Durjoy Rahman of Durjoy Bangladesh Foundation addresses the audience at the AVPN South Asia Summit

A pioneering conference in India is seeking to kick start venture philanthropy in South Asia

‘We had a strong sense that our projects had a lack of effectiveness. Add to that the lack of transparency as well as poor methods of measuring impact, and it became clear that something needed to be done.’

On a charity fundraising trip in 2002, Doug Miller realised the futility of his friends’ and his impact ventures in private equity. Unlike traditional investments, metrics were undeveloped, and methods and final impact opaque. In short, a lot of capital and time was being spent with the best of intentions but with limited results.

In response to this, Miller developed the European Venture Philanthropy Association (EVPA) in 2004 and the Asian Venture Philanthropy Network (AVPN) in 2011, bringing a collaborative approach to venture philanthropy through exchanges with impact investment.

His successor is the overwhelmingly accoladed Naina Subberwal Batra, CEO of AVPN and Chair of the International Venture Philanthropy Center, proclaimed one of Asia’s Most Influential by Tatler Asia in 2021 and awarded awarded one of Asia’s Top Sustainability Superwomen by CSRWorks. Batra presided over the latest AVPN South Asia Summit in Mumbai earlier this month; it was the first of these conferences to take place in person, last year’s inaugural edition having taken place virtually. This year’s theme was ‘Bringing Fringes to the Fore”, and it brought together individual philanthropists from culture, education and social impact, and major global companies and organisations.

Durjoy Rahman, a philanthropist from Bangladesh engaged in South Asian art and culture, focused around the creative realm and cultural soft power. Speaking of the cultural world, he said that one of the missions of this Durjoy Bangladesh Foundation was to show that the cultural world “does not need to be seen or judged by the West’s historical perspective”. Durjoy said he is finding this message is finding resonance both in the rest of the Global South, and also in the traditional cultural capitals of the West.

AVPN South Asia Summit brings together philanthropists, venuture capitalists and other leasers to promote the field of venture philanthropy

“It is important to lead the conversation, and to do so needs to involve a multilateral, global conversation. It’s not about doing something and broadcasting information about what we do: multiple dialogues are the way to ensure we engage with like-minded individuals and institutions around the world.”

Durjoy also spoke about how the creative realm can contribute to future-ready education; and specifically, how the creative and cultural field can play a “soft power” role in influencing international views of Bangladesh, a country only founded in 1971 which previously had a negative economic reputation but is now one of the fastest-growing economies in the region.

The same panel, moderated by Vivek Agarwal of the Tony Blair Institute, also focused on educational reform, and featured Dr. Akhil Shahani, Managing Director of The Shahani Group, Dr. Nivedita Narain, CEO of OneStage and Rakshit Kejriwal, President of Phillips Education, speaking about empowerment in employability.

With a history of philanthropic infrastructure lacking in Asia, AVPN CEO Batra is building a network, catering to models that suit the collective regional story and its challenges, moving from a purist venture philanthropy, focused on empowering voices and expanding the network at all costs.

Venture philanthropy itself is a relatively new field, pioneered in the US and now making inroads around the world. It combines elements of traditional philanthropy, where a return is measured purely on the impact of the philanthropic aims, and traditional venture capital seeking a return. There is a prevailing view now that this maximises returns on both levels.

The AVPN conference is aimed to be an interregional weaving of thought leaders and industry experts, where a collective regional story is conducive to progress as opposed to challenging it. Its brief spans culture and education, as well as sustainable development goals.

Left to right: Vivek Agarwal, Dr Akhil Shahani, Rakshit Kejriwal, Durjoy Rahman at the AVPN Summit after their talk on future-ready education

A conference on social impact and sustainable development runs the risk of empty pledges. But not at AVPN – Lavanya Jayaram, South Asia Regional Director, ensured animated conversations, with stakeholders ‘debating unique regional challenges and solutions towards charting a roadmap for philanthropy and impact investing in the South Asian region.’. Founder Doug Miller’s aversion to inaction charged the summit, which hosted over 70 speakers over 27 sessions, a variety of panel discussions, keynote speeches, workshops and ‘fireside chats’. The agenda is also interspersed with networking opportunities, encouraging an ongoing dialogue between speeches, to expand the AVPN ecosystem, with over 600 members across 33 markets and its own academy dedicated to teaching skills in impact investment.

In the wake of environmental disasters that struck the region over the past year, the 2023 summit featured panel discussions on climate resilience and energy transitions in South Asia. Speakers such as Prerana Langa of Aga Khan Agency for Habitat India, developing network based models for disaster risk reduction and biodiversity conservation, spoke particularly to this year’s floods and industrial accidents in Bangladesh, bringing investors into contact with means of making effective impact.

Read more: Cyrill Gutsch on saving the oceans through art and collaboration

A panel discussion dedicated to ‘Bridging the Borders’ and ‘Global Perspectives’ brings as one of the speakers Sanjay Gujral of Everstone Capital, a private equity firm investing across the South Asian landscape, further engaging investment in a cross cultural design. Indian cricket legend Sunil Gavaskar also spoke about finding purpose in philanthropy.

