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In the Heart of Another Country: The Diasporic Imagination Rises
Exhibition Catalogue
Hardcover
322 pages, 227 visuals
24.5 x 21.5 cm
English and German
Co-Published by Snoeck, Deichtorhallen, Hamburg, and Sharjah Art Foundation
2023
This publication documents In the Heart of Another Country: The Diasporic Imagination Rises, an exhibition organised by Sharjah Art Foundation and Deichtorhallen, Hamburg, curated by Omar Kholeif. Drawing from the Foundation’s extensive collection, the presentation featured more than 60 artists and 150 artworks spanning from 1935 to the present. The exhibition and works bring together trails from Colombo to London, from Cairo to Zanzibar through to the foothills of Mount Tamalpaïs in California, highlighting Sharjah as a space for encounter and exchange between artists and intellectuals. The display focused on works from Arab artists practicing regionally and in the diaspora as well as their concept of home, longing and belonging.
The catalogue reflects the exhibition’s various segments on abstract bodies in the city and in architecture, in addition to parts on reclaiming fractured identity through experimental portraiture. Each exhibiting artist and their works are explored in text and image; there is also an interview with Bani Abidi, Lubaina Himid and Hrair Sarkissian by Sofia Victorino. The publication includes forewords by Dirk Luckow and Hoor Al Qasimi on the significance of this institutional collaboration alongside Kholeif’s curatorial and editorial essay and an afterword by Nawar Al Qassimi on the critical role of Sharjah as a cultural hub.
My absence has been an exile from an exile.
—Etel Adnan, In the Heart of the Heart of Another Country (2005)
Omar Kholeif, PhD, CF FRSA, is an author and artist; a curator and cultural historian, and a broadcaster who has curated more than 100 exhibitions of visual art, architecture and digital culture.
Encompassing the mediums of video, photography and performance, Bani Abidi’s two-decade-long practice draws on both everyday and historical events to explore issues of nationalism and state power.
Hrair Sarkissian’s photographs reflect on personal memories, using subjectivity as a way to navigate stories that official histories are unable to tell. Using traditional documentary techniques in large-scale works, he engages the viewer in a profound consideration of what lies behind the surface of the images, thereby re-evaluating larger historical or social narratives.
Sofia Victorino is the Daskalopoulos Director of Education and Public Programmes at Whitechapel Gallery, London.
Hoor Al Qasimi, President and Director of Sharjah Art Foundation, established the Foundation in 2009 as a catalyst and advocate for the arts in Sharjah, in the region and around the world.