Bonna And Her Sisters Discuss Names, Collaboration, And Institutional Relevance In A Newly Born World
The opening panel brought Bonna together with her sisters, those from Natasha at Singapore Biennale, EVA of Ireland’s Biennial, and Melly of Kunstinstitut Melly in the Netherlands together in conversation as sisters who consider the shift in how they see themselves as institutions and exhibition platforms, learning and unlearning how to be relevant in a world that shifted seismically since the closing of DAS 2020, especially in the wake of climate catastrophes pummeling the planet.
Binna Choi (Natasha, Singapore Biennale, and CASCO in Utrecht), Diana Campbell (Bonna; Dhaka Art Summit), Sebastian Cichocki (EVA International, Ireland’s Biennial, and the Museum of Modern art in Warsaw), Vivian Ziherl (Kunstinstitut Melly, formerly Witte de With).
Venue: Auditorium, Dhaka Art Summit, National Art Gallery, Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy
Time: 2pm
Date: 3rd February 2023
The Power Of Orality; Lore, The Loristic, And Living Memory
Introduced by Sharlina Hussain-Morgan Cultural Attaché, U.S. Embassy Dhaka
Foregrounding the spoken word and the auditory over the written, this panel engages with the oral as a vast resource holding together the folk and indigenous cultural expressions and way of life. As community scholars, folklorists, oral discourse experts, and writers embedded in the retellings of the folk, the invited speakers address different aspects of oral/oralities, its joys, performativity and form of instituting knowledge and transference from one body to another. This first gathering is organized as part of Transcultural Folklore Research Forum, a parallel appendage to Very Small Feelings.
Esther Syiem (North-Eastern Hill University, Shillong), Kanak Chanpa Chakma (Artist, Rangamati), Mohammad Rezuwan (Folklorist and Writer, Cox’s Bazaar), Michael Bevacqua (University of Guam, Guam Museum), Somi Roy (Culture Conservationist, Writer and Translator, Manipur).
Venue: Auditorium, Dhaka Art Summit, National Art Gallery, Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy
Time: 5 pm
Date: 3rd February, 2023
Srihatta In Sylhet, A Journey From An Idea To A Context, To A Building, Towards An Institution
The Samdani Art Foundation shared inspiration and details of its soon to be open first permanent art center in Sylhet, Bangladesh, slated for January 2024.
Kashef Mahboob Chowdhury (URBANA), Diana Campbell (Samdani Art Foundation), and Nadia Samdani (Samdani Art Foundation) with Beatrix Ruf (Hartwig Art Foundation)
Venue: Auditorium, Dhaka Art Summit, National Art Gallery, Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy
Time: 2pm
Date: 4th February 2023
On Making Sculptures And Buildings Dance
This panel brought together practitioners who tend to be defined as sculptor, theater practitioner, architect, artist, and curator, but whose practices confound categorization. Dancing across disciplines, they discussed their DAS commissions and their ongoing collaborative work which seeks to expand the reach of what art can be in life.
Antony Gormley, Miet Warlop, Suchi Reddy, Sumayya Vally, Yasmin Jahan Nupur with Diana Campbell
Venue: Auditorium, Dhaka Art Summit, National Art Gallery, Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy
Time: 3:30pm
Date: 4th February, 2023
Artistic Pedagogies
This panel brought together artistic practices that lie at the intersection of community engagement and experimental pedagogy, creatively filling in for the infrastructural, social and ecological gaps that alienate large numbers of communities and groups from access to education and learning. Panelists addressed the role and power of facilitation, the economy of sources and resources in spaces/contexts of abundance and scarcity.
Ahmet Öğüt, Anga Art Collective, Ashfika Rahman, Lokesh Khodke, Marzia Farhana, moderated by Akansha Rastogi
The panel was supported by Goethe Institut Dhaka
Venue: Auditorium, Dhaka Art Summit, National Art Gallery, Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy
Time: 11 am
Date: 5th February, 2023
Padma Book Launch With Kazi Khaled Ashraf
The session launches the new book The Great Padma: The River that Made the Bengal Delta, and discusses the river as an existential phenomenon in the life of Bengal. The Padma draws us to the ancient reservoir of our existence; it is the very theater of the creation of land and life. Often called Kirtinasha, the destroyer of human glories, the Padma has also gifted the land that makes the Bengal Delta exist in a perpetual dynamic of flow and overflow, and accretion and erosion. Edited by Kazi Khaleed Ashraf, with a preface by Amitav Ghosh, the book The Great Padma reveals the magnificence and diversity of the great river, assembling historians, geographers, anthropologists, architects, photographers, and people from other cultural disciplines to tell the monumental story of the Padma.
Kazi Khaleed Ashraf in discussion with Arijit Chatterjee, Syed Manzoorul Islam, David Ludden, and Parsa Sanjana Sajid
Venue: Auditorium, Dhaka Art Summit, National Art Gallery, Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy
Time: 2 pm
Date: 5th February, 2023
Living In Impermanence: Designing Spaces In A Refugee Response
Life in a refugee camp is often seen as an impermanent thing, where in reality it actually becomes a big part of a person living as a refugee’s life. An inclusive and healthy environment in a camp is thus very important for the well- being of both the displaced and host communities. From 2018 to 2022, working with the Rohingya refugees as well as the surrounding Bangladeshi hosting communities in the Ukhiya-Teknaf area, has never been about one particular space, but rather about collaborating together in a crisis situation to overcome unexpected challenges over time.
Khwaja Fatmi, Rizvi Hassan, moderated by Shahirah Majumdar
Venue: Auditorium, Dhaka Art Summit, National Art Gallery, Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy
Time: 7 pm
Date: 5th February, 2023
The Duality Of The Delta
Diverse life experiences manifest in our deep sensory connections with the environment. While communal resilience enables people to be one with their land, activism reinforces shared and proactive practices. An Ornithologist, Advocate, Community Architect, Artist and AN Environmental Economist will engage in collective storytelling to expand micro and macro details of their shared journeys to evoke varied insights, and elaborate on the tremendous creative opportunities we have to contribute to a better environment.
Bishwajit Goswami, Enam Ul Haque, Khondaker Hasibul Kabir, Shouro Dasgupta, Syeda Rizwana Hasan, moderated by Huraera Jabeen
Venue: Auditorium, Dhaka Art Summit, National Art Gallery, Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy
Time: 5:30pm
Date: 10th February, 2023
ON GATHERING by Nikima Jagudajev
In collaboration with WIELS in Brussels, Nikima Jagudajev is developing work inspired by how people gather in Bangladesh in Dhaka Art Summit, and this talk will delve into their experience interacting with the visitors and watching visitors interact with each other during the Summit. Jagudajev's process based collaborative practice looks at social forms; social relations as spatial relations and how we assemble in fulfilling and considerate ways. Harnessing the choreography of play as a framework, performers (Conduit) and visitors (Arrivor) are incorporated into an open-ended game. World building is aided by a group of artists who shape the playground with elements such as live music, food, a deck of collectable cards, secrets and nonlinear dance choreographies that fold in on themselves like portals through time. These elements work as informal invitations to engage in different ways, shifting attention and offering agency and ontological transformation. Like 3-dimensional Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPG) this mythopoeic world is both serious and playful, enchanted with meaning and full of mods. One’s experience is determined by the games’ formal properties as well as the interaction of various interpreting subjectivities.
Nikima Jagudajev, Helena Kritis and Ruxmini Reckvana Q Choudhury
Venue: Auditorium, Dhaka Art Summit, National Art Gallery, Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy
Time: 5 PM
Date: 11th February 2023