In February 2023, we travel to the Arab Emirates for the first time. We’re here to witness and celebrate Sharjah Biennial 15: Thinking Historically in the Present. Four years in the making, the exhibition is ambitious and expansive. More than 100 artists from 70 countries are presenting projects in 19 venues across the emirate. Seventy of those projects are new commissions.
The memory and influence of Nigerian born art historian, author, educator, and curator Okwui Enwezor is deeply felt, despite his physical absence. The Sharjah Art Foundation had invited Enwezor to curate this iteration of the biennial. He envisioned the exhibition title before his death in 2019.
Sharjah Art Foundation Director Hoor Al Qasimi was 22 years old when she met Okwui Enwezor and experienced his non-western curatorial model at documenta 11, in Kassel, Germany. Enwezor’s impactful perspective on postnational hybridity and global modern identity inspired Al Qasimi to lead the Foundation and the Biennial in new directions.
On the 30th anniversary of the Biennial, we sit down with Al Qasimi to talk about the inclusive ethos that we find in the art experience of Thinking Historically in the Present.
Story: Cathy Byrd | Sound Design: Anamnesis Audio
Special Audio: Hassan Hajjaj with Mestre Pastel, Open Capoeira Session, Arts Square, Sharjah
Related Episode: New Point of View at Venice Biennale
Related Links: Sharjah Biennial 15, Sharjah Art Foundation, documenta 11, 2nd Johannesburg Biennial
When Artists Who Teach Make Art
Creating Community in Kazakhstan—with CEC ArtsLink
Poetic Interventions Point to Pollution in Kyrgyzstan
Listening to St. Louis—Counterpublic Art Triennial 2023
Searching for Libertalia—with Shiraz Bayjoo
Global Appalachia—Where Culture and Geography Shape Community
Lure of Local Arts in Appalachia
Curators Declare Independence at IKT Kentucky
A Persian Garden in Manhattan—with Bahar Behbahani
The State of Blackness—with Andrea Fatona
Public Water—with Mary Mattingly
I Wish to Say—with Sheryl Oring
Aesthetics of Excess—with Jillian Hernandez
Art in Miami, Then and Now—with FeCuOp
Diaspora Art from the Creole City—with Rosie Gordon-Wallace
Puerto Rico Rising—Resisting Paradise
Puerto Rico Rising—Resilient Artists
Puerto Rico Rising—Radical Leaders
The Awakening
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
Spider-Man Crawlspace Podcast
The Week in Art
The Art Angle
Black Beauty
The War of the Worlds
Harlem Is Everywhere
Tiny Pencils Podcast