Sharjah Biennial is spreading its wings. SB13 will now unfold in five sections across the year from October 2016, encompassing the main exhibitions and a public programme in two acts in Sharjah and Beirut; a year-long educational programme in Sharjah; projects in Dakar, Ramallah, Istanbul and Beirut; and a new online publishing platform.
SB13 also carries the subtitle Tamawuj, an Arab word that translates as “a rising and falling in waves; a flowing, swelling, surging, or fluctuation; a wavy, undulating appearance, outline, or form”. Which sounds attractive, if only at the graphic design level …
The press release promises that “Tamawuj will pose questions around, and propose answers to, the conditions for the possibility of an art world”. We think this means looking at how art should work specifically in the region, where massive institutions are being constructed (or perhaps imposed) without an equivalent underlying infrastructure of established fine art education, local networks of buyers, or general community appreciation.
Here’s the press bumf again: “SB13 will cross from the ideal to the material. Vital interventions will stretch the idea of the biennial in order to traverse rooted contexts, harnessing the agility and fragility of present informal networks”.
The five parts of SB13 are …
- an online repository of research material
- four projects curated by Interlocutors outside the UAE in Dakar, Istanbul, Ramallah and Beirut
- a year-long education programme in Sharjah
- a year-long online publishing platform
- a public programme in two parts, designated as Act I for the biennial exhibition and programme in Sharjah (March to June 2017) and Act II (the culmination of SB13, taking place in Beirut in October).
The offsite projects – “an extended conversation with Sharjah” – will be curated or managed bu artist Kader Attia in Senegal; curators Lara Khaldi (Palestine) and Zeynep Oz (Turkey); and in Beirut the Lebanese Association for Plastic Arts, Ashkal Alwan (SB13 curator Christine Tohme is the founding director of Ashkal Alwan).
These four ‘Interlocutors’ will work with researchers in the four cities, paired with counterparts in Sharjah, to populate a centralised digital storage space under the name chip-ship. This will house various media, images, and texts; respectively the city teams will be addressing the four keywords water, earth, crops and culinary (sic).
Each of cities will also host one of four consecutive programmes envisioned by the Interlocutors in Dakar (January 2017); Istanbul (May 2017); Ramallah (August 2017); and Beirut (October 2017). A compendium of material around the theme will be released with the start of each of these, and a year-long online publishing platform will host articles, media and essays responding to the four keywords.
This accumulation of resource material will be made available to 15 artists for new commissions at SB13.
SB13 full programme:
15 Oct 2016: SB13 School, a year-long educational programme in Sharjah, launches
15 Oct 2016: chip-ship digital research/publishing platform launches
8 Jan 2017: Off-site project in Dakar (around the theme of water)
10 – 14 Mar 2017: main SB13 exhibition and programme opens in Sharjah; exhibition runs to 12 Jun
13 May 2017: Off-site project in Istanbul (around the theme of crops)
10 Aug 2017: Off-site project in Ramallah (around the theme of earth)
15 Oct 2017: Off-site project in Beirut (around the theme of cooking)
19 Oct 2017: SB3 Act II, culminating exhibitions and programmes in Beirut running to 19 Jan 20
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