The conference equally addressed gender gaps and supporting women within the economy through talks on gender lens investing, furthered by AVPN’s Asia Gender Network, backed by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which seeks to advance equality through representation in leadership positions, economic empowerment and education, just to name a few.

Through a multiplicity of sectors and regions, the South Asian Summit is driving a collective effort in sustainable development and in centralising fringe communities in the discussion. The phrase ‘catalytic platforms’ is often thrown around, and yet could not be more apt in such dynamic conversations taking place. The Summit, through the focused involvement of leaders in their fields, is set to catalyse significant change in important and evolving areas. – Olivia Cavigioli

Find out more: avpn.asia

Stacey Gillian Abe, Whispers Of Sorghum, 2023

The renowned British curator behind the hit art show ‘In the Black Fantastic’, Ekow Eshun, speaks to Candice Tucker about his curatorial process and his most recent exhibition showing at Claridge’s ArtSpace, London, titled Like Paradise

LUX: Can you tell us about the inspiration behind Like Paradise?
Ekow Eshun: Really the inspiration for the show lies in the work of a number of the artists that are in the show. I was interested in the way an artist like Frank Bowling, who is a great senior figure in the art world, historically, has looked at landscape, and looked at that from a few different perspectives. Frank Bowling used to have a studio beside the River Thames, and was very inspired by the Thames to make works that are lyrical and abstract; that don’t look like water but feel like water.

I started to think about his work, some of the work of other artists, and I began thinking about how different artists, of colour, artists from the African Diaspora, artists of South Asian background, and how a number of them are working and thinking about the visual poetry and possibility of landscape, and how they’re using that as a way to think aloud and create different narratives about the position of people of colour in British society.

LUX: Historically people of colour have been excluded from narratives about the countryside. How does this pervade into perceptions of race in current day politics?
EE: I would say those histories remain part of our present day. Britain’s a fascinating place. It’s very invested and we’re very invested as a country in ideas of landscape and nature and ideas that the countryside is where the real Britain lies and so on. So, the question comes then, when, if you’ve been historically excluded from that, where do you stand in the present day? I would say, to some extent, you stand as a stranger.

Sometimes even walking through the countryside can feel alienating to some extent. I think, with this show, I found some real inspiration in the way that artists are working with those themes, but then creating work that is thoughtful, and also inspiring, and reflective, and expansive.

Shannon Bono, Surrendering to his will, 2023

I was really excited by how many different artists are reclaiming the countryside. Maybe even on behalf of all of us and as a consequence writing a different story about not just the relationship of people of colour to landscape, but also how we, as a country, as a nation, might understand and think about and explore our world.

LUX: Black and South Asian artists come together in the exhibition. In your view, what value comes from putting different cultures in dialogue with each other in this way?
EE: We live in a multicultural society. I think more voices, not less voices, seems to be a good thing. But also when you do that, you come out with different perspectives. So, Osman Yousefzada, who’s in the show, is an artist of South Asian background. We see his work, it’s a big textile piece, but it’s drawing on myth. It’s drawing on belief systems. It’s drawing on his roots and identity in South Asia.

Follow LUX on Instagram: luxthemagazine

I guess one of the things that excites me is that you can think about or look at the work of almost any artist, and they might be from India or Pakistan, South Asia, African origin or Caribbean origin, and they’ll potentially be reaching into their personal histories, or they’ll be reaching out geographically to their familial connections. Consequently, you don’t know, really, what will come out of that.

The exciting thing for me, in terms of putting together a show, is that you invite different perspectives. It’s not just the fact of having artists of African diaspora origin and South Asian artists in the same space. The point is to have the conversation about different perspectives and points of view and the possibilities that might arise out of all of that. So, it’s the conversation between those artworks. It’s a conversation between cultures. It’s an intertwining of perspectives and identities and histories.

Sam Ross, Earth – interior – descend, 2023

LUX: Tell us about your curatorial process. How do you choose which artists to feature, and which works will complement each other best?
EE: I always look at the work of artists that I’m inspired by, that I admire, and I always have a running list in my head of artists that I would like to approach, artists that I would like to work with. So, doing a show is a good opportunity to reach out to some of those artists. But you’re also trying to put together a kind of mosaic. If I have one or two abstract artists, trying to measure those up, possibly with some figuration. Maybe I have some photography; it’s about trying to balance the whole thing.

Part of the skill of it, I like to think, or the challenge, let’s say, of putting on the show is, can you create an exhibition that works on different registers or tones at the same time? Thematically, can you find a connection across the artworks? But also, aesthetically, can you find ways that works speak to each other, perhaps in terms of their form, i.e. abstraction or vibration, but also, sometimes, just even the different colours that come to the surface when you start to gather the works together. The truth is, partly I’m working through guesswork, partly I’m working through these artists who are engaged in a similar set of exploration, so what happens when you put them together?

