Just as a final scene comprises an invisible history of rehearsals, repetitions, improvisation and reenactments, so April Acts seeks to recognise the multi-vocal processes, edits, iterations and exchanges that render a unified gesture. The theme of this three-day programme, to carry new formations, builds on the title for Sharjah Biennial 16, to carry. Highlighting the Biennial as an ongoing generative process, to carry new formations is to re-think, re-value and re-shape knowledge for this moment and for the future of communal dignity—to materialise new ways of being with each other and the world.
to carry new formations centres old knowledge reimagined in new forms, which are often embodied in civic movements and acts of solidarity stretching beyond bordered geographies and linear time. The programme includes riso-print workshops, listening sessions, guided walks and film screenings. It explores the possibility of using sound as an agent to carve new spaces, and collective listening as a means for navigation. Each day ends with a performance on He Korero Purakau mo te Awanui o te Motu: Story of a New Zealand river (2011), the red fully carved Steinway concert grand by Maori artist Michael Parekowhai, while performances under the umbrella of The Farm Project develop on sound installations by Başak Günak, Berke Can Özcan, Sandy Chamoun and Hauptmeier I Recker. The performance WATER (reprise) by Koleka Putuma explores ancestral memory in bodies of water. The programme includes an exchange for young curators in Southeast Asia and the UAE, led by Alia Swastika and Jo Lene Ong, to create space for collective wayfinding, offering a moment to reflect on what we must reimagine in order to carry forward new formations of support, resistance and continuity.
April Acts: to carry new formations proposes Sharjah Biennial 16 not as a culmination, but rather as an opening to the multivalent processes that informed its journey and will continue to shape its afterlife.
List of Participants:
Abbas AlShajjar
Akinbode Akinbiyi
Akram Zaatari
Al MacSween
Albert L Refiti
Alia Swastika
Amal Khalaf
Andrew J. Eisenberg
Arwa Al Obaid
Avni Sethi
Awanui Simich-Pene
Başak Günak
Berke Can Özcan
Bettina Ng'weno
Bhumika Saraswati
Bint Mbareh
Brian Martin
Caroline Courrioux
Chatori Shimizu (Sponsored by Gyomu-Super Japan Dream Foundation)
Christianna Bonin
Claudia Martínez Garay
Daniela Castro
Dawn Chan
Deepak Unnikrishnan
Eiko Otake
E.N Mirembe
Engseng HO
Fatma Belkıs
George Jose
Georgina Velasco (The Voice of Domestic Workers)
Grace Karima (Zawose Sisters)
Hauptmeier I Recker
Hsu Fang-Tze
John Clang
Jo-Lene Ong
Kaili Chun
Koleka Putuma
Krystie Kun Ee Ng
Leah Zawose (Zawose Sisters)
Liam Wooding
Mahmoud Khaled
Marigold Quimoy Balquen (The Voice of Domestic Workers)
Mariam M. Alnoaimi
May Adadol Ingawanij
Megan Cope
Megan Tamati-Quennell
Mere Boynton
Natasha Ginwala
One Sudan One Sound of Solidarity (OSOS)
Raafat Majzoub
RRD (Reproduction and Distribution Network)
Rosie Olang' Odhiambo
Sa Tahanan Co.
Sandy Chamoun
Sarathy Korwar
Seema Alavi
Siddhesh Gautam
Sophia Tintori
Tabu Osusa
Taloi Havini
Tara Al Dugaither
Timoteus Anggawan Kusno
Yasmine El Rashidi
Yhonnie Scarce
Zeynep Öz
Ziaire Trinidad Sherman
Mohammed Afkhami
Haleema Al Owais
Sultan Sooud Al Qassemi
Crescent Enterprises LLC
Maysoune Ghobash
Sawsan Al Fahoum Jafar
Al Midfa Investments Group
Olivier Georges Mestelan
Carla Chammas and Judi Roaman
Reem El Roubi
Alain Servais
Maria and Malek Sukkar
