Anyone who made it to the last Dhaka Art Summit will be stunned by the scale of this year’s expansion.
Whereas the last event was fairly low-key, with only a single floor of exhibition space, this time DAS is taking over the entire four floors of Shilpakala, the National Academy of Fine and Performing Arts, which boasts a total area of 120,000sqft.
There will be five exhibitions curated by local and international curators, 14 solo art projects, screenings of experimental films, performances, and presentations by 33 local and international galleries, including over 250 artists from across South Asia. More than 75,000 visitors are expected to attend over the three days.
Showing me around the venue is Diana Betancourt, one of the two senior co-curators of the festival.
“It’s a government building, so we can’t paint on or drill holes in any of the structural walls ... so wherever we want to paint, hang works or add lights, we have to install stud-walls and false ceilings,” Diana explains.
The preparation of the building is a huge project in itself; looking about the cavernous space one week before the event, everything is still covered in dust as workmen toil away.
The entire venue is to be re-painted and carpeted, with windows and balconies being blocked off to provide for more wall space.
From a gallery we look down into a room where men sit cross-legged on rugs, drinking tea as they sift through papers.
“An architects’ meeting,” Diana explains. The nature of some of the artworks is such that they require air conditioning, so we’ve had to bring in a whole load of ACs. Of course we don’t like the way they look, and so we’ve had to custom build boxes to hide them in.”
“If there are a certain type of light we want, we can’t rent them here, so we’ve had to go from market to market searching.”
Diana takes me through to a central atrium, where a room-sized box is encased in scaffolding; laborers hang perilously off the side, as they put the finishing touches to the structure’s roof.
“This is for Rashid Rana’s installation. Inside, it’s going to be wallpapered to look like an exhibition room at the Tate in London, but the thousands of pixels which comprise the image are actually tiny photos of Pakistani road signs.”
We step into another vast room that has been painted entirely grey-black, for Shazia Sikhander’s Parallax. “This is another insane project. It’s going to be a 60ft long, three-channel HD video projection. The projectors are ridiculously expensive and being lent to us by the Sheikh of Sharjah, and the tech team to install and operate them are coming from Germany.”
On my way out, I cross a room where baskets lie strewn around the floor. I spot Rana Begum, the Bangladeshi-British artist. Apparently her installation consists of 1,600 had woven baskets that will hang from the ceiling like clusters of petals, “referencing light in the Quran, and immersing the viewer in an innovative play between light and shadow.”
Diana, who spends much time in Hyderabad working for the Creative India Foundation, says the space is one of the best she’s worked in South Aisa,
“The space is so much better than anywhere I’ve had access to in India, and the team is great. There’s no one like Rajeeb [Samdani] in India either, not only in terms of financing but also with regard to his willingness to get involved in the organising; without Rajeeb, none of this would be possible.”
Given the sheer inventiveness – not to mention scale – of some of these projects, I’m sure the overall effect will be awe-inspiring. The summit looks set to be a hugely important step for Bangladesh’s standing in the international arts scene. Not one to be missed.