As President and Director of Sharjah Art Foundation, Sheikha Hoor Al Qasimi’s masterpiece may be the region’s cultural development. A work that keeps growing.
INTERVIEW BY ANNA SEAMAN
Photograph by Sebastian Böttcher
President and Director of Sharjah Art Foundation, Sheikha Hoor Al Qasimi is a leading figure in the art world internationally and pivotal to the Middle East’s cultural development. She took the reins of the Sharjah Biennial in 2006 and established Sharjah Art Foundation in 2009. Since then, she has organised, curated and masterminded numerous events in the region that have cemented the UAE’s position as a culture hub. In 2019, she was named a Game Changer by the Asia Society, and this moniker encompasses what she does.
What a year 2020 has been so far! The world is dealing with a major health crisis that put us all in quarantine. What was it like for you personally?
Well, I was quarantined for 14 days in my room because I had just returned from Sydney. At first, I started thinking it was good to slow down, catch up on sleep and take some time to reflect on things. We are always doing so much and this was an opportunity to pause. However, I didn’t have much of a routine, I spent a lot of time in Zoom meetings and on remote calls, and then programmes began shifting online which was overwhelming. I decided that for the [Sharjah Art] Foundation, it would be best to share and amplify resources and opportunities from other organisations rather than add more content. We also need some time away from [digital] screens.
What impact do you think the cancellation of the important March programming had across the UAE?
For us, as an institution, it wasn’t too bad. We didn’t cancel plans, only postponed them. I think for the gallery community in the UAE, and events such as Art Dubai, it was different because they are trying to support their artists, so it was tough. But for us, if we have to postpone our programming for a few months, so be it. I’m not a fan of everything going digital because I think the experience in person is completely different and nothing can substitute it, but there are other ways to engage until things get better.
Let’s not forget that the beginning of the year saw the opening of the second edition of the Lahore Biennale under your curation. The event, which closed on February 29, explored the dissonance between humans and offered ‘a generous vision of the future characterised by multiplicity and openness, rather than by homogeneity and closure.’ Do you think this message had added poignancy given the health crisis that unfolded shortly afterwards?
When they asked me to curate this biennial, I felt it was important to do it not just for Pakistan but for the whole region. I was really busy but I made time because I knew from the beginning what I wanted to explore, it was this idea of coming together. I had never actually been to Pakistan before, but I felt strongly that I wanted to concentrate on the histories that connect the country to the Gulf, as well as to Iran and India, but also focus on the beauty of what makes us different. I think these messages are always important and everything is linked to these ideas.
Did you feel that the Lahore Biennale was a chance to put your personal stamp on something as opposed to always being the Foundation?
At the beginning, the Foundation had my personal stamp, but then it grew and we became this big team. Yes, I do feel it is also important to do something outside of it. I’m on a lot of boards and I’m also teaching, but it was important to have a curatorial project that extended beyond the Foundation.
The other impact of the lack of March programming was that the public were not able to experience the first part of Sharjah Biennial 15: ‘Thinking Historically in the Present’, conceived by the late Okwui Enwezor. [Titled ‘Unravelling the Present’, this year’s March Meeting was postponed to 2021.] Can you tell us a little more about this partnership and how it came about?
I actually invited Okwui to curate the 15th edition of the Sharjah Biennial in May 2018. I had been thinking of people to do it, but only Okwui came to mind. There was nobody else right for it. We travelled to Munich to ask him and he agreed immediately. He said that it was a very important time and that he wanted to look at the timeline of Sharjah Biennial, how far it has come and the institution that grew from it.
Enwezor lost his battle with cancer in March 2019. At what point did you realise that you would continue this project without him?
When it became clear that he would not recover, we didn’t know if we should continue. So we asked him what he wanted us to do and he gave us his blessing to move forward with his vision. We decided to form a working group so that people who worked closely with him could also be a part of this project to continue his legacy.
You’ve spoken a lot recently about the subject of upholding legacies. Why is it important to you personally to continue Enwezor’s work?
Okwui had many projects planned, and he saw the biennial as an opportunity to complete them. The last time we went to see him in hospital, he asked us to keep going. When someone asks you to do that, it is a responsibility. He not only trusted us with that but he was also confident that we could advance the work he wanted to do. It’s a lot of pressure and I want to do the best possible job.
Tragically, your twin brother Khalid passed away in July 2019. His is now another legacy you are upholding. You have since taken over creative direction of his fashion label, ‘Qasimi’. How have you taken to that new role?
Khalid has a brilliant team in London that does most of the work, but when he passed away, they asked me to become creative director. There is always a sense of overlap in the fashion and art worlds, in that the same people go to the international events from both spheres. However, I work in the nonprofit sector and curatorially, so there’s a certain side of the fashion world—the commercial side—that just doesn’t resonate with me. However, Khalid was my twin and this was his brand, so I believe it should not be pursued by somebody else. Becoming creative director was difficult and again, more responsibility, but everyone was very encouraging. I didn’t want to go in there thinking that I know what’s best. I wanted the team to guide me in terms of the industry and how things work, but of course I give my opinion when it matters.
Do you plan to continue creative direction at ‘Qasimi’ in the long term?
