Sharmillie Rahman is a writer, translator, and curator whose foray into the art world began with her involvement in Depart, an English-language art quarterly published in Dhaka. Between 2013 and 2017, she contributed essays, reviews, and translations that engaged deeply with contemporary art and criticism in South Asia. This intellectually rigorous period ran parallel to her academic career as a teacher of English Literature, a background that continues to inform her curatorial voice.

Rahman’s transition from art writing to curating marked a shift in her creative trajectory, culminating in her collaboration with Kalakendra, a Dhaka-based non-profit arts platform dedicated to experimental and critical visual culture. At Kalakendra, she curated a number of exhibitions that brought together diverse artistic practices rooted in feminist, archival, and socio-political concerns. Notable among these are In/Visible by Dilara Begum Jolly, which foregrounded the silenced experiences of women; Self-quest in the Time of Corona by Wakilur Rahman, a reflective engagement with solitude and survival during the pandemic; The Archiving Body by Sharad Das, an inquiry into memory and corporeality; and Of Fragments by Palash Bhattacharjee, which explored violence, trauma, and rupture in contemporary life.