AN ECOLOGY OF CHOICE…

Hoor Al Qasimi

The theme of this year’s Biennial stems out of a need to re-negotiate and re-locate the issues of both art and ecology to a touchable realm, almost to appropriate both by bringing them together; an attempt to invite to this act of pondering a public that has been alienated from both. We aspire that this Biennial will aggravate a common questioning; where everyone simultaneously will have the chance to at least think different, if not will it. As pondering is located in this void between action and surrender, it trembles in that space where one does not have to act, but also where one takes action to no limit. Let us slip in that place between sleep and awakening, that transitory moment that allows for interference and consider this Biennial a brief historical moment of hesitant intervention.

We all have different approaches to the issues at hand, and the urgency is to gather around this theme, to exchange not only ideas but roles, to negotiate the difference not only without but also within. Let us form an ecology of choice, let this biennial be an invitation not to find “the solution”, but to understand what is at stake, why and how we can create an alternative discourse to an otherwise official stance.

It is no coincidence that Sharjah embraces this great event, for our Emirate is built on the respect of its local traditions and culture, and is committed to employing a humanitarian culture capable of bonding with wider common concerns and worries, and capable of posing new questions. In this context the Biennial attempts to expand the limits of traditions and austere ideas into a wider international horizon and a stronger humanistic weave. We hope that this space allows for a dialectic between traditions and new values, promoting a mechanism of critique. It is for this reason that the Biennial has become the platform for an open discussion for various parts of the Arab region and the world.

We attempt at the Sharjah Biennial 8 to entwine hesitance with action and to seek alternative creative narratives that weave into our desire to change this destructive and totalitarian approach towards this quilt of water and soil. In this sense this Biennial wishes to transcend the air of a fleeting art exhibition, and open up to be more than a visual space, or a transit station for art lovers and artists… It becomes a space and means for contemplation, reconsideration, and reluctant interventions. It is an attempt to offer a harmonious disruptive site for an intellectual and creative discourse that is simultaneously receptive to the various components of this age and its pressing issues.