Sharjah Biennial 16

Mabini art is a genre of conservative Filipino landscape painting associated with lowbrow commercial galleries that cater to the tourist market.

Maria Thereza Alves is best known for her projects that encompass ecology, indigenous knowledge and the enduring impact of imperial conquest.

In his practice as an experimental filmmaker, video artist and writer, Mochu engages with the life of fictional figures found in works of art and their encounters with esoteric philosophies and technological imaginaries.

Marisol Mendez’s work journeys into ancestral and collective histories of colonialism, racism and traditionalism—all of which shaped her experience of growing up in Cochabamba, Bolivia.

Marianne Fahmy’s films explore the relationship between natural phenomena and human habitation and its role in structuring reality and the invention of the future.

Liliana Porter’s Man Drawing follows a series of installations by the Artist that depict miniature figurines undertaking hugely disproportionate tasks.

Agnes Janich created a multi-video installation where viewers were led through a maze of darkened passages to the prison-like cages of barking dogs.

Maportaliche/ It has no importance is a mixed-media installation of a patchwork of words, texts, short descriptions in languages from the artist’s lived socio-linguistic reality in Algeria as well as from his world of literary and theatrical production.

This mosaic work is an abstraction of the Hereford Mappa Mundi, a world map belonging to a pre-scientific, Christian cartographic tradition that placed Jerusalem at the centre.

With ecological research at the centre of her intersecting artistic interests, Naiza Khan considers the ways in which geography materialises power and facilitates the collective remembrance of colonial histories.

Marwan Kassab Bachi, most commonly known as MARWAN, was a pioneering painter and educator, whose life and work bridged continents and cultures.

Over the last 20 years, Laura Lima’s practice has destabilised conventions of contemporary art viewership, and more specifically, the pat expectation of revelatory insight that people have come to expect from conceptual practices.

Having trained in sculpture at Chitrakala Institute of Advanced Studies in Bangalore, Ranjani Shettar creates three-dimensional works that explore the confrontation of the urban and the organic, the metaphysical and the mundane.

This collection of games includes new games as well as variations on existing ones. For every game, there is a poster – a visual poem that also works as a score/instruction/recipe for how to play.

Lebanese filmmaker Rania Stephan’s new film Memories of a Private Eye premiered at Berlinale on February 11, 2015. The film was commissioned by Sharjah Art Foundation.

From the series Merely a Mistake II, 2009—2013

These photos were taken in the environs of Sarajevo during Christmas 2004 and New Year’s 2005.

As their contribution to SB12, Kristine Khouri and Rasha Salti have organised a full day of talks and screenings for March Meeting 2015 to explore a number of questions raised by their research on The International Art Exhibition for Palestine.

Combining the cultural and commercial - two apparently conflicting perspectives on value - this show addresses aspects of production, distribution and reception.

For some years, Kader Attia has researched the concept of reappropriation. He found the term had been in use since 1840, when it was popularised by Pierre Joseph Proudhon, a French politician and influential theorist of anarchism.

In November 2006, as I was flying back from Dubai to Frankfurt, images appeared in my mind: buildings, grid structures, high-reflecting glass, in blue and green everywhere.

Constant Dullaart’s conceptual work, which manifests itself on the internet, in public spaces and offline, includes websites, performances, installations and manipulated found images that aim to visualise the vernacular of the internet.

Imran Qureshi painted this series of portraits when he realised that after 9/11, the world insisted on segregating religious people.

Often created with photography or video, Mohamed Bourouissa’s projects emerge from time spent in collaboration with the people and communities that inform his work.

Over nearly six decades, Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian fashioned luminous abstract sculptures and drawings out of glass, mosaic, paper and fabric.

Monovacation consists of three parts: the original tourism commercials that were used as data, presented in grid form; a digital print of the network map of tags created by content analysis of each clip; and a generic video of a vacation as edited via network analysis.

Asma Belhamar explores the phenomenon of the megastructure in the Emirates and its impact on the topographical memory of local landscapes through installation, experimental print, video and 3D modelling.

While seldom site-specific, Weiner’s text pieces physically correspond to the locations in which they are exhibited.

Artist duo Jon Thomson and Alison Craighead have been working together since 1993. They produce art across video, sound, sculpture and installation as well as the virtual sphere.

Primarily photography, video and sound, Munem Wasif’s works emerge from long-term engagement with places and their histories, particularly within the context of his home country of Bangladesh.

Maria Magdalena Campos-
Pons’ practice interweaves autobiographical elements of her Afro-Cuban heritage with historical narratives of the African diaspora.

In this new creation, Omar Rajeh looks into the body; more precisely, he attempts to deconstruct, alienate, re-discover, and question our perception of the human body system today.

In Phan Thảo Nguyên’s work, the Vietnamese countryside is a dreamscape in which cultural and political histories play out.

If you want a sense of how utterly alive Africa is today, culturally and politically, listen to its popular music.

Houman Mortazavi is a Tehran based multi-media artist whose practice is remarkably versatile.

All that remains from Rashid Ghossein and Mariam Hamadeh’s relationship is a large collection of messages recorded over a period of ten years on audiocassettes.

Marwah AlMugait uses visual, technological and performative elements to explore humanity’s connection to the natural world, issues of migration and displacement as well as the mechanics and ambiguities of
human interaction.

Interweaving African traditions, historical references, layered symbolism, fashion, ecology and science fiction, Wangechi Mutu situates her practice at a crossroads between Afrofuturism and feminism.

This shop displays and makes available for purchase a variety of products amassed during the artist’s past decade of developing economic projects.

Myths and Legends Room – The Mural looks at the genre of large-scale wall painting as commemorative propaganda art, making reference to murals and dioramas that celebrate the history of modern Egypt.

In the Russian language the word for “creative work” (“tvorchestvo”) shares a root with the word for “Creator” (“Tvorets”).

Naqshbandi Greenacre Engagement provides a view into the communal gatherings of the Greenacre Order in western Sydney, Australia.

Nations, N S Harsha’s work for Sharjah Biennial 9, is an expansive installation consisting of hand-painted flags, sewing machines and textiles.

Book performance tickets now.

Investigating the meaning of the archetypal image of the cave, Neither the sky nor the earth (2017) appears to consume the architecture of its own exhibition space.

This work uses a questionnaire and mapping software to capture the relationships between expatriates’ subjective encounters with neoliberalism in the UAE and in their home countries.

The encyclopaedia is a monumental work of instruction, aiming to treat everything that can be learned by a person in his or her lifetime.

Night Journey follows stories of pilgrimage and devotional practice and focuses on the symbols and instruments of communication or communion with and between the supernatural and mankind.

Nabil El Makhloufi grapples with themes of self-authorship,
alienation, nostalgia and the cultural plurality of migration.

In Just’s earliest video, made when he was a student at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Copenhagen, an older man begins dancing in a public square, oblivious to the laughing gawkers who pass by.

No Place Like Home is an experimental documentary shot on 16mm film.

No Shooting Stars film drifts from one dreamlike scene to another, with only a tangential association with its organic narrative structure.

Felix Shumba’s multidisciplinary practice interprets sociopolitical issues such as dislocation and migration through the use of existing imagery culled from archival and media sources.

Drawing on Easterling’s book Extrastatecraft (2014), A.S.T. collectively examines how ‘infrastructure sets the invisible rules that govern the space of everyday lives.’

Through reimagined narratives based in factual research and primary source material, Lisa Reihana examines the culture and history of Māori and South Pacific Islander peoples.

I try, always try, to create a space where I can probe my identities vis-á-vis the world around me.

I work on the concept of time mainly by dissecting and analyzing time in relation to movement and the pace at which time moves.

What you see and what you hear often differ a lot.

Adam Khalil is a filmmaker artist and Ojibway tribal member whose work amplifies Indigenous artist voices. Bayley Sweitzer is a filmmaker whose lens-based practice seeks to advance radical political futures. Oba is a multidisciplinary artist, musician and actor.

Not a matter of if but when was developed in 2005-2006 in Damascus, Syria.

Mark Salvatus engages with the material of the past to reveal latent outcomes, energies, meanings and experiences embedded in history.

Cao Fei’s practice examines how technological advancements intersect with popular culture and urban transformation in contemporary China.

Fathi Hassan explores the colonial erasure of ancient languages and oral histories as well as the ambivalence and fallibility of semiotic meaning.

Jonathas de Andrade’s work often explores how collective codes of conduct and organisation impinge and shape other modes of being.

This project is inspired by traditional arish architecture – an ancient method of construction using dried palm leaves – and the oasis, an anomaly in the desert where water is found and vegetation carefully cultivated.

Ali Cherri’s sculptures, drawings and installations unravel complex narratives of environment, archaeology and heritage in West Asia and the broader region.

patricia kaersenhout is an artist and activist who examines hidden and forgotten stories, delving into ignored histories of the African diaspora and its movements around the globe.

Oil workers (from the Shell company of Nigeria) returning home from work, caught in torrential rain.

On red nails, palm trees and other icons is a personal archive of images that came together over the course of a year and a half.

In her bodies of work, Sangeeta Sandrasegar constructs a continuous narrative centred upon the relationships of migrant communities to their homelands.

This production further develops the performance style that has characterised recent Temple Independent Company productions – a combination of theatre, music and visual arts.

Isaac Julien’s practice often examines the politics of masculinity, class and race as well as deconstructs and reclaims Black histories.

In his new commission, Once Removed (2019), Lawrence Abu Hamdan presents an audiovisual installation that acts as a portrait of the time-travelling life and work of Bassel Abi Chahine

Omar Badsha’s work focuses on themes of identity, alienation and politics as associated with diverse histories of South Africa, specifically those overlooked by the western artistic canon.

To prepare for their participation in SB12, mixrice travelled to Sharjah with one of their longtime collaborators from Bangladesh, whom they met in Maseok, an industrial community outside of Seoul.

Wu Tsang’s artistic practice explores states of connectedness and in-betweenness. This fluidity often manifests as collaboration or is amplified in the merging of disciplines, such as performance, moving image, sculpture and installation.

One Hundred Thousand Solitudes examines images that have emerged from the Arab revolutions and from different Occupy movements throughout the world.

Raheleh Filsoofi’s practice addresses the customs that mediate everyday experiences through research, education, community- centred work and performance.

Fascinated by this unusual take on electronic music, Carlos Amorales and musician Julian Léde commissioned Orellana to create his own version of the score for a segment of Walt Disney’s classic animated film Fantasia (1940).

The camera follows a hand carefully carrying a glass filled with ink through the streets of Tunis.

In making this work the Artist creates a sculpture that reflects the exhibition and its display, literally and conceptually.

Our Look Was as If Two Lovers, or Deadly Enemies (2015) is a three-channel video installation that juxtaposes two reading performances with more traditional documentary footage.

Since the dawn of time nature has found a way to balance all its elements in order to live in a state of equilibrium. This state is known to us as the ecosystem.

Khalil Rabah’s practice has long been concerned with the relationship between art and institutions.

French-Colombian visual artist and filmmaker Laura Huertas Millán’s works reflect the complex realities and ecologies produced by colonial relations in Abya Yala.

Once I found a mouldy old book abandoned on the lower shelves of a political science library.

Focusing on Sharjah’s location on the Strait of Hormuz, and the area’s historical power tensions, this animated video explores ideas of control and conflict.

Ulrik López’s drawings and sculptures draw on his research in archaeology, myth and ritual.

Fragments of hand-woven and industrially produced carpets from around the world.

Katja Novitskova’s work tackles the complexity and eventual failure of depicting the world through technologically driven narratives.

In Aisha Khalid’s Pattern to Follow series, the artist devises a contemporary approach to painting classical Islamic geometric patterns.

The music in Peace is Not What You Believe is intended to create sensory and spatial effects that, in turn, may lead to the creative resurgence of memory and new imaginings.

Kamran Shirdel is considered one of the pioneers of the social documentary.

The two photomontages Perfumes & Bazaar and Justice for the mother are trompe l'oeils of walls in a living-room covered with wallpaper showing on one side a teeming garden of earthly delights and on the other a jungle.

These intermixed photographs of Tangier, and Cohen’s home city, New York, all originated as three-inch-square polaroids – a discontinued format.

Meschac Gaba’s practice explores a range of contemporary subjects, including urban architecture, systems of trade, transnational power dynamics and Africa’s place in the world.

Combining the cultural and commercial - two apparently conflicting perspectives on value - this show addresses aspects of production, distribution and reception.

