Meet our grant recipients for Climate Futures: South Asia

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 the Matarbari 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.

Alice Sharp

Director and Founder, Invisible Dust

Mentor for Discovering the Matarbari Tales (Bangladesh); Crafting Togetherness (Bangladesh); Weaving Together: Local Art for Social Cohesion and Climate Resilience (Pakistan); The Eco Blocks Tower at The MagnifiScience Center (Pakistan)

Alice Sharp is the Director and founder of Invisible Dust, an organisation that brings artists and scientists together to explore and address environmental challenges. Since 2009, Invisible Dust has worked to “make the invisible visible” by using the arts to illuminate climate issues globally.

A leading speaker and curator, Alice is currently working on the Climate Clock for Oulu, European Capital of Culture 2026, and has delivered talks and projects in New York, Davos, and at the UNDP, among other venues. She brings a global perspective and curatorial expertise to Climate Futures, mentoring projects rooted in local storytelling, science, and community resilience.

Paul Denton

Director of Creative Programmes and Exhibitions, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew

Mentor for Shak Pitari (Bangladesh)

Paul Denton is the Director of Creative Programmes and Exhibitions at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, where he shapes the artistic direction of Kew’s visitor programme. His work uses creative practice to illuminate scientific research, living collections, and the global challenges of our time. Since 2019, Paul has led interdisciplinary exhibitions that connect artists with scientists, horticulturists, and Kew’s collections, fostering innovative and emotionally resonant engagement with pressing issues such as climate change and biodiversity loss. His approach emphasises long-term, place-based collaborations that build meaningful connections with communities and landscapes.

Previously, Paul was Curator of Public Realm at London’s Southbank Centre, where he commissioned outdoor works and immersive exhibitions including Adventures in Moominland and Abba: Super Troupers.

As a mentor for Shak Pitari (Wild Leaves), Paul brings his expertise in curating dialogue between science, creativity, and the public to support climate storytelling rooted in local ecologies.