Inspired by the geological reading of the word ‘summit’ as the top of a mountain, Seismic Movements: Dhaka Art Summit 2020 (DAS 2020) considers the various ruptures that have realigned and continue to shift the face of our spinning planet. Seismic movements do not adhere to statist or nationalist frameworks. They join and split apart tectonics of multiple scales and layers; their epicentres don’t privilege historical imperial centres over the so-called peripheries; they can slowly accumulate or violently erupt in an instant.

DAS 2020 is a cumulative festival building on the ideas we have been pondering since our first edition in 2012. Like in music, this Summit is arranged into both improvised and organised movements that can be experienced separately, but the complete work requires all of the diverse sounds and rhythms resounding within it to be considered together. It is a sum of many parts that reinforce each other and expand with unplanned trajectories and connections resulting from the energy and vision of our many collaborators and partners.

DAS 2020 touches upon geological movements, colonial movements, independence movements, social movements and feminist futures, spatial movements, the conditions that move us to act and the power that comes with moving collectively. We do not just consider forms of artistic production, but also forms of institutional production that enable artistic practices and pedagogies, generating new vocabularies of social organisation and building better ways to create and live together. What do the stirrings of a movement feel like and how do we learn from the experience of living through one?

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