In the latter half of April, 2025, we attended the Sharjah Biennial, as part of what we’re now calling the UAE ArtTrifecta.  After 7 days and well over 1000 pictures, we can cay the biennial was a welcome “surprise in the desert”!

Note: As journalists, our entry to the fair was complimentary. Impressions and images are our own.
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Dubai, with its glitzy towers, gets all the press, but it’s Sharjah to the south that appears to have a solid focus on the arts, putting all that oil & gas revenue to good work.

We’ve obviously been to TONS of art fairs, in Miami, Basel, Marrakech and more. 

But as Biennials go, to this point we’d only intentionally attended the Venice Biennale last year, and lucked into one in Budapest many years ago.

We had questions – this was in the UAE, a fairly conservative Muslim nation; would we see cutting-edge work?

What is the Sharjah Biennial ?

The Sharjah Biennial is a project of the Sharjah Art Foundation, a quasi-government organization which manages and programs multiple facilities across the Emirate. These facilities are a mix of new construction and renovated historic structures; the latter offer interesting and important context for contemporary art.

The Sharjah Biennial is fully international in scope, both in terms of art/artwork and audience. This year (2025) marked the 16th edition of the Biennial, which ran from April to June.

Where is the Sharjah Biennial?

The Sharjah Biennial is held in and across the city and Emirate of Sharjah, one of the 7 which make up the UAE or United Arab Emirates. The seven Emirates sort of ring the tip of the Arabian Peninsula, and have gone from bare existence to fairly wealthy in only 60 or so years, due to their oil & natural gas reserves.

The biennial is spread out over nearly a dozen venues, with the majority being within a 15 minute walk of one another, in what’s called Heart of Sharjah – what would be the old town. (Except there really isn’t much of an old town, save for the Al Hisn fort, Calligraphy Square and some remains of old walls and fortifications from the 16th century.)

The foundation’s offices are directly across from the Sharjah Art Museum, which serves to not only host part of the Biennial, but also some of its own programming AND that of the Emirates Fine Art Society (which is sort of grafted onto the museum).

Two additional venues are immediately next door. There are two more venues within a 5-10 minute walk within the Heart of Sharjah, and assuming they use it in the future, the Old Jubail Vegetable Market venue is around 30 minutes away.

Two more venues, the Qasimiyah School (also the site of the Sharjah Architecture Triennial) and the “Flying Saucer” (below) are some 30 and 45 minutes walk from the foundation offices. Bear in mind you’re in the desert, it gets hot; you may wish to take a taxi. We walked, and outside of a delicious, inexpensive lunch, there wasn’t much else to do or see between these points.

In an effort to make the art accessible to its people, the Foundation also mounts part of the Biennial at a number of locations outside the city, some up to 2 hours away by bus.

Conveniently, there are free bus tours on Sunday afternoons to take visitors to those other locations. You should absolutely plan on seeing those sites, whether you hire a driver or take the free shuttle; the sites themselves are interesting and they host some great art!

Pro Tip: We had to split up (one of us on each bus) to experience both routes. There’s a LOT of good stuff to see – you may want to plan your stay to include two Sundays if you want to avoid hiring a driver who may not know all the locations.

What we experienced at the Sharjah Biennial

Unlike last year’s Venice Biennale, which featured a single curator, this years’ Sharjah Biennial is the result of the combined effort of 5 curators, each of whom brought their own understanding of, and vision for, the theme: “to carry”. 

Specifically, we found concentrations of work dealing with sub-themes, if you will, of:
earth/environment/ecology (especially water)
feminism
connectivity/collectivity/shared humanity
knowledge/wisdom/memory/teaching
poetry/song (another surprise)

Obviously, we’ve seen a lot of art dealing with one or more of those topics. But if asked, we’d have offered that weaving together a cohesive and coherent exhibition thread from 5 curators, via 150 artists, using 300 artworks would be a nearly impossible task. Yet, as we attest below, this team succeeded admirably.

Speaking of thread, and weaving, there is a good deal of fiber-based art included in the biennial, a trend (?) we noticed in Venice.

As we travel, we are becoming more aware of fiber’s role in preserving the essential humanity & cultural information of peoples throughout history. Across cultures and economic strata, textiles seem a common language denominator – one might not understand the explicit symbols, but you immediately grasp significance.

Of course there are moments of dissonance, (and a LOT of overly-ambitious MFA-speak didactic text), but generally the artworks and their installation work to carry and reinforce the theme. How and where the works were installed matters greatly here, with the mix of contemporary and historic venues and sites, and we’d guess contributed greatly to the overall feel of the biennial.

