Sharjah Biennial 15 at Kalba

Abstract

Sharjah Biennial 15 Thinking Historically in the Present hurled a spectacular exhibition that featured more than three-hundred works by one-hundred fifty artists from over seventy countries. While global ideas informed the artists of the Biennial, the specific historical and political contexts from which they emerged also shaped their distinctive subjectivities. It is in this regard that I look into the works of Nari Ward, Doris Salcedo, and Ibrahim Mahama who come from different historical, cultural and political trajectories but whose multiple articulations are shared and connected. By examining the exhibition space where they displayed their works, I attempt to address the historical entanglements and contestations of exhibition sites to the works they present and how meanings are deployed to compose shared experiences. The works of Ward, Salcedo, and Mahama are installed at the Kalba Ice Factory which was built in the 1970s and which was once a fish feed mill and ice storage facility. It was recently retrofitted for exhibition purposes as well as residence facilities. The space transpires with a new creative appearance in both its architecture and in the artworks it embodies. It is in this regard that I explore the exhibition space of Kalba which emerged from specific realities to usher new ways of interweaving between the works of the three artists.