The Ashmolean Museum at the University of Oxford and Dhaka’s Samdani Art Foundation have launched a partnership to expand the museum’s representation of contemporary Bangladeshi art. The programme will bring one Bangladeshi artist to Oxford each year and support annual acquisitions, beginning with works by Ashfika Rahman already purchased with the foundation’s support.
A residency and a collection
The Ashmolean Samdani Visiting Artist programme combines a recurring Oxford residency with a plan to build a dedicated collection of contemporary art from Bangladesh. The museum and the foundation will also conduct research into Bangladesh’s contemporary art scene, connecting acquisitions with a broader effort to understand artistic practice there.
The purchases are intended to extend the Ashmolean’s existing South Asian holdings, which the museum describes as among the most extensive in the UK outside London. That existing collection gives the new initiative a setting in which contemporary Bangladeshi works can be considered alongside the museum’s wider South Asian material.
Munem Wasif begins the programme
Dhaka-based artist and curator Munem Wasif is the first artist selected for the programme. He is spending two weeks at the Ashmolean, working with its collections and archives as he considers how the museum’s materials might connect with his ongoing interest in Bengal’s colonial history.
Wasif’s practice brings together photography, moving image, archival material and found objects. His work often engages with impermanence, insecurity and memory; the residency places those concerns in direct contact with objects and records held in Oxford, rather than limiting the visit to studio-based work.
From historical collections to contemporary practice
The Ashmolean’s collections and archives offer Wasif material for examining the colonial history of Bengal. He has said he is interested in encountering objects and artworks firsthand and considering their relationship to questions he has pursued through photography, prints and textiles.
For the museum, the collaboration creates a route for contemporary artists to engage with its holdings while the collection itself grows through new acquisitions. Curator of Indian, Himalayan, and Southeast Asian art Mallica Kumbera Landrus said the partnership would strengthen the Ashmolean’s connections with artists from Bangladesh and develop its South Asian story through contemporary work.
Building on Samdani’s work in Bangladesh
The partnership extends the Samdani Art Foundation’s 15 years of supporting artists and cultural initiatives in Bangladesh and creating international opportunities. Established by Nadia and Rajeeb Samdani, the foundation has supported the Dhaka Art Summit and the Samdani Art Award; Nadia Samdani said the Ashmolean collaboration would carry that work into a new institutional setting.
The foundation also operates Srihatta—the Samdani Art Centre and Sculpture Park—in Sylhet, where it hosts residencies and community projects. Srihatta is a founding organisation of Photosynthesis, an international residency network supported by the Getty Foundation. Its first Photosynthesis residency at the centre is due to begin in December 2026 with Indian interdisciplinary artist Himali Singh Soin.
Further links between Bangladesh and the UK
The Ashmolean presented the first UK solo museum exhibition by a Bangladesh-based artist in March 2026, showing work by Soma Surovi Jannat, winner of the 2020 Samdani Art Award. That exhibition provides recent context for the new partnership’s aim to bring artists and contemporary work from Bangladesh into the museum.
Beyond Oxford, the foundation has announced a partnership with Kunsthalle Basel for the Samdani Art Award in November 2026. Eight finalists are set to participate in Regionale 27 alongside artists from the Basel region, another part of the foundation’s work to create international platforms for artists.
Takeaway: The Ashmolean partnership pairs an annual artist residency with recurring acquisitions, giving contemporary Bangladeshi art a growing place in the Oxford museum’s South Asian collection.