Like Venice, there was a heavy and determined concentration on artists and artwork representing the Global South. This is not really a geographical term, but refers to those persons and works which are often minimized or ignored altogether by traditional “western” art canon. Here, the usual European and American focus was generally replaced by Arab and Afro-Indonesian artists, with a few exceptions.

Video

We were surprised and gratified to find the Biennial featured quite a bit of video art, including older pieces documenting historical performances, fully-digital creations, and several interview-based works which highlighted various social issues across the Global South (but are mostly universal, such as environment, women’s rights etc.)

Installations

The Sharjah Biennial featured quite a few installation-based artworks across the city and even out in remote areas of the desert. Several of these were liminal: bringing the outside in, or the inside out.

While some were purely sculptural, several were fully multi-media – digital, textile, sculpture, painting all *woven* into a singular experience.

Additionally, many of the installations were intelligently-sited in context-reinforcing locations; examples included works about immigration located along the waterfront, and another about junk/salvage markets located in a former souk. While this might seem obvious, it actually seems pretty rare.

New/commissioned vs existing / historical

Unlike most art fairs, biennials etc., that we’ve attended, the Sharjah Biennial commissions new work for each edition. This may make the curatorial process easier; if you can’t find enough or the *right* artwork(s) to fit your theme, simply order it made.

That might be a slightly cynical way to look at things, and in truth, we’re all for commissioning artists, especially emerging ones.

As we understand it (and we may have this wrong) some of the commissioned works remain property of the Sharjah Foundation (it appears it’s building a substantial collection – perhaps a museum in in the works?), while some is returned to the artist after the exhibition closes.

One example of the Foundation’s collection is Rain Room, by Random International, which allows visitors to walk through a simulated rainstorm without getting wet Here’s our experience.

Poetry

Another distinction of the Sharjah Biennial is the amount of poetry it featured. We encountered several different means of displaying poetry, from simple wall text(s) to textile (more *threads*) to video and other media.

It’s refreshing to see this inclusive approach; art, after all, is more than just painting and sculpture.

In fact, writing this some weeks after leaving, I’m still left with the feeling that the entire Biennial was somehow poetic.

Accessibility

An important, and unfortunate, consideration for getting around Sharjah city and the Biennial is accessibility – or rather, the lack thereof. The city has virtually no curb cuts or ramps, and sidewalks can vary dramatically in width (sometimes narrowing to less than 12 inches) and obstacles. There is also a lot of uneven pavers.

The city itself is not friendly to the mobility-challenged. The Biennial sites are a mixed bag, as some are new construction with proper access while others are historic sites (or literally in the desert) without. The foundation does offer an accessibility chart, here.

How we did the Sharjah Biennial

We spent a week in Sharjah. Of that week, we spent 5 half-days at biennial venues. We also visited the Sharjah Museum of Islamic Civilization (which could be a full day on its own if you’re into it), AL Hisn fort, walked along the Corniche (boardwalk) and did some shopping in the “new” section of town (the new souk is something to see; we’ve never seen such a spotless market!).

Should you go

Our answer to “Should I go to the Sharjah Biennial?” is a resounding YES… with an asterisk. Obviously, with its June closure looming at time of this writing, seeing this edition is likely difficult. And we have no baseline of comparison to prior editions, nor do we know who’s curating or what’s in store for the next one.

However, if this year’s effort is representative, we would absolutely recommend adding the UAE ArtTrifecta (Abu Dhabi Sculpture Biennial, Art Dubai, and Sharjah Biennial) to your arttravel, allowing yourself a full week in Sharjah alone. Make sure you plan for those far-away sites, as they really are worthwhile.

How to get to / Where to stay in Sharjah

We came from Dubai, which was a roughly $60 Uber trip. We’re told regular taxis can be / are cheaper, but we wouldn’t expect a huge difference on this due to the tolls. You can fly directly into Sharjah international, but flight choices are much more limited.

As for lodging, we had an AirBnB snafu at the last minute, and ended up booking the Al Barakah Hotel. It’s basic, but the rooms are clean and it is literally right next door to the art museum, and therefore just steps away from the core biennial sites. There are undoubtedly nicer places in the “new city” core, like an Embassy Suites; just know you’re adding a good deal of walking or cabs to get to the main biennial sites.

Something else to note about lodging in Islamic countries; hotels and apartments will -theoretically- not book unmarried couples into the same room. Because we have different last names, we were advised to have copies of our marriage certificate; we suggest you have at least a digital version handy.