LUX: Are there any particular works that you think particularly complement each other?
EE: There’s more than a few of them! We have the work by Frank Bowling. It’s a large abstract work in pinks and blues and yellows and greens. Across, opposite from the space, there’s an abstract work by Samuel Ross, who’s known as a designer as much as he is a visual artist. It’s an abstract work in denser shades of reds and browns. It’s a heavier painting in some ways, but both of these are works that, again, are exploring the physicality or the possibility of landscape and light and Earth almost kind of in itself.

But then we can look over across the room. There are two paintings by an artist called Kimathi Donkor, which show black people in landscape, apparently enjoying themselves out in the sunshine. You see some of the same colours that are in Frank Bowling’s work echoed in those paintings and you start to see how from one work to another, the colour and tone start to replay itself. So, one work can mirror another in terms of its form, in terms of abstraction or in terms of its colour scheme. You hope overall there are enough threads and continuities that can take you through the space. A lot of that stuff, you don’t spell out, you just possibly see. I guess the satisfaction is if you know it’s there and it’s waiting to be discovered.

Frank Bowling, As Above So Below, 2020

LUX: Your recent exhibition In the Black Fantastic at the Hayward Gallery explored Afrofuturism, which is often associated with science, technology and urban areas. How has focusing on rural settings in this exhibition been different, and do you see the different areas interact?
EE: In a way, one of them I think leads into the other, in that one of the things I was trying to do in In the Black Fantastic was get away from notions of Afrofuturism that are just related to technology and so on. I was interested in water. I was interested in the visual poetry that comes from artists considering feeling like they are in a strange place, reckoning on the strangeness of the everyday.

In fact, I would say that In the Black Fantastic looks at speculation and myth, and so it’s actually really grounded in trying to think about how the ordinary in the everyday can actually itself be a site of strangeness and possibility. In a way, this show does something similar in that we take what’s perhaps is a more commonplace commodity, which is just the natural world, but actually we look at it with the capacity for wonder, the capacity for gazing into possibility that artists bring.

Read more: Italy Art Focus: Patrizia Sandretto Re Rebaudengo

The great thing about putting an exhibition to work with artists is that they have an absolute capacity to render the everyday in astonishing tonalities. There’s a painting downstairs by Hurvin Anderson which shows a woman on a beach but it’s dazzling, perplexing, charismatic, and compelling. It doesn’t take for granted the ordinary and in that respect, I think I’d suggest there’s a linkage from one show to the other show.

LUX: What needs to change in terms of representation in the art world?
EE: I tend not to think too much, “oh, this should change” or “this needs to change.” I tend to think, “well, okay, what can I do in my own way?” In that way, I try to put together shows that reflect aspects of the world as I see it and perhaps, I think, as some of those artists see it. I’d like to think that the result of that is a show that has beauty and possibility at its core. I think maybe the role of a curator can be to open up the space.

Like Paradise is available to view at Claridge’s ArtSpace, London

Sana Rezwan at Barwara Kothi, Jaipur

Sana Rezwan is a thoroughly modern entrepreneur and philanthropist, living and working in London, then New York, before recently moving back to her native India. Now she is upping the ante with ambitious plans to raise the profile of South Asian art around the world. Reaching for the sky is in her blood, she explains to LUX

LUX: Is there a new awareness of South Asian art?
Sana Rezwan: Yes, it is an exciting time. There have been many calls for the art world to be more inclusive in recent years, and there is now an openness to new voices. This wasn’t the case a few years ago. Museums and collectors are finally open to ideas from South Asian artists.

LUX: What is your focus as a collector?
SR: One focus is on South Asian female artists who have been overlooked by the market, or written off by institutions and galleries. Having spent the past year in India, I have met so many female artists whose work I feel needs global recognition. There is a chance now to open the barriers to let such artists come to light.

LUX: Which artists are interesting you today?
SR: I am passionate about the late Zarina. She used printmaking mediums, such as silkscreen and woodblock, and made print series around concepts such as displacement. I love Bharti Kher’s use of found objects to convey her position as an artist between milieus. I admire Rana Begum for her use of repetitive geometric patterns, inspired by minimalism and her memories of daily recitals of the Qur’an.

A private-collection visit for The Cultivist with Krishna Choudhary of Royal Gems and Arts, Jaipur

LUX: Can South Asia be seen as one region?
SR: We use the term broadly to designate a category, but there is a multiplicity of cultures, religions and traditions within South Asian art, which makes the art you encounter so exciting.

LUX: Why did you move back to India?
SR: I believe India is where I can best engage with and promote the work of South Asian artists to the world. In 2022, I set up Public Arts Trust of India (PATI) to commission art in global collaboration with galleries, institutions and museums, to be shown in public spaces in India.

Follow LUX on Instagram: luxthemagazine

LUX: What role can philanthropy play?
SR: It can offer ways to extend the reach of the arts. Through philanthropy, we intend to build discourse around urban spaces and heritage structures as sites for engagement through art to inspire reflection and a sense of community. This extends to sustaining cultural conversations globally through supporting residencies, commissions and trans-disciplinary practices.

