An abandoned ice factory on the east coast, a warehouse beside the creek and a building known only as The Flying Saucer Complex – the venues for exhibitions during Sharjah Biennial 12: The past, the present, the possible next year promise to be almost as interesting and eclectic as the art they will display.
Organisers yesterday announced 50 artists whose work will be on show during the three-month event.
Previously, all we knew about it was its title: The past, the present, the possible.
Eungie Joo, the curator, revealed that she came up with the concept after a conversation with an artist called Danh Vo about why contemporary art is relevant. She then stumbled across an essay by the French philosopher Henri Lefebvre about the communal rights of residents over their city. Here she discovered the phrase and realised that it was the perfect way to sum up contemporary art today.
“To me, art and artistic discourse seem to be the one place where there is a slight glimmer of freedom, a place where the mind can be free, if not the body, or a place where people can discuss possibilities that are actually not really possible,” says Joo.
“Lefebvre wrote that the past, the present and the possible cannot be separated, and I thought it has a beautiful alignment with art and the interdisciplinary elements of contemporary art at this moment.”
Joo therefore set out to select a wide range of cultural practitioners who could explore this concept through their art.
The chosen artists will exhibit a combination of existing work, new pieces and commissions spanning the generations and many geographic areas, at locations across the emirate.
The focal point for the event will be in the public spaces around the Sharjah Art Museum and the Sharjah Art Foundation offices, and work will also be on display in the Al Mureijah heritage area. One of the old houses there will be dedicated to a show by Danh Vo, the Vietnamese-born Danish performance-inspired conceptual artist whose conversation with Joo, before her selection as the biennial curator, ultimately led to the choice of theme and title for the event. It will also include works by Eduardo Navarro, an Argentinian artist.
Adrian Villar Rojas, who is also from Argentina, will use the incredibly interesting space in an abandoned ice factory in Kalba to display his work.
The Flying Saucer Complex, formerly home to a Taza chicken restaurant, is the newest building acquired by Sharjah Art Foundation and will be used as a permanent exhibition space after later. During the event, it will host a solo show by an artist but Joo is yet to decide which one.
Michael Joo, an artist from New York, will be showing his work in Warehouse Number Three, which sits beside the Sharjah Creek. There will also be two posthumous shows, with the pieces borrowed from private owners.
The first, featuring works by Fahr El-Nissa Zeid, a Turkish artist who died in 1991 and is lauded as one of the first abstract expressionists, is a very exciting addition to the biennial. Her work Break of the Atom and Vegetal Life sold for US$2.7 million (Dh9.9m) at Christie's in Dubai last year and another, My Hell, is on permanent display in Istanbul Modern. We can expect to see a combination of her abstract works and a much-less exhibited selection of portraits and resin works.
“It will be a really important presentation for me,” says Joo. “I am excited to see the work presented and isolated in this way.” The other posthumous show is dedicated to the work of the Korean artist Chung Chang-Sup, who died in 2011.
Representing the UAE, Hassan Sharif will be showing works from the 1980s, while Abdullah Al Saadi will present a new commission following his Stone Slippers series that was exhibited this year.
“Sharjah Art Foundation has a great respect for artists and dedication to realising exhibitions and projects that would otherwise not exist, so it is really quite an honour to work with them at this time,” concludes Joo.
The past, the present, the possible: Sharjah Biennial 12 opens March 5 and will be on view until June 5
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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
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Grand Slam Los Angeles results
Men:
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Start-up hopes to end Japan's love affair with cash
Across most of Asia, people pay for taxi rides, restaurant meals and merchandise with smartphone-readable barcodes — except in Japan, where cash still rules. Now, as the country’s biggest web companies race to dominate the payments market, one Tokyo-based startup says it has a fighting chance to win with its QR app.
Origami had a head start when it introduced a QR-code payment service in late 2015 and has since signed up fast-food chain KFC, Tokyo’s largest cab company Nihon Kotsu and convenience store operator Lawson. The company raised $66 million in September to expand nationwide and plans to more than double its staff of about 100 employees, says founder Yoshiki Yasui.
Origami is betting that stores, which until now relied on direct mail and email newsletters, will pay for the ability to reach customers on their smartphones. For example, a hair salon using Origami’s payment app would be able to send a message to past customers with a coupon for their next haircut.
Quick Response codes, the dotted squares that can be read by smartphone cameras, were invented in the 1990s by a unit of Toyota Motor to track automotive parts. But when the Japanese pioneered digital payments almost two decades ago with contactless cards for train fares, they chose the so-called near-field communications technology. The high cost of rolling out NFC payments, convenient ATMs and a culture where lost wallets are often returned have all been cited as reasons why cash remains king in the archipelago. In China, however, QR codes dominate.
Cashless payments, which includes credit cards, accounted for just 20 per cent of total consumer spending in Japan during 2016, compared with 60 per cent in China and 89 per cent in South Korea, according to a report by the Bank of Japan.
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Killing of Qassem Suleimani
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“Any leave taken beyond statutory entitlements, such as annual leave, is typically regarded as unpaid leave in accordance with Article 33 of the UAE Labour Law. While employees may legally take unpaid leave, such requests are subject to the employer’s discretion and require approval.”
If an employee resigns to pursue micro-retirement, the employment contract is terminated, and the employer is under no legal obligation to rehire the employee in the future unless specific contractual agreements are in place (such as return-to-work arrangements), which are generally uncommon, Ms Loku adds.
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ELIO
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Why are asylum seekers being housed in hotels?
The number of asylum applications in the UK has reached a new record high, driven by those illegally entering the country in small boats crossing the English Channel.
A total of 111,084 people applied for asylum in the UK in the year to June 2025, the highest number for any 12-month period since current records began in 2001.
Asylum seekers and their families can be housed in temporary accommodation while their claim is assessed.
The Home Office provides the accommodation, meaning asylum seekers cannot choose where they live.
When there is not enough housing, the Home Office can move people to hotels or large sites like former military bases.
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Pharaoh's curse
British aristocrat Lord Carnarvon, who funded the expedition to find the Tutankhamun tomb, died in a Cairo hotel four months after the crypt was opened.
He had been in poor health for many years after a car crash, and a mosquito bite made worse by a shaving cut led to blood poisoning and pneumonia.
Reports at the time said Lord Carnarvon suffered from “pain as the inflammation affected the nasal passages and eyes”.
Decades later, scientists contended he had died of aspergillosis after inhaling spores of the fungus aspergillus in the tomb, which can lie dormant for months. The fact several others who entered were also found dead withiin a short time led to the myth of the curse.
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