Sharjah Biennial 8 : still life, art, ecology & the politics of change,

The 8th Sharjah Biennial is the third edition directed by Hoor Al Qasimi. In 2002 she was able to assert essential changes in the concept of the Biennial, which exists since 1993. For the second time, she works together with Jack Persekian as artistic director. The curatorial team presently supporting them includes the Dubai based artist Mohammed Kazem, who participated in several previous Sharjah Biennials, the Swiss curator and critic Eva Scharrer as well as Jonathan Watkins, who since 1999 is the art director of the Ikon Gallery, Birmingham, Great Britain.
This year’s theme is by far not a novel one, but en vogue again. The organizers propose to view "art as a way of creating a better understanding about our relationship with nature and the environment, whilst considering its social, political and cultural dimensions in an interdisciplinary way." Furthermore, the official communiqués state that this position is not a judgmental exercise on how people ought to live, but a general statement of concern in "the light of contemporary culture" in its broadest sense. The 8th Sharjah Biennial aims to be both a "celebration of the natural world and a response to the countless alarms being set off as a result of human thoughtlessness." Simultaneously, one is aware of the fact that one is part of the problem – as a participant of the consumer society and of the global art jet-setting community, as well as by conducting the Biennial in a country with an enormous energy consumption.