Sharjah Art Foundation

Sharjah Biennial 15: Thinking Historically in the Present

SB15 is now closed. Thank you for your support. Updates on the Biennial can be read here.

A Haunting (2021–2023)

A Haunting (2021–2023)

Tracey Moffatt

Tracey Moffatt’s visual style draws attention to the fractures lurking beneath societal facades and the violent, enduring legacy of Australian colonialism.

A Healing Path for Phantom Pain (2022) and other works

A Healing Path for Phantom Pain (2022) and other works

Kiluanji Kia Henda

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.

Arrancar los ojos (2023) and other works

Arrancar los ojos (2023) and other works

Gabriela Golder

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.

Call Me When You Get There (2020) and other works

Call Me When You Get There (2020) and other works

Mame-Diarra Niang

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.

Dream Boats (2022)

Dream Boats (2022)

Lubaina Himid

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.

Hypomnemata (2023) and other works

Hypomnemata (2023) and other works

Kader Attia

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.

Magic carpet land (2020) and other works

Magic carpet land (2020) and other works

Marianne Fahmy

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.

Monuments of Alfreej (2023)

Monuments of Alfreej (2023)

Asma Belhamar

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.

Nocturnal Body (2022) and other works

Nocturnal Body (2022) and other works

Felix Shumba

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.

Nova (2019) and other works

Nova (2019) and other works

Cao Fei

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

Of Men and Gods and Mud (2022)

Of Men and Gods and Mud (2022)

Ali Cherri

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

Para la coca (2023) and other works

Para la coca (2023) and other works

Laura Huertas Millán

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

RETURN (2004–ongoing)

RETURN (2004–ongoing)

Michael Rakowitz

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.

Spandex installations (2023) and other works

Spandex installations (2023) and other works

Joiri Minaya

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.

Speak the Wind (2015–2020) and other works

Speak the Wind (2015–2020) and other works

Hoda Afshar

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.

The Peacock’s Graveyard (2023)

The Peacock’s Graveyard (2023)

Amar Kanwar

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.

Various archival materials

Various archival materials

Kimowan Metchewais

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.

When the dust of conflict settles (2023)

When the dust of conflict settles (2023)

Dana Awartani

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.