count, and print runs for publications, whenever possible Opt for sustainable curatorial strategies. When selecting and sorting works and planning their transportation, fabrication and building logistics. For example, by opting to produce new commissioned works on site using local materials and local labor For example, by planning ahead so that there is less energy consumption and human stress. Address the actual impact rather than the aesthetics of ecology. Avoid ‘greenwashing’ or ‘symbolic environmental’ moves such as mock/fake usage of natural materials or using natural materials in an unsustainable way Improve the building as a lasting collective resource Clean, fix, restore, renovate, and upgrade existing structures whenever possible; their reuse is also a contribution for future sustainability Strip back unnecessary and redundant past constructions whenever that improves the building's usability for the future (i.e. in terms of circulation, spatial experience or aesthetics) Srijan-Abartan is funded by Pro Helvetia, the Swiss Arts Council, and led by the Swiss design research practice common-interest in collaboration with the Samdani Art Foundation for DAS 2020. The project’s core team is comprised of Diana Campbell Betancourt (chief curator, Dhaka Art Summit), Dries Rodet (architect, Truwant + Rodet), Huraera Jabeen (architect, Brac University), Inteza Shariar (artist/architect, Bangladesh), Khan Md. Mobinul (engineer, Dhaka Art Summit), Mohammad Asifur Rahman (architect, Dhaka Art Summit), Mohammad Sazzad Hossain (head of administration, Dhaka Art Summit), Nina Paim (design researcher, common-interest), and Prem Krishnamurthy (exhibition maker, Wkshps). The team was further supported by the expertise of Ashfika Rahman (freelance artist, Bangladesh) and Shawon Akand (freelance artist and researcher, Bangladesh).
- Khoj International Workshop 2017
ALL PROJECTS Khoj International Workshop 2017 Goa, India Dhaka Art Summit 2016 featured artist Marzia Farhana was selected to be part of the two-month long Khoj International Workshop in 2017, held in Goa, India and supported by the Samdani Art Foundation.
- Statement from Artistic Director | SamdaniArtFoudnation
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
- Breathe In Breathe Out: Susan Philipsz
ALL PROJECTS Breathe In Breathe Out: Susan Philipsz Pathshala South Asian Media Institute & Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy, 10 - 11 April 2017 As part of the Samdani Seminars 2017, Susan Philipsz conducted an open seminar for everyone to learn about her practice using sound and architecture at the Pathshala South Asian Media Institute. She then ran a half-day closed-door workshop along with her partner Eoghan James Mctigue at the Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy. The project was a collaboration between the Samdani Art Foundation and Goethe Institut, Dhaka. Through the seminar and workshop, Susan Philipsz explored acoustic properties of sounds and the relationship between sound and architecture. The workshop concentrated on sounds we make with our own bodies with a particular focus on breath as a metaphor for life and mortality. Breathing is a fundamental part of living, and it is something that unites us all. In classical music, wind instruments require the human breath to activate them. Philipsz wanted to develop a workshop where we use everyday objects to produce sound with our own breath. The workshop was conducted in two parts: PART I: BREATHE IN: INTERNAL SPACE, INTIMATE, CLOSENESS, DARK, QUIET, SOFT, LUNGS, THE BODY. During the workshop, the participants began by focusing on their own breath: how their diaphragm shifts as they expel air from the lungs, making each aware of his/her inner body space. The physicality of producing sound is particularly emphasised when people sing, and Philipsz chose to focus on sound as a sculptural experience. When sound is projected out into the room, the participants defined the space with sound, drawing attention to the architecture while heightening their sense of self within the space. PART II: BREATHE OUT: EXTERNAL SPACE, PUBLIC, OPEN, LIGHT, ARCHITECTURE, DISTANCE, IMMENSITY. The participants explored potential locations in their near-by surroundings with temporary play-back devices. They chose sites that have interesting architecture and acoustics such as corridors and stairwells. Everyone discussed each other's work in-situ and developed the workshop as a group. PARTNERS: Samdani Art FoundationGoethe Institut, Dhaka VENUE PARTNERS: Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy Pathshala South Asian Media Institute SUSAN PHILIPSZ Susan Philipsz has explored the psychological and sculptural potential of sound. She uses recordings, predominantly with her own voice. Creating immersive environments of architecture and song that intensify the audience’s interaction with their surroundings while allowing for insightful introspection. Philipsz often selects music ranging from sixteenth century ballads or Irish folk tunes to David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust . The music is selected and responds to the space where the work is installed. While the works remain unique, all explores familiar themes of loss, longing, hope, and return. This creates a narrative that encourages personal reactions and also bridges gaps between the individual and the collective as well as interior and exterior spaces. Philipsz was born in 1965 in Glasgow and currently lives and works in Berlin. She received a BFA in Sculpture from Duncan of Jordanstone College in Dundee, Scotland in 1993, and an MFA from the University of Ulster in Belfast in 1994. In 2000, she completed a fellowship at MoMA P.S.1. in New York. She was the recipient of the 2010 Turner Prize and was shortlisted for the Glenfiddich Spirit of Scotland Award the same year. Philipsz's work has been exhibited globally at a number of institutions and venues. In 2012, she debuted a major work at dOCUMENTA (13) entitled Study for Strings , which was later featured at the Museum for Modern Art as a part of the group exhibition, Soundings: A Contemporary Score (2013). Philipsz has presented a number of solo exhibitions at institutions to include Museum Ludwig (2009), Cologne, Germany; Wexner Center for the Arts at Ohio State (2009-10) Columbus, OH; Aspen Art Museum (2010-11) in Aspen, Colorado; Museum of Contemporary Art (2011), Chicago; K21 Standehaus Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen (2013), Dusseldorf, Germany; the Carnegie Museum of Art (2013), Pittsburgh; and Hamburger Bahnhof (2014), Berlin. She has separately created installations for the 2007 Skulptur Projekte in Muenster, Germany and for the Carnegie Museum of Art’s 55th Carnegie International in 2008. Major commissions include Turner Prize-winning work for Glasgow International (2010); SURROUND ME: A Song Cycle for the City of London a public project organised by Artangel (2010-11) London; Day is Done , a permanent installation organised by the Trust for Governors Island that opened on Governors Island in New York (2014), and a project for the Grace Farms Foundation (2015) in New Canaan. Philipsz’s work can be found in the collections of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; The Tate, London; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid; Baltimore Museum of Art; Museum Ludwig, Cologne, Germany; Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh; Castello di Rivoli, Italy; and the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis.