From 7 February to 11 June in Sharjah, more than one hundred and forty artists from seventy countries will participate in this 15th edition of the Sharjah Biennial, which has been postponed twice due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Entitled "Sharjah Biennial 15: Thinking Historically in the Present", the exhibition was conceived by Nigerian curator, art critic and writer Okwui Enwezor, who passed away in 2019, and Sharjah Art Foundation Director and Biennial Curator Sheikha Hoor Al Qasimi.
The Biennale will take place at sixteen venues, including original sites that will help develop the economy, such as a vegetable market, a power plant and a former nursery.
With venues ranging from historical places and modern monuments to regional art centres and contemporary spaces, the programme is designed to trace a thread through many pockets of Sharjah's history and its communal and geographical landscapes. Performances, concerts and workshops are framed by intimate observations of everyday life and vernacular traditions.
The programme will also include performances and theatre plays in February, by Gabriela Golder, Hassan Hajjaj (Morocco), Rachid Hedli (Algeria), Tania El Khoury (Lebanon), ... In March and April, musicians Youssou N'Dour (Senegal) and Abdullah Ibrahim (South Africa) will also perform.
Eventually, Sheikha Hoor has collaborated with artists on more than seventy new works, which link the past and the present, and tackle postcolonial histories.
These include major art pieces by John Akomfrah, Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons, Doris Salcedo, Berni Searle and Barbara Walker. They deal with the legacy of colonialism. Other new works include a feature film by Coco Fusco, an installation by Bouchra Khalili (Morocco), a multimedia work by Almagul Menlibayeva and a sound installation by Hajra Waheed (Saudi Arabia) which all re-imagine the political conflicts precipitated by the modern process of nation building.
Website: http://sharjahart.org
Photo: 'Alo Wala', 'My Rockstars' series, 2015, Hassan Hajjaj.