Artist Tanya Goel’s New Delhi studio

LUX: Is interest from global collectors rising?
SR: Yes, in India we are seeing a great number of international collectors visiting India each year, and the intent of my project is to keep them coming. We will also host encounters in London, Paris and New York to promote cultural exchange and generate awareness. Through my agency The Art Lab, I put together a programme for 14 members of global arts club The Cultivist for a trip to Jaipur and Delhi. We looked at craft, jewellery, design, we went to art fairs and made visits to studios and private collectors. It was very successful. About 75 per cent of collectors bought and started collecting through the trip. It inspired them to explore art from the region.

LUX: What are the challenges for philanthropists in India?
SR: One is to bridge a gap that is not currently served by the government in supporting art. They also have the challenge of building platforms to ngage the public in art, and of finding solutions for generating income for arts organisations to create meaningful jobs in the art world.

LUX: What have you learnt as a collector?
SR: I finally found my calling by moving back to India. My experiences in London and New York have made me well positioned to work as an ambassador for the Indian scene. My goal is to create appreciation for art, support for the local art market and invest in art education.

Yulia Dultsina at the residence of Akanksha and Tarang Arora of Amrapali, Jaipur

LUX: Which two living artists would you invite to dinner, and which two of the past?
SR: Shilpa Gupta and Ishita Chakraborty – to learn about their research and practice. From the past, Swedish artist Hilma af Klint, whose work is spiritual and profound, and Zarina.

LUX: Your advice to unknown female artists?
SR: Keep creating. Plans are under way to generate platforms for your work to be seen and appreciated by the global art community.

Read more: Sam Dalrymple and Durjoy Rahman On Cultural Reconnections Post-Partition

LUX: Will South Asian cultures come to see being an artist as a respectable way of life?
SR: For centuries, South Asia has had a history of nurturing creative talent, craftsmanship and artistic sensibility. It is now our responsibility to show today’s artists’ work to the world and have them be considered seriously.

Find out more:
publicartstrustofindia.org
theartlab.studio

This article was first published in the Spring/Summer 2023 issue of LUX

Matthew Krishanu with Riverboat, in 2021. Photograph by Jean-Noël Schramm

British-Indian artist Matthew Krishanu’s paintings offer a nuanced exploration of cultural identity, memory, and personal experience. LUX looks at his works and career through an autobiographical lens

Matthew Krishanu was born in Bradford, England to an Indian mother and a white English father, before moving to Bangladesh where he spent 11 years of his childhood, returning to the UK at age 12. The experience of growing up between two cultures has had a profound impact on his work, which often reflects on the tensions and complexities of cultural identity.

Archers, 2021, part of the Durjoy Bangladesh Foundation. Photograph by Peter Mallet

His figurative paintings have a distinctive flatness, compounded by the use of vivid, block colours and ambiguous, even distant, facial expressions. He explores themes of family and grief, religion and race, childhood and memory, with many of his paintings representing his early years in Bangladesh.

For one of his most famous shows, ‘Another Country’ (2014) at the Nunnery Gallery in London, Krishanu worked from old photographs, and his own memories and imagination to reconstruct images from his childhood. The viewer is transported not only to another continent, but to another time, entering the artist’s personal past, remembered landscapes, moments, his relationship with his older brother.

Two Boys on Rocks, 2022, from the series Another Country. Photograph by Peter Mallet

When the artist was asked where feels most like home to him, the UK or Bangladesh, Krishanu responded, ““I have lived in England for over three decades, and London in particular feels like home now. However, the world of the ‘two boys’ (Bangladesh and India) feels like home to them – the places I paint are the home of my childhood.”

Safari 2021, part of the the Durjoy Bangladesh Foundation. Photography by Peter Mallet

In other works, Krishanu explores faith and religion and this way in which they relate to race and colonial history, a key part of his own personal experience as the son of a Christian missionary in South Asia. Paintings such as “Ordination” (2017) observe unsettling power dynamics relating to complex religious politics of Bangladesh, while in his contribution to Southbank’s ‘Everyday Heroes’ exhibition (2020), he pays tribute to the faith workers from different races and religions and their contributions to their communities during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Ordination, 2017, from the series Mission. Photograph by Peter Mallet

In 2021, he exhibited ‘In Sickness and Health’ at Leamington Spa Art Gallery and Museum, a series of profoundly intimate paintings, including several of his late wife at different moments throughout their relationship, and his daughter as a newborn baby. In one painting his wife appears bright-eyed in a wedding dress, while in others she is receiving hospital treatment towards the end of her life. The series acts as a quiet and calm, yet deeply emotional study of not just grief and loss, but the vulnerability and changeability of the human body.

Krishanu explains, “I am interested in how one’s emotional connection to a subject can be communicated in the paint handling, colour, atmosphere and feeling of a painting. It’s something I look for in painters I love – and I feel creates a point of entry for the viewer.”

In Sickness and in Health, Mead Gallery, 2022. Photograph by Ed Florance

The artist graduated from the University of Exeter with a BA in Fine Art and English Literature and went on to complete a master’s degree in Fine Art at Central Saint Martins in 2009. Since then, he has exhibited his work in solo and group shows across the UK and internationally, including shows in India, China, Pakistan, Germany and the US.

