With venues that include an abandoned ice factory and the Flying Saucer building, the 12th edition of the Sharjah Biennial will offer audiences the chance to browse a wide range of artworks and enjoy interactive events through the festival's three-month run.
The curator Eungie Joo has been working for two years to bring together a diverse group of artists from different generations whose works address various issues including labour, sustainability and the possibilities for the future.
Chosen by Joo, the biennial's title The past, the present, the possible . is a reference to an essay by Henri Lefebvre, a French philosopher who wrote about the concept of the right to the city. Within the biennial's context, the title is used to address the role of contemporary art at its very core - the intangibility of the present, the freedom of the mind and the ability to express the inexpressible in a piece of art.
Location is everything
This year, the usual art spaces - Sharjah's historical areas and Sharjah Art Foundation's galleries - have been supplemented by unusual venues: a warehouse at Port Khalid, an abandoned ice factory on the east coast in Kalba, and Sharjah's Flying Saucer building, a surreal, spaceship-like structure constructed in the 1970s (it will serve as a permanent exhibition space after the biennial).
Sheikha Hoor Al Qasimi, the president of the Sharjah Biennial and its overseeing body, the Sharjah Art Foundation, says: "The artists have transformed these spaces in ways that are magical, thought-provoking and, sometimes, playful. It is due to our emphasis on new productions and commissions that the Sharjah Biennial is known as a place where artists can experiment."
Unique installations
The Flying Saucer building will be home to two billboards created by the Egyptian artist Hassan Khan, whose work was unveiled last year as part of the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi's permanent collection, in collaboration with Andeel, one of Egypt's most well-known cartoonists. Khan will also present a glass sculpture and a video that comment on the structure of Egyptian society.
At the ice factory, Adrián Villar Rojas from Argentina will present Planetarium (2015), made up of construction material and a range of plants, shells, rocks, trash and animal bones collected in the UAE.
Other notable work includes a two-part installation from Danh Vo - an internationally exhibited Vietnamese-born Danish artist. Vo is known for his full-scale reproduction of the Statue of Liberty, and for the biennial has assembled a section of the statue's torch-bearing arm, which towers nine metres high.
The other part consists of empty cardboard cartons that were once used to ship cigarettes and tea; the fragrance that emanates from the boxes is imagined as the alluring scent of Lady Liberty.
Performance art
Also in the line-up are key performance pieces. Papy Ebotani from the Democratic Republic of Congo, who will lead a procession of musicians through the streets of Sharjah encouraging audience participation. Nikhil Chopra, a prominent Indian performance artist, travelled into the deserts of Sharjah and into the Musandam waters off the Omani coast for Use Like Water (2015) - a nine-day performance that will culminate at Bait Obaid Al Shamsi over the opening weekend.
And the Lebanese artist Rheim Alkadhi will create an edgy artwork that "attempts to explore through the eyes of another". Labourers who work along Sharjah Creek were asked to donate an eyelash or two each in a process Alkadhi describes as "soliciting small pieces of peripheral vision".
Don't Miss
Children's games
This year, some of the artists have spent extended periods in Sharjah and have created works specifically for kids. Argentine Eduardo Navarro worked with children to devise a game called XYZ, where blindfolded players roll an enormous blue ball in a blue court with a grid floor. The ball's movements are determined by sensory jackets and is controlled by applause. The American artist Gary Simmons presents Across the Chalk Line - a junior-sized cricket oval designed to provide a playing field for children, and that invites viewers to cross the boundary into the realm of cricket.
Emirati art
Work from the time Hassan Sharif spent in Al Mareija Art Atelier in Sharjah is presented at the biennial. Wooden Column (1985) and Table (1985) feature simple objects imbued with the artist's sense of humour. Mohammed Kazem, known for his Scratches series - works on paper that respond to music - is showing Sound of Angles (2014), where he employs the same technique to "scratch" a series of shapes on paper that refer to the angles created when opening doors. Abdullah Al Saadi from Khor Fakkan has worked on the commission Al Zannoba Journey (2015), a project that "continues" the previous journeys the artist has undertaken to record the landscape around him. For this journey, Al Saadi walked in zannoba (slippers) that he made from rubber and goat skin, creating with them a selection of paintings along the way.
Film programme
Every Saturday, documentary films will be screened at the Sharjah Art Foundation's Mirage City Cinema. It starts on Saturday, March 7, at 11pm with the screening of Édouard Glissant: One World in Relation (2010; 49 minutes), which follows Glissant on a transatlantic journey from Southampton, United Kingdom, to Brooklyn, United States, and to his home in Martinique in the Caribbean.
. Sharjah Biennial 12 runs until June 5. For more information and the full schedule of events, visit www.sharjahart.org
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