Dhaka Art Summit, the world’s largest platform for South Asian art, is back this year for its fourth edition. To disclose detailed information about the upcoming mega art event, a press meet was organised at the National Art Plaza Auditorium of Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy in the capital yesterday. Director General of Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy (BSA) Liaquat Ali Lucky, Director of BSA’s National Art Plaza Md Moniruzzaman, Trustee & founder of Samdani Art Foundation Rajeeb Samdani, Director of Samdani Art Foundation Nadia Samdani and Director of Golden Harvest Group Mohius Samad Choudhury were present at the press meet.

“What actually happens through the Dhaka Art Summit is news about Bangladesh, especially the country’s art and culture as well as news about arts of other countries from the entire Asia has been spread across the globe. To exhibit the art and culture of Bangladesh and Asia to the world, Dhaka Art Summit is playing a vital role”, Liaquat Ali Lucky said in his speech.

Produced and primarily funded by the Samdani Art Foundation and sponsored by Golden Harvest Group, the 4th edition of the Dhaka Art Summit will take place from February 2 to 10  in a public-private partnership with the Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy, (the country’s National Academy of Fine and Performing Arts) along with the support of the Ministry of Cultural Affairs and Ministry of Information of the People's Republic of Bangladesh, The National Tourism Board, Bangladesh Investment Development Authority (BIDA) and in association with the Bangladesh National Museum.

Over 300 artists from 35 countries will be featured in 10 curated exhibitions and will be led by chief curator Diana Campbell Betancourt who is also the Artistic Director, Samdani Art Foundation joined by guest curators. Over 120 speakers will participate in 16 panel discussions and 2 symposiums that strive to ground future developments of art in South Asia within the region’s rich, yet lesser-known, past. The summit is free to the public and ticketless.

For this fourth edition, the programme looks at Bangladesh in relation to both South and Southeast Asia, and providing an unprecedented focus on lesser-known art histories of Sri Lanka and cultures flattened out by nation building activities in the region, an in-depth examination of exhibition histories in South Asia, and—for the first time—an engagement with Iran and Turkey.

The programme also hosts the first ever Education Pavilion designed by the winner of the inaugural Samdani Architecture Award, Maksudul Karim. With the aim of recalibrating how we think about art and architecture, it features interdisciplinary workshops with participants such as Raqs Media Collective, Superflex, Dayanita Singh, among others, and institutional collaborations with leading forces in arts education including Städelschule, Open School East, TBA21-Academy, Merce Cunningham Trust, FHNW Academy of Art and Design and Harvard, amongst others.

As part of the partnership with Microsoft Bangladesh, the educational elements of Dhaka Art Summit 2018’s programme will be live streamed to classrooms and universities nationally, maximizing the summit’s outreach and ensuring the opportunities provided by the program to reach a varied audience. This time 55 international organizations are partnering with Dhaka Art Summit 2018.

Rajeeb Samdani, Founder and Trustee of the Samdani Art Foundation and an avid art collector speaking about the necessity of something like the Dhaka Art Summit said about this year’s Summit, “The  world is interested in South Asian Art and institutions and museums have shown interest towards South Asia’s art scene, but due to lack of art infrastructure in South Asia, a lot of the talent remains undiscovered and unfortunately there is no platform dedicated to South Asian Art where people from all over the world can come and discover its vibrant art scene. We started the Dhaka Art Summit to bring light to South Asia’s rich art and elevate it to the status it deserves.”

To note, Dhaka Art Summit is, an international non-commercial research and exhibition platform for art and architecture related to South Asia, founded by Nadia and Rajeeb Samdani and directed by Farooq Sobhan.