The Samdanis are Bangladesh’s foremost art collectors. But in the past few years they have also arguably become the most influential duo in all of South Asian art – and, indeed, among the 100 most influential people in the art world, according to ArtReview magazine’s annual Power 100 list.

‘We started off as collectors. We would travel all over to museums, biennales and exhibitions, and saw there was no presence of Bangladesh anywhere. We wondered, why is this happening? We have so many great artists,’ says Nadia. ‘So we thought we needed to support our artists.’

In 2011, the duo founded the Samdani Art Foundation, initially supporting Bangladeshi artists by funding individual exhibitions and projects. ‘And then we thought, how many projects, internationally and individually, can we support? And how can you do that in the long term?’ says Nadia. ‘So we had the idea of doing something here, on a big scale, where everyone from all over the world can come and see.’

Enter the Dhaka Art Summit. Launched in 2012, the biennial four-day event has quickly become the world’s biggest non-commercial platform for South Asian art. And it’s a unique showcase. It features contemporary art in all its diverse forms, from painting to sculpture, performance to video, photography to installation, and a number of exhibitions put together by curators from some of the world’s biggest art institutions. It includes programmes of seminars, films and workshops. And entry is completely free, which has allowed many of the city’s poorest to be part of the 138,000 people who attended in 2016. ‘We had kids from some of Dhaka’s poorest schools come. Can you imagine for them to see something like this?’ says Nadia.