The practice of Adrián Villar Rojas is marked by large-scale, site-specific interventions that incorporate his fascinations with battling ecosystems, physical decay, unlikely rebirth and man’s interference in it all.

Babak Afrassiabi and Nasrin Tabatabai’s work Plate It with Silver (2015) is a video set along the northern and southern shores of the Strait of Hormuz.

Epaminonda works with video and film, collage, photography, books and objects in an extensive process of assembling and disassembling to reconstruct non-linear narratives and situations.

These two videos show scenes of empty schoolyards and young people enjoying themselves in a river, within a strict, still frame.

Kawayan de Guia’s works offer ironic and sometimes comedic insight into sociopolitical issues in contemporary Philippine society.

Brood was originally conceived by the artists as an army – ornithological stand-ins for a band of warfaring men.

Combining autoethnographic methodologies with archival portraits, Inuuteq Storch’s photographic practice bridges personal and universal visions of Greenland.

Centred around notions of crossings, transmissions and reversibility, Ayoung Kim’s practice builds complex, nonlinear narratives
of modern Korean history using characters that experience the transnational push and pull of technological advancement.

Through economical gestures, Stéphanie Saadé examines magnitudes of force and measures of distance and time often unaccounted for by conventional standpoints.

'Portrait of Avar asks if one is born with a certain identity, or if we can choose how to identify ourselves.'
Taus Makhacheva

The idea for my project emerged when I saw the portrait of Sheikh Sultan, hanging at the entrance to the Sharjah Museum.

'The subjects all chose their own elements to represent and identify them in the form of a tattoo superimposed on their portraits.' Marie Hélène Cauvin

The Postage Stamp series, 2011–2013, projects a vision of a free and independent Palestinian homeland.

Obaid Suroor’s mixed media practice draws from natural landscapes and traditional architecture of the Emirates.

"Power Station" is a series of 13 pairs of photographs recording the interiors of two buildings that have been neighbours for nearly 40 years.

Annalee Davis is a Barbadian visual artist whose practice combines history and biography in her discussions of ‘post-plantation economies’.

Ammar Al Attar surveys prayer rooms across the United Arab Emirates.

Environment is the smoke humanity has laid on Nature: the people who used Latin had no word for Environment – they only knew natura.

Using found images and footage, Iman Issa’s proposal took the form of a video in which a female subject answers questions concerning her feelings and perceptions of the war and the landscape of Iraq.

Steve McQueen is an artist and filmmaker whose practice explores the tactility and corporeality of the moving image, impressing upon his audiences a more acute awareness of their bodies in relation to physical space.

It is so real
A remote and intimate world

As artist, writer, curator, professor and thinker, Qiu Zhijie draws on many different artistic sources and bodies of thought, from contemporary art to Chinese traditions of ink painting and calligraphy.

Borrowing elements from Palestinian folk belief and superstition, Quest for Spouse directs its attention to magic, healing, play and longing.

Ho Tzu Nyen’s ongoing project The Critical Dictionary of Southeast Asia (2012–present) poses the following question: What is Southeast Asia? In the modern sense, the term was introduced during the Second World War in a 1941 book by British-born colonial public servant John Sydenham Furnivall.

The artistic output of Semsar Siahaan (1952–2005) showcases his deep engagement with Indonesia’s history and political legacies, his keen eye for social commentary and his front-line experience during a time of great national unrest.

Jorinde Voigt’s practice is shaped by everyday acts and interaction with her environment as well as a steady stream of reading.

Sharjah Art Foundation presents Rain Room for the first time in the Middle East. The installation is permanently sited in Al Majarrah, Sharjah.

Random Rolling Cylinder is an installation consisting of a cylindrical corridor with a walkway that leads through its central axis.

Dala Nasser’s multimedia practice examines human and non-human entanglements within a perpetually deteriorating environment

In 2004, while still a student at the Akademie der bildenden Künste in Vienna, Leopold Kessler installed a 1,200m long electric cable from his studio at the academy to his private apartment – for programmatic reasons and without seeking permission beforehand (Akademiekabel, 2004).

Im Heung-soon’s recent work in documentary film, photography and installation has explored the impact of Korea’s modernisation through engagement with its older generations.