This monumental one-room installation restages Kamruzzaman Shadhin’s ‘The River Remembers’. In the large-scale textile artwork, handcrafted threads map the colour of the water of the Teesta and the Brahmaputra, two rivers flowing through the Bengal delta. Engraved brass disks convey the memories and migration stories of two women in the artist’s life: his mother and Johura Begum, a traditional jute weaver in his village. Affected by the 1947 partition of Bengal, their lives were strongly marked by the river.

Kamruzzaman Shadhin
The River Remembers
2023
Jute, thread, brass, copper
Commissioned by the Diriyah Biennale Foundation
Additional support generously provided by the Samdani Art Foundation
Art Jameel Collection

About Artists’ Rooms
Drawn largely from the Art Jameel Collection, Artists’ Rooms is a series of solo exhibitions by influential, innovative artists, with a particular focus on practitioners from West Asia and South Asia. These capsule shows are collaborative and curated in dialogue with the artist.

About the artist
Kamruzzaman Shadhin (b. 1974) lives and works in Dhaka and Thakurgaon, Bangladesh. His participatory practice incorporates installation, performance, video and public art interventions exploring themes of migration, environment and history. Shadhin’s work is shaped by his interactions with the people and communities he collaborates with, as well as his research of the materials he uses in his process. A deep interest in the community traditions in the Bengal region and their connection with geopolitics, ecology and colonial history has become a significant part of his artistic research and journey. He is the founder of the Gidree Bawlee Foundation of Arts, an organisation focused on social practice and community art based in the village of Balia in Thakurgaon.

Image credit
Kamruzzaman Shadhin, The River Remembers, 2023, Art Jameel Collection. Image Courtesy of the artist and Diriyah Biennale Foundation.