This presentation by Sarah Johnson, titled ‘Thinking Presently with History at the Ethnographic Museum’, explores the pitfalls and benefits of non-geographic framing in exhibition making, and deconstructs thematic, region-specific exhibitions whilst seeking to expand terms of art viewership by learning from platforms such as the Sharjah Biennial.

The talk is based on research published in an essay by Johnson that was commissioned for the March Meeting Papers. Selected through the March Meeting 2021 open call, the essays included in the March Meeting Papers expand on curator Okwui Enwezor’s influential thinking about the Biennial as a platform to engage with history, politics and society. Taken together, these essays reveal the extent to which the biennial model, such as the Sharjah Biennial, has contributed to the realisation of new narratives and experiences of modern and contemporary art.