Join us on October 1, 2024, for the inaugural program in the series South Asian Arts Talk in Celebration of the Life of Priyanka Mathew. The thought-provoking discussion features pioneering Pakistani-American artist Shahzia Sikander, one of the most influential artists working today, in conversation with Diana Campbell, Chief Curator of the Dhaka Art Summit and Artistic Director of the Samdani Art Foundation. Sikander is widely celebrated for expanding and subverting pre-modern and classical Central and South Asian miniature painting traditions and launching the form known today as neo-miniature. They will reflect on the art historical importance and global trajectory of Sikander’s work, including her participation in Campbell's 2014 Dhaka Art Summit. 

The South Asian Arts Talk honors Priyanka Mathew's passion and commitment to South Asian art and her trailblazing leadership in this field. 

Speaker Biographies

Shahzia Sikander

Shahzia Sikander is widely celebrated for subverting Central and South-Asian miniature painting traditions into dialogue with contemporary international art practices and launching the form known today as neo-miniature. Engaging ideas of language, trade, empire, and migration through feminist perspectives, Sikander’s paintings, video animations, mosaics and sculpture explore gender, sexuality, racial narratives, and colonial histories. Sikander is a recipient of the MacArthur award and The Pollock-Krasner Foundation's Pollock Prize for Creativity, among others. A survey exhibition, Shahzia Sikander: Collective Behaviour, presented by the Cleveland Museum of Art and Cincinnati Art Museum as a Collateral Event of the 60th International Art Exhibition - La Biennale di Venezia, is on view until October 20th, 2024. The show will subsequently be traveling and on view at the Cleveland Museum of Art and Cincinnati Art Museum, Ohio, in Spring of 2025. 

Diana Campbell 

Diana Campbell is a Los Angeles-born curator and writer whose practice focuses on institution-building and creating forums for interdisciplinary cultural convenings globally.
She is the Artistic Director of the inaugural edition of the Bukhara Biennial, Recipes for Broken Hearts, launching in September 2025. Campbell is the Founding Artistic Director of the Dhaka-based Samdani Art Foundation in Bangladesh, a leading South Asian institution dedicated to fostering the growth of local artists. She is the Chief Curator of its flagship project, the Dhaka Art Summit (DAS), having led its critically acclaimed editions from 2014 to 2023, and is currently envisioning the 2026 edition. Among her commissions and
curated projects, Campbell has worked with over 1900 creatives from over 70 countries including Antony Gormley, Kashef Chowdhury (URBANA), Korakrit Arunanondchai, Otobong Nkanga, Paul Pfeiffer, Rana Begum, Rizvi Hassan, Shakuntala Kulkarni and Sumayya Vally (Counterspace). Maternally of CHamoru descent, Campbell has written extensively on indigeneity, art, and architecture. Her writing has been published by Phaidon, MoMa, Frieze and Rizzoli among others. She has been recognised as one of the most influential figures in the art world by the ArtReview Power100 list (2019-2023).