Sharjah Biennial 16

Saodat Ismailova is a filmmaker and artist whose upbringing in post- Soviet Uzbekistan and engagement with the region continue to drive her practice. Ismailova’s filmography addresses themes of national memory, women’s sovereignty, ritualism and mortality.

Prajakta Potnis examines the imprint of social, economic and political systems on the body and psyche of the individual.

David Hammons interrogates the political and social landscape
of the United States through its material remnants.

Bahar Behbahani’s research-based practice interweaves archival materials, cartography, horticultural history and contemporary context to critique imperial structures of knowledge and power.

Hassan Hajjaj’s visual compositions are a constant evocation of his multicultural upbringing and the relationships he has developed through traversing cultural backgrounds.

Kahurangiariki Smith’s art addresses the history of colonisation, the reclamation of Indigenous knowledge and the present-day, lived consequences of historical events in New Zealand.

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.

Interweaving African traditions, historical references, layered symbolism, fashion, ecology and science fiction, Wangechi Mutu situates her practice at a crossroads between Afrofuturism and feminism.

Zohra Opoku traces the politics of personal identity from a critical perspective informed by historical, cultural and socioeconomic influences in contemporary Ghana.

Drawing from Eurasian nomadic and Indigenous folklore, Almagul Menlibayeva’s work grapples with themes of displacement,
ethnic erasure and environmental destruction under totalitarian rule in post-Soviet Central Asia.

Challenging the Eurocentrism of art, amplifying the labour of BIPOC women activists and evaluating notions of citizenship, Helina Metaferia seeks to elucidate the contradictions at the core of American identity.

Aziza Shadenova’s paintings, films and performances interrogate the world of emotions and memories and advance non- linear understandings of time.

Sifting through traces of the past, Brazilian visual artist Aline Motta seeks to reveal the constant cycles of renewal and transmutation that have occurred throughout her family’s history.