Dhaka Art Summit '23: Perceiving 'Bonna' in all its manifestations

Our first glimpse of the Dhaka Art Summit '23 involved sitting inside an installation art called 'Very Small Feelings'. You can step inside the installation and interact with it. Made primarily from textiles, the piece, created by Dutch artist Afra Marciel Eisma, encircles you with colour.  

Inside, there are children's books from the former Soviet Union translated into subcontinental languages, including Bangla. There is also a cat without a tail, and a matryoshka doll with no other dolls inside. It speaks to both children and adults at the same time. With both of them, you feel like you feel like something is missing, but they also ask you to explore a philosophical question: 'just because I am broken, do I need fixing?' or 'should I only focus on my emptiness?' 

"You are going to see swings and trampolines in here! Just because it's silly doesn't mean it is not deeply serious," said Diana Campbell, Artistic Director of the Samdani Art Foundation and the Chief Curator of the Dhaka Art Summit. 

This year's Dhaka Art Summit is themed around 'Bonna' in all of its definitions. 

"We are imagining Bonna as a young girl. In a way, it kind of shows the maturity of the Summit, because we are giving young people a platform to speak. As a child, it is a place where you are given room to make mistakes, you can ask questions, you can release your emotions, and it's a place of possibility," explained Campbell. 

"All of us form a child through the stories we tell, the way we speak to them; the way a child views the world is all based on us. So we're kind of building their future. The Summit is a way of building the future of an art scene, but also listening to the idea of a little girl." 

"I have worked in many places in the world and I can say that women are very empowered in Bangladesh. People don't really understand that. When the global imagination is still set on the idea of female infanticide, it is a good time to actually listen to girls, give them a chance to talk and to express themselves.  Bonna is not really about floods, it's really not about little girls and it's really not about translations. Rather, it is about all of those things," she added.   

Campbell grew up in the United States. She studied Economics, Finance and Chinese at Princeton University. "I also studied art history, but it's not my main degree. I loved art, but I was educated to be a banker."

"I loved art my whole life. In the Getty Villa of Los Angeles, when I was about four, I was blown by all the amazing pieces of furniture and artwork. I told my parents I wanted to live there, but my parents said that if I lived there, my toys would be everywhere, and museums were places to share. That was an early lesson in sharing, which I thought was a good idea. That kind of stuck with me and that spirit is what this summit is about too, it's a place for sharing."  

Campbell has been working for the Samdani Art Foundation for the past 10 years. The Samdanis came up with the idea of organising the Summit, but as the curator it is Campbell who designs the concepts for the shows. 

Brainstorming these ideas, however, is a lengthy process with lots of conversations and discussions. 

Campbell came up with the idea of Bonna after a conversation she had with Filipino-American artist Josh Klien. They spoke about how every single culture has a flood myth, which Campbell found deeply interesting. A few years later, a Nigerian artist brought to Campbell's attention that floods in Bangladesh weren't as big of a problem until the British colonised the region. 

"She came to me with those big eyes because she was so excited about a conversation she had with a researcher. Of course floods were a problem, but people were building architecture for floods. It was a reality and you planned for it. But suddenly this became something you couldn't handle when you're taking a British system and trying to extract goods at all times of the year," Campbell said. "I also read an article in the BBC about this name Bonna and suddenly all of these ideas just came together." 

However, before deciding on the theme, Campbell also had a discussion with all of the art mediators and volunteers about what they thought about the concept.     

While all of the exhibits will have independent themes and messages, they are all connected though one message: hope. As Campbell explained, "Every culture has a flood myth, yet most of us are around to talk about it. It's about how not to be defeatist. That's something I love about Bangladesh, you can get shut down by problems and challenges, but here people actually rise to the occasion and find a solution. When you block a river, it finds another way to move." 

During the opening performance at 11 AM of the Dhaka Art Summit '23 on February 3, titled 'Chant for Hope' by Belgian artist Miet Warlop, the artist will be handing out plaster sculptures of Bangla words. The audience will be able to take these artworks with them for free. 

"We don't want to show the same artists who are shown in Shilpakala every single day. Bangladesh has a thriving art scene. But that is not the Dhaka Art Summit. The Dhaka Art Summit is trying to show something different," said Campbell. 

"It's about the dialogue that artworks create when placed together. I have examples of incredible works of art, but they don't fit together with the narrative of the other works. We tried to create a balance between the mediums – a balance between painting, performance, film, etc. I was also very interested in people pushing the boundaries of what that medium can do. Imagine including tons of work about floods, this would be the most literal show known to man. But as I mentioned, Bonna means flood, but it also doesn't," she added.