“Titled as (Dis)Place, an exhibition of contemporary art was inaugurated on December 7 at Korean Cultural Center, New Delhi, India. Director of the center, Kim Kum-pyoung, inaugurated the exhibition. Vidya Shivadas, director of FICA was also present at the event.
The exhibition, jointly supported by Bengal Arts Programme, Korean Cultural Center India and The Foundation for India Contemporary Art (FICA), showcases the works of 10 artists and one research collective from Bangladesh.
Displaying artworks and specialised archives, the show explores the specifics of the locality of Bangladesh while also bringing perspective into the very notion of the place. It touches upon topics as urgent to the country as they are to the world, such as shifting environments, migration, marginalisation, economic and cultural appropriation. The show further discusses related issues of borders and ownership of places and of utopian sensibilities vis-à-vis forced displacements.
Participants of the show include Bengal Institute for Architecture, Landscapes and Settlements, Shahidul Alam, Tayeba Begum Lipi, Ronni Ahmmed, Najmun Nahar Keya, Afsana Sharmin Zhumpa, Shimul Saha, Zihan Karim, Sarker Protick, Sayed Asif Mahmud and Md Shamsul Arifin.
Drawings and interventions on photography by Najmun Nahar Keya comment on the shifting ecology of the Old Dhaka neighbourhood, using fragments of the past as a means of passage to the present. On the other hand, Asif Mahmud charts how a specific point at the Bangladesh-Myanmar border has changed over the past 15 years under the influence of successive refugee crises in a three-channel video. The specialisation of research archives on urban studies by the Bengal Institute for Architecture, Landscapes and Settlements, offers an insight into the process. The archive delves into the various limitations of cities in Bangladesh.
(Dis)Place is supported by the Korean Cultural Center through a grant for curatorial proposals from India and other SAARC countries. The grant was awarded to Bangladesh-based curators Tanzim Wahab and Hadrien Diez. The Foundation for India Contemporary Art supported KCCI for the selection process of applications. Bengal Arts Programme provided further logistic and material support to the project.
The exhibition will continue until February 22, 2019, at Korean Cultural Center in 25-A Ring Rd, Lajpat Nagar -IV, New Delhi, India.”
Shimul Saha’s You Show & I See 
Afsana Sharmin Zhumpa’s Last Breath 
Md. Shamsul Arifin’s Almost Lunar 
Shahidul Alam’s Photographic Archive 
Sayed Asif Mahmud’s Untitled 
Sayed Asif Mahmud’s Untitled 
Tayeba Begum Lipi’s No One Home 
Ronni Ahmed’s Seventh Mukkam 
Sarker Protick’s Exodus 
Najmun Nahar Keya’s The Vibe 
Zihan Karim’s Various Ways of Departure 
Zihan Karim’s Various Ways of Departure 
Image Copyright: Sounak Das/Bengal Arts Programme
Text Copyright: The Daily Star
