BAKERY
OMAR ADNAN CHOWDHURY
ECHO, SATURN—THE COURTS
03 September – 09 October 2021
In The Bakery, Annet Gelink Gallery is pleased to present Echo, Saturn—The Courts, the first solo show by Omar Adnan Chowdhury at the gallery.
In the scenario of Echo, Saturn—The Courts Annet Gelink Gallery transforms and presents itself anew to its visitors. Through distinct installations spread over different areas of the gallery, evocative narratives merge to create an intangible atmosphere. The overarching and ruptured voices of the narrators accompany the audience in this journey through space and time, leaving them with uncertainty about what is real and what is not.
The journey begins in the early 1980s when Dr. Shahidul Zaman first visited the law Courts archives of the Bangladeshi city of Rajshahi. Seeking a way to emigrate and resettle in Europe, Shahidul finds himself trapped in the bureaucracies of the law system. The selection of works, objects, actions, and interventions, coexist as witnesses of this journey. When wandering through the gallery, visitors are drawn to a faraway dimension saturated by multiple temporalities leading to a sense of disassociation and displacement.
“Wild tongues can’t be tamed, they can only be cut out.”
— Gloria E. Anzaldúa (1987), Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza.
In his practice, Chowdhury focuses on encrypting and manipulating environments through layers of narrative. Critically reflexive as well as fictional, his work results in installations that blur the boundaries between telling stories and reality. Through Dr. Zaman’s chronicles, Echo, Saturn—The Courts spatially reflects on systems of meaning-making around time, narration, and identity.
http://omarchowdhury.com/files/Transcript2016.pdf
Omar Adnan Chowdhury (1984, Dhaka) has screened at the International Film Festival Rotterdam, Haus der Kulturen der Welt (Berlin), Film and Video Umbrella (London), La Gaîté lyrique (Paris), and Queensland Gallery of Modern Art (Brisbane) for Asia Pacific Triennial 8. He has exhibited and performed at Netwerk (Aalst), De Appel (Amsterdam), Centre for Contemporary Asian Art (Sydney), Dhaka Art Summit, Bengal Foundation (Dhaka), MOMENTUM (Berlin), India Art Fair (Delhi) and Art Gwangju.
Chowdhury was a resident of the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten (Amsterdam) and a post-graduate laureate of the Hoger Instituut voor Schone Kunsten (Gent). He lives and works between Brussels, The Hague and Dhaka.
Special thanks to Leander Schönweger, Sadia Rahman, Samuel Sabbir Islam, Utpal Roy, Masud Rana, Helena Kritis. Rijksakademie: Virag Szentkiralyi, Annelie Musters, Pieter Verweij, Kees Reedijk, Monique de Wilt. FARO. Vlaams steunpunt voor cultureel erfgoed vzw: Wouter Lammens. Museumgoed: Tom Jaspers. Museum Helmond: Marianne Splint, Xander Dohmen, Ton van Bokhoven.