Climate Futures: South Asia is a bold, artist-led initiative supporting creative solutions to the climate crisis through grants, mentorship, and global collaboration. It empowers artists and organisations to reimagine the arts for a sustainable future, driving climate action and resilience across the creative sector.
The programme will award grants to artists and cultural organisations in Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and the UK.
2025 Grant Recipients: Bangladesh
Crafting Togetherness
Samdani Art Foundation
Crafting Togetherness is a project focused on preserving traditional craft methods and fostering cultural exchange through workshops, events, and collaborations with local organizations. It aims to document and share sustainable practices through publications, online platforms, and university partnerships. The project will create a self-sustaining model by generating income from events and fundraising, ensuring long-term viability. By connecting with global networks in sustainable arts and architecture, Crafting Togetherness will serve as a model for similar initiatives, promoting eco-friendly design, cultural preservation, and cross-cultural collaboration.
Discovering Matarbari Folk Tales
Mahenaz Chowdhury (Broqué)
This project bears witness to the disappearing cultural and ecological heritage of Matarbari, Bangladesh, through an intimate collaboration with local fishermen, salt miners, farmers, and women artisans of Nakshi Kantha. Blending research and co-creation, it transforms fading oral histories and folk traditions into illustrated narratives, animations, and textile maps. As environmental change threatens displacement, the project creates a living archive—shared through exhibitions, digital platforms, and community spaces—that preserves identity, fosters dialogue, and supports local livelihoods. It positions art as eco-cultural activism, offering resistance through storytelling and a sustainable cultural preservation and empowerment model.
Shak Pitari (Wild Leaves)
Salma Jamal Moushum (Gidree Bawlee)
Shak Pitari explores the disappearing relationship between wild edible plants and elderly women in a rural Bangladeshi village, where climate change and ecological loss threaten both biodiversity and cultural memory. Through film, an experimental book, and collective performance, it captures the women’s embodied knowledge and deep connection to their environment. The project builds a living archive that resists the erasure of local knowledge systems, highlighting the vital role of women in preserving ecological and cultural heritage. It invites reflection on care, memory, and the fragile bonds between food, tradition, and a changing landscape.