Read more: Sam Dalrymple and Durjoy Rahman On Cultural Reconnections Post-Partition

His work is included in numerous major collections, including the Arts Council Collection, Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, Government Art Collection UK, Komechak Art Gallery and the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art..

Four Children (Verandah), 2022, from the series Expatriates. Photograph by Peter Mallet

Krishanu continues to invite his readers to share in the rich narratives of his personal and cultural history, as well as their own. His first trade monography was published in March 2023 and features a selection of his works, including ‘Another Country’, ‘Expatriates’, ‘Mission’, ‘House of God’, ‘Religious Workers’ and ‘In Sickness and In Health’.

Find out more:

matthewkrishanu.com

casematepublishing.co.uk/matthew-krishanu.html

This article was published in association with the Durjoy Bangladesh Foundation

The 2023 edition of Art Dubai will feature 24 Dubai-based galleries, the largest number the fair has ever had, reflecting the continued growth of Dubai’s artistic ecosystem and its increasing reputation as a global creative and cultural hub

The most significant art fair in the Middle East opened today with a focus on artists from South Asia. LUX reports on the multi-sensory experience that Art Dubai is currently offering to its visitors

Art Dubai has traditionally bee a blend of art from the Middle East from surrounding regions and the rest of the world. This year the focus is firmly on South Asia, specifically countries like India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, whose thriving contemporary art scene is informed by ancient cultural and craft influences as well as much more modern societal conversations and clashes.

Art Dubai is featuring over 130 contemporary, modern and digital gallery presentations from six continents

“South Asian artists are receiving reinvigorated attention on the world scene due to a new generation of collectors, artists and galleries. Many of the most interesting artists from the region have been creating significant works for years or even decades, as the recent Pop South Asia exhibition at Sharjah Art Foundation, hosted by Sheikha Hoor Al Qasimi, demonstrated. Although there is a current growing interest in South Asian art, it is also important for collectors to understand the cultural and historical nuances that inform it.”

Follow LUX on Instagram: luxthemagazine

“People in these countries have been creating notable art works in a variety of mediums for a very long time and we should be careful to avoid a simplistic western-orientalist perspective that it is just being ‘discovered'”, says Durjoy Rahman, LUX partner, philanthropist and founder of the Durjoy Bangladesh Foundation.

The 2023 fair includes over 30 first-time participants and more than 60% of the gallery programme is drawn from the Global South

Rahman’s foundation supports both the Sharjah Art Foundation and Art Dubai.

The programme is unlike other art fairs, delivering daily performances and food-based experiences spanning Dubai to South Asia.

Read more: Rana Begum and Durjoy Rahman on South Asian art’s global ascendancy

The focus on the Global South has been heightened by a new commissioned performance programme in partnership with leading South Asian galleries and institutions

The themes explored at the fair include those of community, celebration, hope and connection. Among the significant galleries involved in the South Asian focus at Art Dubai are Galleria Continua, Efie Gallery and Unit London.

Art Dubai is open from Wednesday 1st-Sunday 5th March 2023

Find out more: artdubai.ae

Left to right: Kamruzzaman Shadin, Salma Moushum, Sangeeta Jindal and Durjoy Rahman

The Asia Society India Centre hosted their first in-person event since COVID-19 for the The 2023 Asia Arts Game Changer Awards in which the winner of the Asia Arts Future Award 2023 was announced.The event was attended by a diverse group of collectors, curators, artists, gallerists, business leaders, and global institutional heads

This year’s winner of the Asia Arts Future Award 2023 is the Gidree Bawlee Foundation of Arts.The Foundation was founded in 2001 by Kamruzzaman Shadhin and co-run by Salma Jamal Moushum in the village of Balia in Thakurgaon, Bangladesh. The organisation aims to develop artworks and projects that respond to local history, culture, and the environment. This is done through various social practices and community-focused activities.

Bhumi Project at Kochi-Muziris Biennale 2022/23. Image courtesy of DBF/GB

This award category has been supported the Durjoy Bangladesh Foundation (DBF) since 2020 for. Since 2019 Gidree Bawlee has been working with DBF on various projects. Kamruzzaman Shadhin was even a participant in the organisation’s first Majhi Art Residency Project in 2019 in Venice, Italy.

In 2020, DBF collaborated with Gidree Bawlee Art Foundation, to create the “Bhumi” project which supported traditional crafts and workers in the Thakurgaon District during the pandemic. Subsequently, the works are currently on display at the Fifth Kochi-Muziris Biennale in Fort Kochi, India until April 2023.

Left to right: Salma Moushum, Varunika Saraf, Nilima Sheikh and Kamruzzaman Shadin

DBF also funded another exhibition with Gidree Bawlee Director, Kamruzzaman Shadhin, titled “The Elephant in the Room”.

Read more: Rana Begum and Durjoy Rahman on South Asian art’s global ascendancy

The exhibition was was hosted at the US Embassy and the Canadian High Commission in Dhaka in 2020 /21 and was later exhibited in D3 space during Art Dubai 2021.

