Bangladeshi Mizanur Rahman Chowdhury Wins Samdani Art Award
The fourth edition of the Samdani Art Foundation’s art award is granted to the artist at the 2018 Dhaka Art Summit, running until 10 February
The Samdani Art Award has a mission to support, promote and highlight emerging contemporary Bangladeshi artists between 22 and 40 years of age. With new pieces at Dhaka Art Summit falling under consideration alongside his larger body of works, Tate director Dr Maria Balshaw presented Mizanur Rahman Chowdhury with Bangladesh’s premier art award.
Initiated and supported by the Samdani Art Foundation, this year’s jury is chaired by Delfina Foundation director Aaron Cezar and artists Sheela Gowda, Runa Islam, Subodh Gupta and Mona Hatoum. Cezar revealed in a statement, “The recipient of the award has made consistently strong decisions in his practice and demonstrated a thoughtful approach in terms of medium and display.”
With an MFA in Printmaking from the University of Dhaka, Chowdhury’s interdisciplinary practice includes the manipulation of everyday objects into installation-cum-assemblages to instigate fresh material interaction and new contextual readings. His works at Dhaka Art Summit, a biennial non-commercial research and exhibition platform for South Asian works, plays into the Summit’s goal to rethink and bolster art from the region.
As part of the prize, Chowdhury will go onto a six-week residency at Delfina Foundation in London in order to nurture the artist’s practice. The shortlisted artists Ahmed Rasel, Aprita Singh Lopa, Asfika Rahman, Debasish Shom, Marzia Farhana, Opper Zaman, Palash Bhattacharjee, Rakib Ahmed, Reetu Sattar and Shikh Sabbir Alam, also received a prize in the form of curatorial mentorships from the New North and South Network.
Previous winners include Rasel Chowdhury, Ayesha Sultana, and Khaled Hasan and Musarrat Reazi.