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Sharjah Art Foundation's Hoor Al-Qasimi on building solidarities through art
Summary
Recognised as a prominent voice within the art ecosystem, Hoor Al Qasimi of the Sharjah Art Foundation has been vocal in the role that art ought to play as a social tool
The 16th edition of the Sharjah Biennial, themed around “to carry", responds to the precarities of our times. Organised by the Sharjah Art Foundation, it is to be held between 6 February and 15 June. The five women curators—Alia Swastika, Amal Khalaf, Megan Tamati-Quennell, Natasha Ginwala and Zeynep Öz—have elaborated on the theme as, “What do we carry when it is time to travel, flee or move on? What are the passages that we form as we migrate between territories and across time? What do we carry when we remain? What do we carry when we survive?" Their curatorial response is an attempt to create a bridge between intergenerational stories and modes of inheritance through residencies, workshops, sonic experiences and publications.
For Hoor Al Qasimi, president and director of the Sharjah Art Foundation—who took over the execution of the Sharjah Biennial in 2002—it is vital that each edition brings in the local context alongside global narratives about identity, movement and change. “By centering the act of carrying, Sharjah Biennial 16 offers a space for imagining new collective futures while recognising the weight of shared histories and experiences," she says.
This year, the Biennial will have works by more than 140 artists, including 80 new commissions. The Indian artists whose work will be featured include Anga Art Collective, Pallavi Paul, Rajyashri Goody, Tishani Doshi and V. Viswanadhan. Al Qasimi was recently in India for the inaugural programme of Asia Society India Centre’s Trailblazers series of in-depth discussions with pathbreaking creative practitioners from around the world. She has been winning laurels for the way she pushes the possibilities of ideas in “publicly-focused cultural spaces".
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Last year, she topped ArtReview’s Power 100 list of most influential people in the contemporary art world. “In the context of the art world in which cancellations and boycotts are rife… Al Qasimi remains one of the few voices prepared to use the platform art (and royal privilege) affords them to express their opinions directly and keep discussions that most people allow to fade away firmly in the spotlight," observes the ArtReview article.
Al Qasimi, though, affably dismisses the “trailblazer" tag. “I think I am just a very determined person," she laughs. When she took the reins of the Sharjah Biennial at the age of 22, many people resisted change and didn’t take her seriously because of her age and gender. There were not many takers for her ideas of decentering art, pushing for representation of gender, indigenous and marginalised voices, and extending the programming to a year-long affair. She persisted, and it paid off.
Al Qasimi describes most of the milestones in her life as “serendipity". As a teenager she wanted to be a chef—that quickly changed into a wish to be an architect. A teacher dissuaded her, saying she would only end up building huge towers in Dubai, and encouraged Al Qasimi to go to art school instead. She completed her undergraduate studies at the Slade School of Fine Art in London. It is, perhaps, her training as an artist that enables her to understand the challenges of visual practitioners around the world.
While in the UK, she met older British artists working with new media, which kindled her interest in video and technology-based work. She co-curated the show Near with Derek Ogbourne and Peter Lewis at the Sharjah Art Museum in 1998. At Slade, one of her tutors remarked that her work was “not very Islamic". “That was the first time I was called something I had not grown up hearing and I wondered about stereotypes that artists were forced to adhere to," she says.
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Though she got into the Royal Academy of Arts soon after, her instincts nudged her to take a gap year in 2002. During that time she visited Documenta in Kassel, Germany, curated by Okwui Enwezor. The concepts of post-colonial enquiry that Enwezor had raised made her rethink her own ideas about the arts. She recalls being amazed by the kind of art being exhibited with political works responding to both historic and current events. That made Al Qasimi wonder how many people from Sharjah and the Global South would ever get to see such works.
She expressed an interest in reimagining the Sharjah Biennial. “People thought that I was from the ruling family of Sharjah, so let’s get me an office and I will be content with that. But I wanted to change things especially around art as a tool of social change and critical engagement with the world. Lots of people didn’t feel I was qualified enough to run the Biennial," says Al Qasimi. Over the next few years, the core team of the Biennial, and the Sharjah Art Foundation, which she started in 2009, understood her vision for the arts. “Initially I would do everything, from hanging the works to sticking labels. The technicians helped me and artists started chipping in. I thought I had a responsibility to do this for Sharjah, instead of working as an artist myself. Putting the biennale together was art for me," she adds.
Gradually, the global art ecosystem began to recognise her as an important voice. In 2015, she curated the UAE pavilion at the 56th Venice Biennale and in 2022, Al Qasimi spearheaded the curation at the Lahore Biennale. The 15th edition of the Sharjah Biennial saw her take over as curator following the demise of Enwezor, who had originally conceived the event. She is now working as the artistic director for the 2026 Biennale of Sydney and the lead for the 2025 Aichi Triennale in Japan.
Be it at the Sharjah Biennial or through the events in Sydney and Aichi, Al Qasimi is looking forward to building solidarities between regions, people and practices. “Whenever I take up projects outside of Sharjah, I like to work with the local teams in those regions.," she says. “They know the context of the region and are well-versed in their craft. That is an important collaboration for me as it helps understand the city and the community." The next step is to meet as many local artists as possible, and see ways in which indigenous communities can be included in the curation. “It is important not as a token or simply to tick boxes. It has to fit into what the overall exhibition is trying to say. In Sydney, women artists are still underrepresented. So, it is time to make that push," she elaborates.
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These conversations are also being reflected in the programming at the other projects that she works with, including the programming at the Sharjah Art Foundation. Currently the space has an exhibition of paintings bysenior Māori artist Emily Karaka, which opened last year. Titled Emily Karaka: Ka Awatea, A New Dawn, this is the first major survey show of the artist, who brings a personal approach to the politics of colonisation. An abstract expressionist and a colourist, Karaka’s work is “anchored in Māori rights related to the Treaty of Waitangi, the founding document of Aotearoa New Zealand".
However, since Al Qasimi is not an authority on Maori traditions and politics, she collaborated with Megan Tamati-Quennel of Maori descent to bring out the complexities and nuances of Karaka’s work. “We are all here on earth to do something constructive. Life is a journey to find out what you are capable of doing. And the key to achieving positive results lies in collaboration across geographies and ideologies," she says.
