Sharjah Art Foundation

Sharjah Biennial 16

Sharjah, United Arab Emirates
6 Febuary — 15 June 2025

Dictums 10:120, 2013

Wael Shawky
Dictums 10:120, 2013
Workshop
Bait Al Serkal
Arts Area, Sharjah

Overview

Join Wael Shawky as he talks about his exciting Sharjah Biennial 11 project, Dictums 10:120 at College of Fine Arts and Design.

Wael Shawky’s Sharjah Biennial 11 project, Dictums 10:120, was developed in response to the Artist’s Witness Programme residency during Sharjah Biennial 10. Through a series of workshops, Shawky engaged members of Sharjah Art Foundation’s production and technical team, most of whom originate from Pakistan, to deconstruct and examine the relationship between art organisation and their communities.

The Artist challenges the boundaries and expectations imposed by existing hierarchies by inserting the religious musical tradition of qawwali into a contemporary art framework, playfully questioning the legitimizing power of the institution, comparing the oblique and mystified language of ‘artspeak’ with mystic poetry.

Related

Dictums 10:120 for Sharjah Biennial 11

Dictums 10:120

Dictums 10:120 is a multi-part project that involves the composition and performance of a qawwali song.

Dictums 10:120 for Sharjah Biennial 11

Shawky, Wael

In photographs, installations, videos and performances, Wael Shawky mines traditions of entertainment and performance through multilayered historical reconstructions that force viewers to navigate the territory of truth, myth, stereotype and cliché.