5th Dhaka Art Summit to begin in the city
The gateway has been built in the shape of a 400 million years old fossil by Argentinian artist Adrián Villar Rojas.
With the theme "Seismic Movements", the 5th Dhaka Art Summit (DAS) is going to take place from 7 to 15 February at Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy. The event will be open to all from 10am to 8pm. The organisers have declared this year's summit to be "plastic free".
500 artists, sculptors, curators, art critics, collectors, architects and media personalities from 44 countries, including 290 emerging artists from Bangladesh, are going to attend this year's DAS.
The Samdani Art Award, supervised by Samdani Art Foundation, is also going to be organised this year. 12 selected Bangladeshi artists are going to display their talent at an international platform, with the partnership of UK based Delphina Foundation.
Nadia Samdani, co-founder and president of Samdani Art Foundation, said, "Dhaka Art Summit is a result of our heart and soul research of two years. By choosing this theme, we have tried to show how movements have shaped us as a nation. There will be exhibitions focused on geological, colonial and social movements, along with language and feminist ones."
Targeting the 100 years of Mujib, a photo exhibition titled "Lighting the Fire of Freedom Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman" is going to be held on the first floor of the academy.
Rajeeb Samdani, co-founder and trustee of Samdani Art Foundation said, "This is going to be one of the best exhibitions of this year. Last time, we had 3.17 lakh visitors and this year we are hoping to break every record of the past years."
To attract visitors, the gateway has been built in the shape of a 400 million years old fossil by Argentinian artist Adrián Villar Rojas.
Biswajit Goswami, one of the curators, is supervising a special exhibition titled "Roots" where he focuses on the life and works of Zainul Abedin, SM Sultan and Quamrul Hassan.
He said, "Artists are the spirit of every movement. Through this year's DAS theme, we have tried to make it visible to people how our art and artists have shaped our movements. Hopefully, it will be a food for thought for our new generation."