Find out more:

www.gidreebawlee.org

durjoybangladeshfoundation.org

Durjoy Rahman is a collector of Rana Begum’s mesmerising works

The second of the LUX dialogues co-hosted with the Durjoy Bangladesh Foundation covers the hot topic of artists from a region long overlooked despite a powerful legacy and thriving local artistic culture

South Asia was, until recently, dramatically underrepresented in the global art world. Contemporary and historical artists from India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Afghanistan had few champions on the world stage, and their home countries often lacked the infrastructure or cultural will to support them. In this fascinating dialogue, moderated by LUX Editor-in-Chief Darius Sanai, British-Bangladeshi artist Rana Begum chats with Dhaka-based philanthropist Durjoy Rahman, Founder of the Durjoy Bangladesh Foundation, about how things are changing, Western perceptions, and whether everything can be blamed on colonialism or post-colonial legacy

LUX: Durjoy, for artists from Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, is private patronage needed, with institutions not as strong as in wealthier countries?

Durjoy Rahman: Private patronage is essential for the development of art and its ecosystem in South Asia. Western art practices are organised, with support systems between government and private institutions. That’s missing in South Asia. Art and culture have historically been important, but during colonialism, what are now India, Pakistan and Bangladesh were controlled by the British, who didn’t promote them. After independence, there was the Bombay Progressive Arts Group (PAG), but no significant structural developments – and there have been religious and political tensions. Interest has grown in the past two decades but, I think, not yet into in the wider communities.

Rana Begum: I feel, in arts terms, that India got attention, Pakistan struggled along, Bangladesh was left behind. It’s only in the past decade, since people like Durjoy have created support networks, that art and attitudes towards it are changing. Durjoy, I think you have three works of mine, and that shows a seriousness that artists require to survive and grow.

LUX: Rana, as a Bangladesh-born, UK-based artist, has the perception of you and your art changed?

RB: I remember, as an artist studying and growing in the UK, being pigeonholed as a “female Muslim artist from Bangladesh”. I tried hard to not be restricted as that – you have to be careful how you and your work are perceived. I see myself as a Bangladeshi-British artist. Ironically, to make it into institutional collections you must meet certain criteria. I don’t fulfil Bangladeshi criteria for a certain institute; I fall under the British category – a bigger pond to select artists from. There are positives and negatives. In terms of my career trajectory, it really started at Dhaka, 2014. That’s where it took off.

Rana Begum’s works blur the boundaries between sculpture, painting and architecture

DR: Before that, people were aware of your practices but didn’t have access to your work. With, say, the basketwork at Dhaka, people saw you take a local material and transform it. So you have been in our ecosystem, but were not properly presented until then.

LUX: Rana, is this an historical moment for art from South Asia? Are we seeing change in its creation, perception and global transmission?

Rana Begum: I saw a shift when I first exhibited at Dhaka Art Summit in 2014. It was amazing to see an international audience. I’ve seen artists’ visibility grow since – and politics around #MeToo and race has meant female artists and artists of colour have become more visible. It’s great to see the calibre of artists in the limelight having the success they deserve.

LUX: So if we had this conversation 10 years ago, would there have been less recognition in Europe of South Asian art?

DR: For the past decade, there has been great momentum around South Asian art, so yes, there was less then. But interest in South East Asian art started around the millennium, and grew with events like Art Dubai.

The geometric patterns in Rana Begum’s works are influenced by Islamic art

RB: Curators and institutes are more aware of what to do to be multicultural and grow a multicultural audience, and galleries are looking for artists working in different ways. My relationship with Jhaveri Contemporary has opened up a wider South Asian collector base. Slowly, things are shifting in how the art worlds work in Bangladesh, India and Pakistan, and they support each other, which gives a strong base for artists.

LUX: Thinking of your 2022 show at Pitzhanger, Rana, how important is it for people to understand your history when they see your works?

RB: Not at all. My work is about experience and what the viewer achieves from it, so, for me, my culture or gender doesn’t dictate that. I can see that background can give an insight, but, for me, it’s not significant.

LUX: Durjoy, what needs to happen around South Asian art in the next ten years in Europe and the States?

DR: South Asian institutions and corporate bodies should build connections with Western institutions, so our voice is heard and our art is seen. UK-produced work is not considered as South Asian or as produced by a South Asian diaspora, so those areas need highlighting. Regional tensions also need straightening out to develop the ecosystem. And I agree with Rana about Bangladesh: we only gained independence in 1971, and there are tensions that must go to get to the next step.

Read more: Liza Essers and Durjoy Rahman on art and the Global South

RB: Having a collector, like Durjoy, is a huge factor. Some artists wouldn’t have opportunities to develop without collectors. It’s also important that artists get support from other artists in positions to give it. For me, the opportunity to go to Bangladesh to see Durjoy is a chance to see what’s going on and what can be done.

LUX: Durjoy, you have three of Rana’s works. What fascinates you personally about her work?

