Anida Yoeu Ali exhibits in Dhaka, Bangladesh as part of a four country international traveling group show

IAS faculty member Anida Yoeu Ali exhibits in Dhaka, Bangladesh, the first stop in a 4 country traveling group exhibition. Ali’s “The Buddhist Bug” series of photographs is on exhibition from February 2 – 10, 2018 as part of “A Beast, A God and A Line” curated by Cosmin Costinas. The exhibition touches on issues marking the current historical moment in this macro-region: the development and spread of politicised religion (jihadist Islam across several countries, fascist Buddhism in Myanmar, Sri Lanka, and Thailand, and Hindu ethno-fascism in India, alongside revivalist Christianity among many indigenous communities and the Philippines), the rise of political populism and loss of faith in liberal-democracy, the negotiation of real or imagined traditional cultures in modern societies, and, circumscribing the previous issues, the various attempts to create parallel narratives to Western modernity.

The exhibition is currently at Dhaka Art Summit 2018, a nine day summit, focused on international, non-commercial research and exhibition platforms for art and architecture related to South Asia. For the first time in its history, DAS 2018 seeks to create new connections between South, South East Asia, and the Indian Ocean belt, exhibiting artists from Cambodia, Thailand, Malaysia, Madagascar, the Philippines, and several other countries. Additional exhibition sites include: Para Site in Hong Kong: March 17 – May 20, 2018, TS1 in Yangon, Myanmar: June 9 – June 24, 2018 and Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, Poland: July 20 – Oct 7, 2018.