Presented on the opening day of the sixth Dhaka Art Summit, the biannual Samdani Art Award has for the first time named two joint winners – Purnima Aktar and Md Fazla Rabbi Fatiq.
Aiming to support and promote emerging Bangladeshi artists in the global art scene, the Award grants a residency hosted by Delfina Foundation in London. Jury member Ibrahim Mahama has offered a second residency opportunity at his Savannah Centre for Contemporary Art and Red Clay.
Aktar and Fatiq were selected from a shortlisted group of twelve, whose works are currently on view in DAS’s Samdani Art Award segment curated by Tate St. Ives’s director Anne Barlow. Aktar’s installation A Tale of Eighteen Tides stitches Mughal miniatures with the contemporary climate crisis, while Fatiq’s photographs series Mirage addresses the realities and politics of urban development in Bangladesh.