Kamruzzaman Shadhin

(b. 1974, Thakurgaon, Bangladesh; lives and works in Dhaka and Thakurgaon)

Haven is Elsewhere, 2017–оngoing
Mixed media, dimensions variable
Сourtesy of the artist, partially commissioned by Samdani Art Foundation

Kamruzzaman Shadhin is known in Bangladesh not only for his art but also for working with indigenous people in the Thakurgaon District in the north of the country. In 2011, he created the Gidree Bawlee Foundation: gidree bawlee means “lullaby” in Santali, a rare South Asian language spoken in the local villages. The foundation brings Bangladeshi and international artists to Thakurgaon and introduces them to local practices, be they agricultural, religious or cultural. Haven is Elsewhere was created by Shadhin as the result of a large-scale action: a year and a half spent exchanging the clothes of refugees, including Rohingya people (Muslims fleeing Myanmar), for new clothes. The refugees’ clothes were turned into a huge piece of fabric decorated with traditional Bangladeshi kantha embroidery. There are many kinds of kantha: for festive clothing, tablecloths, vanity bags, covers of the Koran. The embroidery turns into a language that structures different aspects of everyday life. Its main task, though, regardless of application, is the ritual stitching together of fragmentary and incomprehensible experience in an uncontrollable world. Shadhin’s installation turns old clothes into a monument to a humanitarian and political catastrophe. In this, Haven is Elsewhere has much in common with the works of the French artist Christian Boltanski, which are dedicated to the victims of Nazism.