Launch of TONDRA

The Samdani Art Foundation proudly launches TONDRA, a new initiative uniting ten Bangladeshi artists with a global team of curators and mentors to create score-based works that, like dreams, transcend time and place. Commissioned by the Foundation, these projects will unfold across partner institutions at the end of 2026—sharing a global dream of what becomes possible when ideas can travel, even when bodies cannot.

In Bangla, “Tondra” describes a state where dreams and reality collide—a lucid dream that captivates the soul. It is also a common female name in Bangladesh, popularized in the 1990s and 2000s by a character in a novel by Humayun Ahmed, whose work continues to shape Bengali popular imagination through literature and film. For many, the name carries a wave of nostalgia tied to love, longing, and memory.

The story of TONDRA emerged from an encounter at the Dhaka Art Summit 2023, when a young visitor covered the exhibition walls with messages for a woman named Tondra: “I came here to forget you. But Tondra, your thoughts are still haunting me.” His words moved between graffiti and poetry, describing his beloved as “a cloudy day” and weaving his heartbreak into references to popular contemporary Bangladeshi writer Humayun Ahmed, Bangladeshi modernist novelist and filmmaker Zahir Raihan, and Bengali Baul singer and lyricist Ukil Munsi. 

We see this visitor as an emerging artist—someone who transformed personal longing into a public cultural expression, much like the great love songs that give form to shared emotion. TONDRA is a continuation of that gesture: a journey through emotional landscapes where the line between feeling, seeing, and imagining dissolves.

In July 2024, Bangladesh entered a radical period of transformation, catalyzed by a historic student uprising that ended a fifteen-year rule and opened new space for imagining collective futures. Many from the generation of “the student who loved Tondra” were part of this revolution—now living in a moment suspended between past and possibility. Today, life in Bangladesh feels like a state of tondra: a liminal space where citizens are dreaming of the future they wish to create.

As Bangladesh approaches democratic elections in 2026, the Samdani Art Foundation is rethinking how best to support artists in this moment of transition. With international mobility more limited than when the Dhaka Art Summit began in 2012, our focus is shifting from producing exhibitions to empowering artists to develop works that connect their ideas with the world. TONDRA will be the heart of a reimagined Dhaka Art Summit, led by Tondra’s curatorial team, which will reopen to visitors after Bangladesh has elected its future leadership—contributing to a forward-thinking civil society through art and culture.

TONDRA’s curatorial team is led by Artistic Director Diana Campbell with Samdani Art Foundation curators Ruxmini Reckvana Q Choudhury and Swilin Haque, alongside guest curators Christina Li (Co-Curator, Sonsbeek, 2026; Artistic Director, Kim Association, Singapore), Helena Kritis (Chief Curator, WIELS, Brussels), Hiuwai Chu (Head of Exhibitions, MACBA, Barcelona), Mohamed Almusibli (Director and Chief Curator, Kunsthalle Basel), Nora Razian (Deputy Director and Head of Exhibitions and Programmes, Art Jameel, Dubai), Indranjan Banerjee (Curator, Jameel Arts Centre, Dubai), and Lucas Morin (Senior Curator, Art Jameel, Dubai).

They will work with TONDRA’s first artist dreamers in residence: Ashfika Rahman, Joydeb Roaja, Kamruzzaman Shadhin, Laisul Haque, Munem Wasif, Promiti Hossain, Reetu Sattar, Samsul Alam Helal, Sumi Anjuman, and Yasmin Jahan Nupur.