Sharjah Art Foundation announces particulars of Sharjah Biennial 16

Muhammad Yusuf, Features Writer

Sharjah Art Foundation (SAF) has announced the title, approach and participant list for the 16th edition of the Sharjah Biennial (SB16, Feb. 6 - June 15, 2025). Works by more than 140 participants, including over 80 new commissions, will be presented across the emirate of Sharjah, including locations in Sharjah city, Al Hamriyah, Al Dhaid, Kalba and Al Madam. Curated by Alia Swastika, Amal Khalaf, Megan Tamati-Quennell, Natasha Ginwala and Zeynep Öz, SB16 will convene under the title “to carry” - words which have many meanings. For example, what do we carry when it is time to travel, flee or move on? What are the passages we create when we migrate between territories and across time? What do we carry when we remain? What do we carry when we survive?

Further, according to the curators, it could mean to carry a home; to carry a history; to carry a trade; to carry a wound; to carry equatorial heat; to carry resistance; to carry a library of redacted documents; to carry rupture; to carry Te Pō (Maori, the beginnings); to carry change; to carry songs; to carry on; to carry land; to carry the language of the inner soul; to carry new formations; to carry the embrace of a river current; to carry sisterhood and communal connection; or to carry the rays of a morning without fear.

Thus, “to carry” makes the Biennial a collective wayfinder, something that looks back, inwards and across. Involving intergenerational stories, it is, among other things, an invitation to see the thoughts of its curators. SB 16’s curatorial projects reflect on what it means to carry change and its technological, societal, animistic and ritualistic possibilities, says SAF. Diverse curatorial methodologies — from residencies, workshops and collective production to writing, sonic experiences and expanded publications — are present in the Biennial it adds, encouraging critical conversations through narratives told from multiple perspectives, landscapes and languages.

  The Flying Saucer, SB16 space.

“The constellation of diverse methodologies that the five curators have gathered offers audiences the opportunity to engage in thought-provoking dialogues bridging the local context with global narratives about identity, movement, change and collectivity,” said Hoor Al Qasimi, President and Director of Sharjah Art Foundation. “By centring the act of carrying, Sharjah Biennial 16 offers a space for imagining new collective futures, while recognising the weight of shared histories and experiences.”

According to the curators - who have shaped their projects together and singly - “our projects come under the umbrella of a question rather than a theme. What does it entail to carry a home, ancestors and political formations with you? This spirit of inquiry coalesces with artistic methods grounded in stories of change and movement, intergenerational kinship, lament and ritual, experimental pedagogies, knowledge of land and sea terrains.” The space they gave each other, they say, allowed room for listening, mutual support and the sharing of resources. They could come to a common understanding though they were “carriers of different processes and offerings.”

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SAF advocates, catalyses and produces contemporary art in the emirate of Sharjah and the surrounding region, in dialogue with the international arts community. It advances an experimental and wide-ranging model that preserves and celebrates the culture of the region and encourages an understanding of the transformational role of art. The Foundation’s core initiatives include the long-running Sharjah Biennial, featuring contemporary artists from around the world; the annual March Meeting, a convening of international arts professionals and artists; grants and residencies for artists, curators and cultural producers; experimental commissions and a range of travelling exhibitions and scholarly publications.

Established in 2009 to expand programmes beyond the Sharjah Biennial (which launched in 1993), the Foundation is a resource for artists and cultural organisations in the Gulf and a tracker of local, regional and international developments in contemporary art. Its commitment to developing and sustaining the cultural life and heritage of Sharjah is reflected through year-round exhibitions, performances, screenings and educational programmes in the city of Sharjah and across the emirate, often hosted in historic buildings that have been repurposed as cultural and community centres.

A growing collection reflects its support of works by contemporary artists and its recognition of the contributions made by pioneering modern artists from the region and globally. SAF is a legally independent public body established by Emiri Decree and supported by government funding, grants from national and international non-profits and cultural organisations, corporate sponsors and individual patrons. All exhibitions are free and open to the public. Biennials, according to on-curating.org, and other recurring art events with close associations with specific sites and audiences, strive for a balance between localism and globalism, artistic and cultural agency and cross-cultural difference, while asserting cultural prowess and soft power on the international stage.

Importantly, the global proliferation of biennales has irrevocably challenged the “predominance of certain Euro-American art centres, such as Paris and New York — not as markets, but as (sole) art-producing localities,” it notes. “It is the Biennial’s role, as an independent foundation, to be a platform that actively promotes diversity, freedom and experimentation, while exercising critical thought and producing an alternative reality,” says Jochen Volz, curator, as quoted by news.artnet.com. “It is a pluralistic space where autonomous perspectives can enter into dialogue and debate with one another. I strongly believe in the transformative role of art as it holds an inherent integration of thinking and doing, reflection and action.”