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7 March - 10 June 2019
Sharjah, United Arab Emirates
Three exhibitions, curators:
Zoe Butt, Omar Kholeif, Claire Tancons
President, Director of the Sharjah Art Foundation: Hoor Al Qasimi
List of participants
Works by more than 80 participants, incl. over 60 new commissions
Visual tour through the three exhibitions: all venues and participants, approx. 400 photos, 16 videos, texts from the Guidebook, localization on maps
The 14th edition of the Sharjah Biennial (SB14), Leaving the Echo Chamber, explores the possibilities and purpose of producing art when news is fed by a monopoly of sources, history is increasingly fictionalised, when ideas of ‘society’ are invariably displaced, when borders and beliefs are dictated by cultural, social and political systems. Sharjah Art Foundation (SAF) features over 80 established and emerging artists from around the globe (see the list of participants), including over 60 new commissions, as well as many never-before-seen works.
Curators Zoe Butt, Omar Kholeif and Claire Tancons, who have collaboratively conceived the SB14 theme, present three distinct exhibitions bringing together a range of experiences and works to create a series of provocations about how one might re-negotiate the shape, form, and function of the "echo chamber" of contemporary life, towards a multiplying of the echoes within, such vibration representative of the vast forms of human production —its rituals, beliefs and customs.
Otobong Nkanga and Emeka Ogboh have been awarded the Sharjah Biennial 14 Prize for their collaborative project Aging Ruins Dreaming Only to Recall the Hard Chisel from the Past (2019).
Artists Mohamed Bourouissa, Shezad Dawood, Thao Nguyen Phan and Qiu Zhijie received Special Mentions.
Jurors were Octavio Zaya, Homi Baba and Solange Farkas.
© Texts: From information by Sharjah Art Foundation.
Cover images: Khadim Ali, Standing Flames, 2019. Otobong Nkanga & Emeka Ogboh, installation at Bait Al Aboudi. March Meeting 2019 at Bait Al Shamsi.
© Photos and videos: Universes in Universe, unless otherwise indicated.