Sharjah Biennial 16

Shaped by the experience of coming of age during the post-independence Angolan Civil War, Kiluanji Kia Henda reflects on the ruptures of colonial rule and conflict while framing Angolan identity within broader global historical narratives.

Rushdi Anwar draws from his personal experience as a Kurdish refugee and survivor of state violence to contemplate issues of displacement and trauma
endured as a result of colonial and ideological regimes.

Ibrahim Mahama's large-scale installations surface narratives of capitalism, global trade, crisis and injustice in materials reclaimed from the built environment of his native Ghana.

Gabriela Golder examines the intersection between labour and memory from a wide variety of sources— political, mythical and medical—to highlight the aftereffect of violent state actions.

Mame-Diarra Niang’s photographic work abstracts, fragments and decontextualises landscapes and portraits relating to her ancestral roots and Senegalese- Ivorian-French upbringing. Niang’s interrelated photographic series dwell on memory, selfhood and race.

Working with drawing that is transformed by text, installation, photography or video, Ali Eyal’s practice examines feelings of absence and dissonance in response to armed conflict.

Lubaina Himid’s artistic and curatorial practice illuminates the omissions and hypocrisies of western colonial histories, centring the contributions of marginalised figures, particularly Black individuals, to cultural life in Europe.

Pushpakanthan Pakkiyarajah’s paintings and video installations reflect on the painful and frequently suppressed legacies of Sri Lanka’s lengthy civil war.

Kader Attia’s poetic installations and sculptural assemblages investigate the far-reaching emotional implications of western cultural hegemony and colonial systems of power for non-western subjectivities, focusing particularly on collective trauma and notions of repair.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

Shaped by his Iraqi-Jewish heritage, Michael Rakowitz’s work braids together seemingly disparate elements of cultural history,
mythic symbolism, contemporary geopolitics, Pop culture, food and looted artefacts.

Jasbir Puar and Dima Srouji build upon their respective work in architecture, visual art and decolonial theory to produce a collaborative examination of colonial pathologies.

Joiri Minaya is a Dominican- American multidisciplinary artist whose work investigates the continuity of colonial power hierarchies, often exploring the performativity of tropical identity and its commodification.

At the intersection of conceptual, staged and documentary image- making, Hoda Afshar’s lens- based artistic practice explores the representation of gender, marginality and displacement.

Au Sow Yee explores fictional, mysterious narratives embedded within musical and archival sources and responds to the influence of Cold War structures in history- making processes in Southeast Asia.

As a documentary photographer and visual storyteller, Rehab Eldalil challenges traditional frameworks of artist-subject relationships by involving those she photographs in the creative process. T

With narratives drawn from social conflict, oral history traditions and nonlinear storytelling, Amar Kanwar’s films offer a poetic vantage point from which to consider the ideologies and solidarities that populate the contemporary world.

Kimowan Metchewais (1963–2011), a Cree visual artist of the Cold Lake First Nations reserve in Alberta, Canada, challenged the clichés projected onto Indigenous art.

Dana Awartani seeks to revive traditional Arab forms, techniques, concepts and spatial constructs as well as historic artistic practices
by making them relevant to the contemporary context.

Erkan Özgen explores the impact of war and terror on the collective and personal lives of those directly affected.