Yes, I think I have to. I mean it’s the least that I can do. It’s important to not just close the chapter and forget about it because he worked so hard for this label. Khalid and I were always the most interested in arts and culture in the family. He was interested in fashion and photography from a very young age. He turned his bathroom into a dark room and he was really into fashion photography. He completed his foundation year in art at Saint Martin’s and he also studied architecture for a while, but eventually he went on to continue his education in fashion design which was his main passion. However, he also had many other projects as he was the Chairman of the Sharjah Urban Planning Council. I took over that as well. Also, we were working on the Sharjah Architecture Triennial together, so I am continuing that now too.
It is incredible how much work falls under your direction. It is no surprise that you are continually recognised for your efforts. Last year, the Asia Society labelled you a ‘Game Changer’. How easy is it for you to put the changes you’ve made in perspective and see them, as others do, as transformational?
I just think that sometimes there are opportunities to make a change, and if you can, you should take them. Not many people get those kinds of privileges. For me, it started with being an artist. I travelled to international exhibitions and thought that we should have these kinds of events in Sharjah as well. Now it has been 18 years and a lot has happened. Opportunities in the region have also grown around other institutions such as universities and museums. It’s very different from when I started, so that’s encouraging. What makes me feel like I’ve accomplished something is seeing the thirst for this kind of programming and witnessing the changes it brings about. Does that make sense?
Yes, of course. I believe that SAF programming has changed the face of culture in the whole region and you have worked hard at putting our region’s masters on the global map—think Hassan Sharif, Monir Farmanfarmaian, Ibrahim El-Salahi. What does it mean to you personally, to have achieved this in little over a decade?
It’s important for us to write our own histories and not wait for anyone to tell us who we are. A lot of the artists, like the ones you mentioned and so many more, were overlooked. It is not neces-sarily about Sharjah or the Foundation—for example, when we did the exhibition on Egyptian surrealism, we did it in Cairo—but Sharjah is kind of a meeting point for everybody, especially for those in the diaspora. For example, when we organised the conference Modernity and the Making of Identity in Sudan: Remembering the Sixties and Seventies in 2015 [in Sharjah], it was quite emotional, as some participating artists such as Amir Nour, who lives in Chicago, had not seen his friends from Sudan for almost 40 years.
The Africa Institute falls into this category, acting as a meeting point for ideas from across Africa. In a way, it summarises what SAF is about—cross-cultural, intergenerational, cross-continental engagement. Would this be a correct summary?
The Africa Institute is a separate entity from Sharjah Art Foundation, but it is true that both institutions share the goals you have described. Similarly to the way we have saved a lot of old buildings and repurposed and renovated them into Sharjah Art Foundation exhibition spaces, the old Africa Hall in Sharjah used to host conferences on African-Arab relations in the 1970s, and it was interesting to think of this hall and how it could be turned into an institute to build on that original mission.
You’re building a new institute?
We don’t have an institute yet, we just have the plot of land next to the hall. But we commissioned [British-Ghanaian architect] David Adjaye to design the new building. My father [HH Sheikh Dr. Sultan bin Mohammed Al Qasimi] told me he wanted to set up an institute for African-Arab studies 40 years ago but he didn’t have anyone to help him. I think it is a really important step to reignite the existing purpose of the building which was to host conferences on African-Arab relations.
You notably changed the format of the biennial when you took over, but it has continued to evolve between then and now. How do you define Sharjah Biennial today? What role does it play in the global scene?
For us, we’re always looking at what they call the Global South. So, I think it’s important to keep looking at the South-South conversation across the region and at the connections. This is something I’m very much focused on. It’s the reason I worked on the Lahore Biennale and the reason I formed The Africa Institute. In Sharjah, we have this opportunity to connect many of these countries in an interesting and creative way through arts and culture.
All of the work you do pivots around nonprofit, education and giving back to the community. What drives you to maintain this focus?
I’ve grown up with a focus on education. I mean look at Sharjah, how many universities have we got on our doorstep? And think of my dad, being a scholar with two PhDs. Learning is important for everything, but education can be more community-based as well, rather than didactic. We have public art projects where people don’t feel threatened or intimidated, and then, because they come to a lot of our programmes, when there’s a conference happening that might be a little bit academic, they will automatically think yes, I want to come to this event too. We’ve seen this even with younger audiences and teenagers. So, it’s important to remove these boundaries of art being for the elite or the intellectuals.
Do you believe that in this way art changes minds and therefore changes lives?
Changes lives, yes, I think so … I mean, in any creative field, because it challenges the way you think, it also opens up your mind. It’s a tough one, because I’ve been around the arts my whole life so I don’t know any different. I think there’s a lot of flexibility within the creative sphere and it also brings people together. Learning, and the so-called life-changing moments, can also be about the people you interact with rather than what you’re being taught. I don’t know if that answered your question, it isn’t an easy question to answer.
You continually come back to the importance of connection and engagement, which percolates through every project you are involved in. To finish, can you give us an insight into how you think your work will evolve and move forward over the next few years?
I am always working on ideas and projects that have their own timeframes. I don’t plan it in such a way that I know when each one will be ready. Sometimes things take many years—planning takes time, research takes time, sometimes technical issues arise or there are delays we can’t control.
The time in quarantine and lockdown that occurred this year did slow some things down, but it moved other things forward that weren’t getting enough attention due to time constraints. I think this just goes to show that rather than having a rigid plan, you have to be open to all eventualities, work on things as they come up but remain focused on what is important: ideas, creativity and
engagement.
