Majhi International Art Residency Programme

Venice, Italy
20 July – 11 August, 2019

The first edition of Majhi International Art Residency Programme takes place in Venice, Italy, from July 20th – August 11th, 2019.

Organised by the Durjoy Bangladesh Foundation (DBF) in collaboration with Lightbox,  the Majhi International Art Residency Programme in Venice is meant to inaugurate a series of international artistic residencies. They will be promoted year round in order to create an international platform for cultural exchange between the east and the west of the world.

The 2019 edition will feature eleven international artists: Dilara Begum Jolly, Dhali Al Mamoon, Rajaul Islam (Lovelu), Noor Ahmed Gelal, Uttam Kumar Karmaker and Kamruzzaman Shadhin from Bangladesh; the Turkish/German Umut Yasat and Chiara Tubia, Cosima Montavoci, Andrea Morucchio and David Dalla Venezia from Venice. The artists will be joined by the curator Caterina Corni and the cataloguer and recorder Laura Ammann.

The artists will live and work together, in order to produce a final collective exhibition. Through their work, they will investigate the open question ““Does life in these uncertain times of crisis and turmoil, make art more interesting?” inspired by the title of the 58th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia. The result of their period of residency and collaboration, will be a diffused collective exhibition, curated by Caterina Corni and set up in the historical spaces of Combo, a former convent, located just few steps away from Venice city centre. The exhibition will be open to the public from August 4-11, from 11am – 7pm.

A comprehensive catalogue will be also published with the support of the cataloguer and recorder Laura Ammann, collecting all the artists’ contribution.

The promoter of Majhi International Art Residency Programme, Durjoy Bangladesh Foundation (DBF), was initiated as a private foundation by Durjoy Rahman in 2018. Aimed to support artistic development and art practices throughout the Global South, it holds a special focus on Diaspora artists or part of European communities of migrants, to draw attention to their work in Europe. With offices in Berlin and Dhaka, the foundation promotes projects and research programmes featuring artists from these geographical regions.