As the structure and dates of the Sharjah Biennale 13 were announced by Sharjah Art Foundation (SAF), what comes across is that the confidence and ambition of the organisers have led to a much more elaborate programme.
Curated by Christine Tohmé, the forthcoming edition will span a period of one year, and unfold in five parts from October 2016 through October 2017, encompassing exhibitions and a public programme in two acts in Sharjah and Beirut.
The last edition — SB12 — curated by Eungie Joo with associate curator Ryan Inouye — explored the many locales in Sharjah emirate in and around the city, as well as in the city of Kalba on the Gulf of Oman. Joo’s theme last time was The Past, the Present, the Possible, leading to productive imaginings of the possible.
SB13’s theme is Tamawuj — an Arabic noun meaning a rising and falling of waves; a flowing, swelling, surging, or fluctuation; or a wavy, undulating appearance, outline, or form.
By cultivating collaborations, infrastructures and strategies within those localities, Tamawuj will pose questions around, and propose answers to, the conditions for the possibility of an arts world.
In a region currently being invested with larger institutions and lesser infrastructures, SB13 will cross from the ideal to the material. Vital interventions will stretch the idea of the biennial in order to traverse rooted contexts, harnessing the agility and fragility of present informal networks.
The five parts of SB13 are an online depository of research material, four projects curated by four Interlocutors outside of the UAE, a year-long education programme in Sharjah, a year-long online publishing platform and a public programme in two parts: Act I, the biennial exhibition and programme in Sharjah from March to June 2017, and Act II, the culmination of SB13 taking place in Beirut in October 2017.
Artist Kader Attia, curators Lara Khaldi and Zeynep Oz, and the Lebanese Association for Plastic Arts, Ashkal Alwan, will be engaged in an extended conversation with Sharjah, from specific sites within the broader region: the cities of Dakar, Senegal; Ramallah, Palestine; Istanbul, Turkey; and Beirut, Lebanon respectively.
These four Interlocutors will be working closely with researchers in the four cities, paired with counterparts in Sharjah. Together they will populate chip-ship, a centralised digital storage space, housing various media, images and texts, addressing the four keywords: water, earth, crops and culinary. Each keyword also will correspond to a locality, which will host one of four consecutive programmes envisioned by the Interlocutors in Dakar (January 2017), Istanbul (May 2017), Ramallah (August 2017) and Beirut (October 2017).
A year-long online publishing platform will host articles, media and essays responding to the four keywords; four consecutive compendia will be released coinciding with the start of each of the four off-site projects.
Act I in Sharjah
This dense digital accumulation of resource material will be made available to 15 artists, inspiring new commissions for SB13’s Act I in Sharjah.
The exhibition in Sharjah will be on view from March 10 through June 12, 2017 and will feature over 50 international artists. The opening programme held from March 10 through 14, 2017, will include performances, film screenings and the 10th annual March Meeting.
Two other exhibitions will be on view in Beirut from October 19, 2017 through January 19, 2018, coupled with a programme of performances, film screenings, talks and panels.
Parallel to SB13, SAF will host an intensive education programme, designed to help local infrastructures in the western, central and eastern regions of the Emirate of Sharjah and empower their various communities.
The programme — SB13 School — will be open to participants of all abilities and ages, from age 3 to adults. The free programme will run until the end of the Biennial.
Christine Tohmé, curator of SB13
Beirut-based curator Christine Tohmé is the founding director of Ashkal Alwan, the Lebanese Association for Plastic Arts, established in 1993.
Ashkal Alwan is a non-profit organisation that supports contemporary art through numerous initiatives including the multidisciplinary platform Home Works: A Forum of Cultural Practices started by Tohmé in 2001.
Other initiatives include Video Works, a grant and screening platform created in 2006 to support the development, production and diffusion of projects by artists and filmmakers residing in Lebanon, and Home Workspace Program, a tuition-free, interdisciplinary study programme founded in 2011.
Tohmé was the recipient of a Prince Claus Award in 2006, given in recognition of her achievements in supporting local multidisciplinary art production and art criticism, as well as the 2015 CCS Bard Audrey Irmas Award for Curatorial Excellence.
She is on the boards of Marsa, in Beirut, a health centre providing specialised medical services for at-risk youth and marginalised communities, and SAHA, in Istanbul, an association supporting contemporary art from Turkey.
The Sharjah Art Foundation had announced Tohmé as the curator for SB13 on September 30 last year.
Sharjah Art Foundation president and director Shaikha Hoor Al Qasimi, had said on that occasion: “We are delighted to have this opportunity to work with Christine Tohmé, whose substantial contributions to the development and direction of the cultural landscape of the Middle East have been recognised both regionally and internationally ... With her deep knowledge and understanding of the region’s art and artists, we are confident that she will bring a compelling vision and perspective to the next Biennial in 2017.”
On her selection, Tohmé said, “The Sharjah Art Foundation has become a strong and thoughtful voice in a conversation about contemporary art that is taking place not only across the region but internationally as well. The projects the foundation has produced since its inception are now important points of reference in a dialogue among artists and peers all over the world. I am excited to be part of this history, and I look forward to expanding the conversation in 2017.”
About Sharjah Art Foundation
Sharjah Biennial is organised by Sharjah Art Foundation, which brings a broad range of contemporary art and cultural programmes to the communities of Sharjah, the UAE and the region.
Since 1993, Sharjah Biennial has commissioned, produced and presented large-scale public installations, performances, and films, offering artists from the region and beyond an internationally recognised platform for exhibition and experimentation.
Since 2009 SAF has built on the history of cultural collaboration and exchange that began with the first Sharjah Biennial in 1993.
Working with local and international partners, SAF creates opportunities for artists and artistic production through core initiatives that include Sharjah Biennial, the annual March Meeting, residencies, production grants, commissions, exhibitions, research, publications and a growing collection.
SAF’s education and public programmers focus on building recognition of the central role art can play in the life of a community by promoting public learning and a participatory approach to art. All its events are free and open to the public.
N.P. Krishna Kumar is a freelance writer based in Dubai.