DR: I actually have four of Rana’s series – her paperwork came to my collection from her 2022 Cristea Roberts Gallery exhibition. Rana’s work has many elements that move me – I saw Folds as kites, which are important in Bangladesh, where we have a famous kite festival. Net reminded me of the fishing nets of Sylhet, where Rana is from. She also uses a green that resembles the green of the Bangladesh flag. There is a particular motif that looks like a river flowing, and our rivers look like that exotic pattern. Rana’s work is influenced by Islamic architecture, but I also see it from a Bangladesh perspective.

Rana Begum’s art distils spatial and visual experience into ordered form

LUX: Rana, what’s next for you?

RB: I’m working on some US projects; there’s a site-specific installation at the Dhaka Art Summit; and Dappled Light is touring to Concrete, Dubai from 26 February, then to The Box, London, and to St Albans, where I grew up.

LUX: Fantastic. Durjoy, is there anything you would like to ask Rana?

DR: I would just offer my appreciation and recommendation – keep doing what you are doing; engage through the community and your practice, especially the charity work I have the pleasure to attend. Communities need you, collectors need you. Keep doing those good things.

Find out more:

durjoybangladeshfoundation.org

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The Picture, 2002, by Shishir Bhattacharjee. This painting was sent to the exhibition by the Durjoy Bangladesh Foundation following collection from the artist

For one of the first times in history, the Sharjah Art Foundation has opened a major exhibition displaying pop culture modern and contemporary art from South Asia, titled Pop South Asia: Artistic Explorations in the Popular. Using humour, the works display the difficult issues that individuals and societies face on a daily basis

The exhibition, organised by Sharjah Art Foundation in collaboration with Kiran Nadar Museum of Art (KNMA) has brought together 40 intergenerational artists from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan and the diaspora, creating a show with over 100 artworks.

Could have been the story of a Hero, 1987, by Shishir Bhattacharjee. This painting was loaned by the Durjoy Bangladesh Foundation collection

Whilst there is a wide range of the style of art being spotlighted in the show, from  print, cinematic and digital media to more traditional crafts and folk culture, all the artists, have a common theme running through their works: local capitalism. The works are accompanied by comments on identity, politics and borders.

In the Time of Pregnancy, 1990, by Dhali Al-Mamoon. This painting was sent to the exhibition by the Durjoy Bangladesh Foundation following collection from the artist

Curated by Iftikhar Dadi, artist and John H. Burris, Professor at Cornell University and Roobina Karode, Director and Chief Curator of the KNMA, Pop South Asia: Artistic Explorations in the Popular highlights the results of capitalism and media continuing to modernise and urbanise, not only in South Asia but on an international scale.

The show will be on display at Al Mureijah Art Spaces in Sharjah until 11th December 2022 after which it will be moved to the KNMA

This article was published in association with the Durjoy Bangladesh Foundation

Durjoy Rahman, the founder of the Durjoy Bangladesh Foundation

Like many organisations, the Durjoy Bangladesh Foundation saw its programming curtailed during the pandemic. In the first of this two part feature, Rebecca Anne Proctor reports on plans to make up for precious lost time in its mission to bridge different geographic and conceptual worlds of art

When the Nepalese artists and curators Hit Man Gurung and Sheelasha Rajbhandari staged ‘Garden of Six Seasons’, a group exhibition at Hong Kong’s Para Site (15 May – 15 November 2020), they couldn’t have imagined that just two years later a version of the show would be held in Berlin during the summer of 2022. Held at SAVVY Contemporary, an independent art, cultural and community space (from 10 June to 10 July), the exhibition, which is now titled ‘Garden of 10 Seasons’, brings the work of Gurung and Rajbhandari full circle: from the Far East to the West in the effort to promote art from the Global South and flip a Western-centric vision of the world.

Artworks by Joydeb Roaza. Courtesy of Durjoy Bangladesh Foundation and the artist

A precursor to the recent Kathmandu Triennale 2077 – that took place in Kathmandu, Nepal, from 11 February to 31March – the Hong Kong exhibition, which they presented with the artistic director Cosmin Costinas, displayed artworks showcasing various interpretations of the garden as a metaphor for mankind’s relentless efforts to control nature and reconstruct the world order. The show in Hong Kong, then Berlin, critically looks at diverse Indigenous knowledge as a source for decolonising power structures, marking, as its curators state: “a much-needed intervention in our understanding of what constitutes art.” The exhibition also brings together South Asian partnerships, sponsored by Bangladeshi entrepreneur, art patron and collector Durjoy Rahman and his Durjoy Bangladesh Foundation (DBF). His aims, like those of Gurung and Rajbhandari, are precisely to forge cross-cultural dialogue and exchange between the Global South and international art community.

