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This installation traces the seasons and cycles of indigenous rituals, poetry, myths, and practices that have been intertwined with agricultural landscapes and the act of cultivation in Bangladesh. Drawing from Kamruzzaman Shadhin’s childhood memories of deeply ingrained community practices rooted in agriculture, the work tells the story of how the move towards an extractive nature of cultivation has slowly rendered a disconnection in the intimate/intrinsic ties between humanity and land.
Incorporating sculptures, video, and sound and using materials related to land and rituals, Shadhin creates an imaginary landscape where the old rhymes, songs, fables, and other “irrelevant beings” hover around in apparent aimlessness, disconnected from the earth. They are displaced, but linger on as a distant and fragmented memory of a forgotten link, almost as if to stage a secret rebellion against this capitalist aggression on soil, water, and ways of life. Made over a three-year period, this two-channel video chronicles the fields at different seasons through movements of masked figures who also appear in the exhibition space as various forms, linked through an immersive soundscape where the disappearing songs and rhymes come alive again.
2020-2023
Dhaka Art Summit, 2023