Sharjah: The Sharjah Art Foundation (SAF) has revealed its initial artist lineup for the sixteenth edition of the Sharjah Biennial (SB16).
The exhibition will be curated by Alia Swastika (Director of the Biennale Jogja Foundation, Yogyakarta), Amal Khalaf (Director, Cubitt, London, and Curator at Large, Public Practice, Serpentine Galleries, London), Megan Tamati-Quennell (curator of modern and contemporary Māori and Indigenous art, New Zealand), Natasha Ginwala (Artistic Director, COLOMBOSCOPE, curator and writer, Colombo and Berlin) and Zeynep Öz (independent curator, Istanbul and New York).
Additionally, the curators have shared their curatorial frameworks, which engage in conversation with one another and the Biennial’s three decades of existence as a forum for critical discourse and artistic experimentation.
To emphasize the unique contextual characteristics of Sharjah, the curators hybridize and enliven techniques that inform their curating approaches, such as residencies, congregations, talks, writing, and attentive listening. Through forms of song, sorrow, and ritual, the continuing and completed artistic undertakings they are at the center of either respond to various sources of embodied knowledge and intergenerational connection, or they draw on ideas of cross-cultural resonances and alliances.
SB16, which takes place in the Emirate of Sharjah from February 6 to June 15, 2025, will activate sites in Sharjah City, Al Hamriyah, Al Dhaid, Kalba, and other areas. Through the works of the chosen artists, SB16 will bring together a broad spectrum of viewpoints. The musicians’ whole roster will be revealed in the upcoming months.