Works by Shilpa Gupta. Courtesy of Durjoy Bangladesh Foundation and the artist

Since its founding in 2018, DBF has been on a mission. The foundation’s forthcoming roll-out of events depicts a desire to transcend the challenges of the past few years and set the world order straight – through art and creativity. “The post-Covid scenario will be looked at differently by everyone regardless of whether or not they are involved in art,” said Durjoy from Dhaka. “From curated exhibitions to awards and symposiums, our effort to connect, convene and sustain a global art ecosystem is now stronger than ever.” From the founding of the foundation, Durjoy states that its aim was to “highlight and support artists and creatives in diverse mediums from South Asia and foster cultural exchange with the West and beyond.” With more than 25 years as an art collector, he says that while he has seen the art landscape of South Asia progress and transform, he believes it has “seldom received due recognition”.

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Over the next few months, the foundation will stage and support the Asia Arts Game Changer Awards India as a benefactor of the DBF Asia Art Future Award, presented to Sri Lankan Jasmine Nilani Joseph. In December2022, the first edition of the DBF Kochi-Muziris Biennale (KMB) Award (announced in April 2022 during the Venice Biennale) will recognise ground breaking contemporary visual artists or collectives, predominantly from the South Asian region.

Works by Rana Begum. Courtesy of Durjoy Bangladesh Foundation and the artist

On 6 March, DBF-supported Indian artist Pallavi Paul’s first solo exhibition in Berlin, newly commissioned by SAVVY Contemporary and shown in the framework of the Berlinale’s Forum Expanded 2022. Additionally, DBF will help stage ‘Garden of 10 Seasons’ in the summer at SAVVY Contemporary. The fourth edition of the foundation’s Majhi International Art Residency will also take place from the end of September to early October this year, with the location still to be decided.

“Our aim is to create epistemological diversity by organising exhibitions, symposia, performances – the body as a site of discourse– radio programmes, discussions, poetry and literature events,” says Elena Agudio, the artistic co-director of SAVVY Contemporary, founded in 2009, that engages with the ideologies, politics and daily practices of oppression by deconstructing the history and continuity of Western hegemony, and by reconnecting with forms of co-existence and togetherness.

Culinary art by the ‘MasterChef Australia’ finalist Kishwar Chowdhury. Courtesy of Durjoy Bangladesh Foundation

‘Garden of 10 Seasons’ will be co-curated by the artists Gurung and Rajbhandari, and explores the meaning of gardens and their impact on culture. “Since 2009 we have been trying to undo Western systemic violence through creative means; we are trying to understand the world through multiple perspectives,” added Agudio. The show at SAVVY Contemporary will depart from the themes presented in Kathmandu. “At its core are image- and object-making lineages that transversed or unfolded in parallel to what the West has deemed as modernity,” said Rajbhandari and Gurung. In effect, the exhibition attempts to build frameworks of understanding and bridge together multiple aesthetic and cosmological conceptualisations.

Works by Hamra Abbas. Courtesy of Durjoy Bangladesh Foundation and the artist

Many practices, such as Paubha painting in Nepal, ink wash in East Asia, and bark cloth in the Pacific, have been side-lined within Eurocentric discourse, added the curators. Most recently, DBF sponsored a symposium titled ‘Coming to Know’ on occasion of the opening of ‘A Slightly Curved Place’. Curated by Nida Ghouse and Brooke Holmes, the exhibition presented the first ambisonic, or three-dimensional, surround-sound installation staged by the UAE’s Alserkal Arts Foundation at Concrete, in Dubai, and based on the practice of the acoustic archaeologist and sound technician Umashankar Manthravadi.

Read more: Durjoy Bangladesh Foundation: Layers of Meaning

The exhibition offers new ways of thinking about curatorial practice, thus pushing the boundaries of what an art exhibition can offer– while also remaining open to the critical debate revolving around the importance and expansion of new technologies. “As an art foundation, our endeavours cannot be confined within the exhibition of our collection,” says Durjoy. “We wanted to fulfil our social purpose of building a greater awareness for South Asian artists in the global arena.”

Works by Rashid Rana. Courtesy of Durjoy Bangladesh Foundation and the artist

The symposium, in line with DBF’s greater aims of forging inter-cultural dialogue and exchange, was jointly staged by Alserkal Arts Foundation in collaboration with the Department of Classics at Princeton University, in the US. Through discussions led by art and culture experts from the Arab world, South Asia and internationally, it gathered the public together through critical discourse relating specially to the realm of new technologies, culture, and art from the Global South. Creative expressions from South Asia deserve acknowledgment, DBF believes. The foundation thus aims to help bridge the cultural gap and represent such creatives to an international audience through programmes and events. These are intended to engage artists, communities, academics, and critics working in the creative space, as well as support them and advance the connection between art-making and important social and cultural issues in the region.

Durjoy Rahman at a DBF-hosted classic car event

Durjoy, always a man on a mission, with boundless energy and ideas, ultimately hopes to change the world through art, elevate artists from global areas that have been, until now, largely left out from the international art scene. “The idea of changing perspectives through art practice is something the DBF stands for,” explains Durjoy. “Our dynamic calendar of art events, exhibitions, residency programs, awards and symposiums works towards the mission of empowering artists and to rekindle our hope for a better future. We will continue to support art practitioners and their creations as we work to push forward the ideals of an open society.”

This article appears in the Summer 2022 issue of LUX