From 6 February to 15 June, Sharjah (UAE) hosts the Art Biennial which, alternating with the Architecture Triennial, has for years been one of the liveliest cultural stages in the entire Middle East. The initiative, now in its sixteenth edition, is promoted by the Sharjah Art Foundation, an independent public body with the dual objective of promoting contemporary art and enhancing the region's historical-architectural heritage. A cultural approach that places Sharjah at the antipodes of nearby, futuristic and glittering Dubai, amidst calm and reflective atmospheres, slow flows of life rooted in local traditions that pervade the sikkak of the centre (the Heart of Sharjah) and the flowery Corniche.

“To Carry” is the title of the event that addresses the topic of precariousness and movement (and disorientation) as a constitutive feature of the contemporary period. Transnationalism and immigration, colonial imperialism and economic exploitation, environmental disasters, prevarication and social discrimination  entail ruptures, displacements and relocations (not only geographical), leading to a question: what to carry with us when we leave, flee or try to survive? What are the tools to recompose a shared identity as a form of existence and "resistance"? Through a collective curatorship (Alia Swastika, Amal Khalaf, Megan Tamati-Quennell, Natasha Ginwala, Zeynep Öz), the exhibition proposes a polyphony of contributions (over 190 participants, 300 works and more than 200 new commissions), hosted in seventeen venues throughout the Emirate, restored and converted into exhibition venues.

The epicentre is Al Mureijah Square, which coincides with the original urban centre, where SpaceContinuum Design Studio renovated five dilapidated buildings in 2013 by preserving their plan-volume characteristics to create an exhibition area of approximately 2,000 square metres: historical coral walls interact with immaculate contemporary volumes that let  light in from skylights and large glass façades, connected by overhead walkways and arranged in a sequence of courtyards, alleys and squares. Here, a series of works including sculptures, photographs, installations and audiovisuals proposes a reflection on the genesis of new identities triggered by cultural stratification and hybridisation: among the many, the Peruvian llama "contaminated" by tins and toilet rolls as symbols of consumerism (Claudia Martínez Garay, "Chunka Tawayuq Pacha") and the red grand piano, in perfect operation, carved with silhouettes of the Maori culture (Michael Parekōwhai).

A short walking distance away, the historic house of a merchant (Bait Al Serkal) houses works reflecting on disappearance and remembrance, including the patchwork of cloth tracing on a reconstructed map of an Indian village wiped out by genocide (T. Vinoja, "Enduring Traces: The Power of Lineage in Collective Memory"). At Calligraphy Square, the theme of the new physical and cultural geographies dictated by imperialism emerges from images of the Angolan landscape, permeated by Bantu cosmological suggestions, and punctuated by the remnants of Portuguese power (Mónica de Miranda, “As If The World Has No West”). In the Calligraphy Museum, disconcerting forms of countering social loneliness (exacerbated by the Covid) are expressed by artificial micro-objects, composed of epidermis-like tissues, artificial eyelashes and plastic fingernails, which are animated by touch sensors triggering a surreal kind of interaction (Chun Shao, Future touch - Still) and recalling the key-ring, the tri-syllabic interlocutor,  of the film "I Love You" (Marco Ferreri, 1986).

Near the centre, a modernist urban landscape becomes the setting for the exhibitions along the road which, extending from the Corniche to Rolla Square Park, bisects the historic centre: 17 buildings designed by the Spanish studio Typsa (1977) to house expats' accommodation, offices and banks, among which the partially demolished and rebuilt Al Hisn Fort (1820) timidly stands out . The centrepiece is the Bank Street Building, a building symbolising the rise of the global market in Sharjah in the 1970s, acquired by the Sharjah Art Foundation and now included in a huge urban regeneration process.

Moving away from the centre, the Biennial lands in places that for years have been protagonists of the city's vital beat and that have now been re-invented as cultural hubs.

On the waterfront, the Old Al Jubail Vegetable Market (Halcrow Group, 1980s) is an architectural "jewel" with its curved arcades, terrazzo tiles, arched windows and vintage signs. The once vibrant spaces of food trade and social relations resonate with ecosystemic and agribusiness reflections combined with ironic reinterpretations of imperialist politics, including a macroscopic wooden sculpture depicting the US Capitol as a chicken coop (Sakiya, “Capital Coup”).

In the district of Al Manakh, the former Al-Qasimiyah boys' primary schools (1971), since 2018 the headquarters of the Triennale, is the archetype of a school building typology consolidated throughout the Emirate, characterised by earthy-tone volumes with perforated screens and the modular repetition of a reinforced concrete framed structure that assembles teaching units alternated with covered paths and open-air courtyards.

Here, the theme of collective healing from pain and the need to transcend the boundaries of mainstream information is captured in the textiles byTurkish artist Güneş Terkol, made in collaboration with immigrants and victims of domestic abuse.

In the outskirts of the city the Flying Saucer, opened in 1978 as a French restaurant and then a supermarket, is a Brutalist volume renovated by SpaceContinuum Design Studio, that stands out in the urban landscape like an unusual spaceship. The reinforced concrete and glass body is characterised by a circular layout, covered by a flat roof edged with 32 points, surmounted by a dome and supported by intersecting triangular columns. Underneath the "flying saucer", an underground space houses a bar, library and meeting rooms, illuminated by the basement courtyard and skylights. The building houses, among other things, an installation by the Thai collective Womanifesto (WeMend), which proposes self-built shelters that can be replicated and implemented through tailor-made manufactures.

Outside the city, in the Central Region, natural scenery takes over man-made space. In the moonscape of the Buhais Geological Park, the installation of wooden poles and oyster shells recalls the marine ecosystems and architecture of Australia's Quandamooka region, destroyed by unconsidered extractive policies (Megan Cope, Kinyingarra Guwinyanba). 

The buried village of Al Madam, built in the 1970s as a housing district for workers and then abandoned due to extreme climate conditions, deals with the transience of anthropic signs in the landscape, in this case visible in the remains of dwellings progressively (and cathartically?) swallowed up by the desert sand.