Dhaka Art Summit 2020 Announces Participating Artists

On September 11, the Dhaka Art Summit (DAS) revealed a partial list of artists participating in its upcoming fifth edition. Titled “Seismic Movements” and helmed by chief curator Diana Campbell Betancourt, DAS 2020 will feature contributions by some 500 artists, scholars, and curators across its nine-day program of exhibitions, performances, and panel discussions. The summit will open on February 7 next year at the Shilpakala Academy, located in the city’s University district. 

According to the press release, DAS 2020 departs from the idea of seismic activity as a transformative force unbounded by socially or politically constructed definitions of territory. The festival will branch out to address different meanings and applications of the word “movement,” spanning geological and geographical conceptions as well as major political, social, and cultural shifts effected by colonialism, feminism, modernism, and struggles for independence.

A highlight of DAS 2020 is Adrián Villar Rojas’s The Theater of Disappearance (2017), a monumental installation of 400-million-year-old ammonite and orthoceras fossils reflecting on the limits of human temporal concepts in comparison to geological timescales. The work will become a permanent pavilion at Srihatta: Samdani Art Center and Sculpture Park after DAS 2020. The festival also includes a special exhibition, “On Muzharul Islam: Surfacing Intention,” which pays tribute to the late Bangladeshi architect and political activist, and considers the theme of “spatial movement.” Curated by Campbell Betancourt, Muzharul Islam Archive director Nurur Khan, and Sean Anderson, associate curator of architecture and design at New York’s Museum of Modern Art, the exhibition will debut 12 new commissions by 17 artists, including Delhi-based painter Tanya Goel and British-Bangladeshi artist Rana Begum. 

DAS 2020 will also host a series of workshops and talks centered on the development of grassroots cultural institutions, in collaboration with Dakar’s RAW Material Company, Jakarta-based Gudskul, Sydney’s Artspace, Hong Kong nonprofit Para Site, and Dubai’s Alserkal. In conjunction, DAS 2020 will launch a research project, supported by the Getty Foundation’s Connecting Art Histories initiative, titled “Connecting Modern Art Histories in and across Africa, South and Southeast Asia” in partnership with the Institute for Comparative Modernities at Cornell University and Hong Kong’s Asia Art Archive. Researchers will take part in daily art-historical discussions at the DAS auditorium.

Among the participating artists are: 

Adrián Villar Rojas (Argentina)

Akaliko (Bangladesh)

Aman Iwan (France)

Art Labor (Vietnam)

ArtPro (Bangladesh)

Artree Nepal 

Back Art (Bangladesh)

Bangladesh Garment Sromik Samhati (Bangladesh)

Britto Art Trust (Bangladesh)

Calpulli Tecalco (Mexico)

Center for Historical Reenactments (South Africa)

Charupith (Bangladesh)

Chimurenga (South Africa)

Chitra Ganesh (US)

Clarissa Tossin (Brazil)

Depth of Field (Nigeria)

Drik/Chobi Mela/Pathshala (Bangladesh)

Ellen Gallagher (US)

Gidree Bawlee Foundation of Arts (Bangladesh)

Green Papaya (Philippines)

Gudskul (ruangrupa, Serrum and Grafis Huru Hara) (Indonesia)

Héctor Zamora (Mexico / Portugal)

Hill Artist Group (Bangladesh)

Hong Kong Artist Union (Hong Kong)

Invisible Borders (Nigeria)

Jatiwangi Art Factory (Indonesia)

Jog Art Space (Bangladesh)

Jothashilpa (Bangladesh)

Kamruzzaman Shadhin (Bangladesh)

Kapwani Kiwanga (Canada / France) 

Laboratoire Agit’Art (Senegal)

Liu Chuang (China)

Maryam Jafri (US / Denmark)

Mata Aho Collective (Aotearoa)

Murtaja Baseer (Bangladesh)

Nilima Sheikh (India)

Otobong Nkanga (Nigeria / Belgium) 

Pangrok Sulap (Malaysia)

Quamrul Hassan (India / Bangladesh)

Rashid Talukder (Bangladesh)

Samsul Alam Helal (Bangladesh) 

Sawangwongse Yawnghwe (Myanmar) 

Shako (Bangladesh)

Shelter Promotion Council (India)

Shoni Mongol Adda (Bangladesh)

Students’ Educational and Cultural Movement of Ladakh SECMOL (India)

Taloi Havini (Australia) 

Thao Nguyen Phan (Vietnam) 

The Otolith Group (UK)

Trovoa (Brazil)

Ueinzz Theatre Group (Brazil)

Uronto Artist Community (Bangladesh)

Zainul Abedin (Bangladesh) 

*This article was originally published on September 12 and was briefly removed after the director of cultural affairs at Samdani Art Foundation called AAP to say that some of the artist names provided by Pelham Communications had not in fact been confirmed yet. The names above have been publicly released.

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