Ayesha Sultana, A Space Between
Things, 2015/16, Courtesy Ayesha
Sultana, Dhaka Art Summit, Samdani
Art Foundation and Experimenter,
Kolkata (IN)
Photo: Jenni Carter
Diana Campbell Betancourt
09.08.2017 19:00 / A glimpse into Bangladesh’s grass-roots arts ecology
Location: Galerie 5020
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Language: English
Address: Residenzplatz 10, 5020 SalzburgWhile focused primarily on contemporary art, this talk will trace the development of artist-led institutions in Bangladesh from the late 1970s until today. Most people associate Bangladesh with poverty and ecological and industrial disasters, and are surprised to hear that the oldest still-existing biennial in Asia is in Bangladesh (the Asian Art Biennial, founded in 1981), as well as one of the oldest photography festivals in Asia (the Chobi Mela, founded in 1999), not to mention one of the world’s largest classical music festivals, the Bengal Classical Music Festival. These institutions were built from the ground up by artists who have been receiving unprecedented international mobility over the last five years, featuring in leading exhibitions such as the Biennale di Venezia 2015, Venice (IT), documenta 14, 2017, Athens and Kassel (DE), the 2016 Gwangju Biennial, Gwangju (KR), and many others. The lecture will speak about many of these practices and how they are contributing to the growth of a vibrant local art scene that draws many international visitors to the bi-annual Dhaka Art Summit. -
Diana Campbell Betancourt, born in Los Angeles in 1984, is an American curator based in Manila and Dhaka and has been working across South Asia since 2010. She is the Artistic Director of the SAMDANI ART FOUNDATION in Dhaka and the Chief Curator of the Dhaka Art Summit, which has established itself in the six years since its inception as a pioneering, non-commercial research and exhibition platform for contemporary South Asian art. Betancourt has worked on questions of cross-cultural encounters in public space, and rethinking what public space might mean in non-Western contexts. She was a Henry Moore Institute Fellow for 2015–2016, curator in residence at the FRAC Champagne-Ardenne, a research fellow at the Fukuoka Asian Art Museum for 2016, and has been nominated for the ICI Independent Vision Curatorial Award.
Exhibitions
2018 Dhaka Art Summit, Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy, Dhaka. 2016 8688, Project 88, Mumbai. You Cannot Cross the Sea Merely by Staring at the Waves, curated by_Vienna, Krinzinger Projekte, Wien. Dhaka Art Summit, Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy, Dhaka. Chemical Theater, Art C, Chennai (IN). 2014 Dhaka Art Summit, Solo Projects, Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy, Dhaka. 2013 Audible Forces, Exhibit 320, New Delhi. I Live Under Your Sky Too, Public Art Project, Mumbai. 2012 Energy Plus, Shanghai Biennale, Mumbai City Pavilion, Shanghai (CN). 2010 Natural Renditions, (co-curated with Eric Gleason) Marlborough Gallery Chelsea, New York, NY (US).
Publications
Diana Campbell Betancourt (ed.), Dhaka Art Summit 2016, Mousse Publishing, OCA Norway, 2016.Diana Campbell Betancourt (ed.), Dhaka Art Summit 2016, Samdani Art Foundation, Dhaka 2014.