Shanghai can expect a movable Bangladeshi home recreated in handwoven Jamdani, telling a story of displacement, craft and the artisans who keep a thousand-year-old tradition alive. Bangladeshi collector and patron Durjoy Rahman has spent nearly a decade building international platforms for South Asian art through his Durjoy Bangladesh Foundation (DBF), with long-term partnerships with the V&A and LACMA. After presenting Suborna Morsheada’s “Against All Odds” at Révélations Paris 2025, the foundation now heads east. At Révélations China 2026, it will present “The House of Recall (Tati Ghor)” as part of the Bangladesh Banquet.
The installation is conceived by architect Zannat Jui with textile artist Anika Alamin and master weaver Md Rajon Mia. It is modelled on the “readymade” houses of Munshiganj, homes that families can take apart and rebuild when river erosion claims their land. The structure stands over four metres tall and is wrapped in Jamdani, the thousand-year-old weaving tradition of Bengal. Its weavers have broken with convention by adding animal motifs to the textile. Inside are a working indigo-warped loom and Shital Pati matting by award-winning craftsman Gitesh Chandra Das. The work also looks back to Sonargaon, the birthplace of Jamdani, whose muslins once reached the Ming court. In doing so, it asks what home means when the ground beneath it can’t stay put.
Ahead of the opening in Shanghai, LARRY’S LIST spoke with Durjoy Rahman and the artists behind “The House of Recall” about displacement, Jamdani, and bringing the people who make the craft into the spotlight.
Durjoy Rahman Founder, Durjoy Bangladesh Foundation
Why did DBF want to support this project?
At DBF, we have always been interested in creating opportunities for Bangladeshi artists and practitioners to engage with international audiences. But equally important is how we represent Bangladesh through these opportunities. The House of Recall (Tati Ghor) appealed to us because it brings architecture and art into a conversation with traditional craftsmanship while addressing a reality that is deeply familiar to Bangladesh: displacement caused by river erosion.
The project involves collaboration between an architect, a textile artist and master artisans. We believe these collaborations are important because they allow traditional knowledge to be explored within contemporary creative practice. For DBF, supporting such a project means recognising the people who sustain these traditions and helping create a wider platform for their work.
How important is the historic link between Sonargaon and China to this presentation?
The historical connection is particularly meaningful because the project is being presented in Shanghai. Sonargaon is widely regarded as the birthplace of Jamdani and was historically an important centre of textile production in Bengal. During the fifteenth century, Chinese maritime expeditions reached Bengal, and accounts associated with these voyages documented the region’s commercial and textile activities. These histories prove that Bengal’s textile traditions were already part of wider networks of international exchange centuries ago. Bringing Jamdani to China today allows us to revisit that relationship in a different context.
What does DBF hope to achieve by bringing Bangladeshi craft to international fairs and events?
International platforms provide an opportunity to introduce Bangladeshi craftsmanship to audiences who may have limited exposure to its history or the complexity of its production. However, visibility alone is not enough. We also want to encourage greater recognition of the artisans themselves and the knowledge that has been passed down through generations. Many of these traditions require years of training and specialised skills, yet the people responsible for sustaining them do not always receive the recognition they deserve. Through projects such as “The House of Recall”, we hope to create opportunities for dialogue between traditional craftspeople and contemporary practitioners, while encouraging institutions and international audiences to engage more seriously with Bangladesh’s craft heritage. Our participation in Révélations China in Shanghai also continues a relationship that began with our earlier participation in Paris. We see these engagements as part of a longer commitment rather than isolated exhibitions.
Zannat Jui Principal Architect
What was the hardest part of turning a house built to be moved into an installation for an exhibition hall?
The hardest part was translating the house into an exhibition setting while retaining the meaning behind its construction. In Munshiganj, mobility is a necessity. Within an exhibition hall, I wanted visitors to sense the reality of displacement that gives this architecture its purpose. Architecturally, the challenge was to bring the structure and handwoven Jamdani into a precise relationship. Working with textile artist Anika Alamin and master weaver Rajon meant considering dimensions, connections, light and the experience of the space together. I wanted the textile to become part of the architecture, carrying the presence of its makers while allowing the house’s form to remain legible.
What do you hope visitors in Shanghai take away when they walk around or into the house?
I hope visitors think about the people who must rebuild their lives each time the river takes their land. Losing a home means losing familiar surroundings, a sense of security and a place where memories belong. Yet these communities continue to build, care for their families and keep their traditions alive. I want the house to create a moment of empathy: to imagine what it means to leave your home because staying is no longer possible. As an architect, I believe everyone deserves a safe place to live with dignity. I hope visitors leave with a deeper respect for these communities and a sense of our shared responsibility towards people living with displacement.
Anika Alamin Textile Artist
Why did you decide to bring a working loom into the house?
By placing my loom in an exhibition space, I wanted to bring craft traditions to the forefront of contemporary practice and challenge the boundaries between craft and fine art. Textile makers and weavers have often been underrepresented in visible spaces and excluded from wider artistic conversations. My work draws inspiration from Jamdani weaving and has been deepened through my collaboration with the weaving community in Sonargaon. Through the installation, I wanted to bring these weaving traditions into a contemporary context.
Can you tell us about the indigo-dyed yarns and why indigo matters to this piece?
I hand-dyed the yarns with natural indigo grown in Bangladesh using a time-honoured vat-dyeing process consisting of dipping, oxidising and rinsing multiple times for the desired shade of blue. This deep engagement with indigo recalls the experiences and dangers of indigo farmers working in knee-deep water under British colonial rule, bringing histories of land and labour exploitation into the present. Both indigo and Jamdani/muslin were colonial commodities whose production was severely disrupted by colonisation and the implementation of oppressive systems in Bengal. By bringing an indigo-warped loom into a house made of Jamdani walls, doors and windows, I wanted to reflect on the narratives these materials carry.
The Jamdani here includes animal motifs, which traditional Jamdani avoids. Why make that change?
I wanted to create a design that tells the story of Bengal through its flora and fauna. While researching traditional Jamdani motifs, I came across Bagher para, or “tiger’s claw”, a floral pattern named after a tiger. This sparked my interest in exploring how Bengal’s landscape could be represented through Jamdani weaving. Drawing on this pattern and my research into the V&A collections, I developed designs that shifted from geometric to more illustrative forms, depicting elements of Bengal’s flora and fauna. These were meticulously woven by Jamdani master weavers, opening up possibilities for collaborative making and new ways of imagining Jamdani textiles.
Md Rajon Mia Jamdani Master Weaver
“Jamdani weaving has been practised in Bengal for hundreds of years, but I don’t think anything quite like this has been attempted before. I am grateful to the House of Recall team for making this possible. Even after 28 years of working with Jamdani, this project has been a completely new learning experience for me. Working with new motifs on such a large scale, while maintaining precise measurements through handweaving, has been particularly challenging. But the experience has also given me greater confidence in what we can achieve through our craft.”
Révélations China 2026
“The House of Recall (Tati Ghor)” is part of Révélations China – International Fine Craft & Creation Biennial (Second Edition), presented within the Bangladesh Banquet.
Dates: 19–23 November 2026
Venue: Shanghai Exhibition Center, 1000 Yan’an Middle Road, Jing’an District, Shanghai 200040, China
Website: revelations-china.com
