Curated by Adrian Lahoud, The Sharjah Architecture Triennial opens this November, self-proclaiming as "the first international platform on architecture and urbanism of the Global South."
Lahoud, who is also Dean of the School of Architecture at the Royal College of Art, has defined the theme for the inaugural edition —Rights of Future Generations— as an instance to "question how inheritance, legacy, and the state of the environment are passed from one generation to the next, how present decisions have long-term intergenerational consequences, and how other expressions of co-existence, including indigenous ones, might challenge dominant western perspectives."
The Triennial announced this week the first group of projects, which includes collaborations among architects, artists, engineers, activists, performers, choreographers, scientists, musicians, and anthropologists. A full list of participants will be announced in September.
These are the selected participants:
- Fundación Desierto de Atacama (Alonso Barros, Gonzalo Pimentel, Juan Gili) + Mauricio Hidalgo
- Artist duo Cooking Sections (Alon Schwabe and Daniel Fernández Pascual) + AKIT II
- Dima Srouji, Dirar Kalash (sound artist), Silvia Truini (archaeologist and anthropologist), Nadia Abu El-Haj (anthropologist), and Shahrazad Odeh (lawyer).
- Architecture office DOGMA
- Felicity Scott + Mark Wasiuta
- Francesco Sebregondi + Jasbir K. Puar (queer theorist)
- HaRaKa Platform/Adham Hafez Company (Adham Hafez, Mohsen Binali, Mona Gamil, Lamia Gouda, Adam Kucharski, and Donia Massoud)
- Marina Tabassum Architects
- Visual artist Marwa Arsanios
- Anthropologist Nidhi Mahajan
- Public Works
- Samaneh Moafi + Platform 28 + WORKNOT! collective + Mhamad Safa + Maria Bessarabova and the residents of Mehr in Dowltabad, Esfahan
- Vivian Wang and Dewa Alit (composers) + U5 (artist collective) + Li Tavor, Alessandro Bosshard + Matthew van der Ploeg + Adam Jasper
Alongside the participants and projects that will be featured in this inaugural edition, the Triennial also announced the loan of the Ngurrara Canvas II, "a monumental painting used as proof of Aboriginal land tenure, marking only the second time that this unique artwork will be exhibited outside Australia.", and an editorial collaboration named "Rights of Future Generations: Conditions", featured a group of critical and independent media platforms from the Middle East and beyond.
A series of new essays authored by the Triennial participants, Conditions explores sites of environmental struggle and social experimentation from across the Global South – both anticipating and complementing the exhibition. The essays will be published online between August and November 2019 on Ajam Media Collective, ArtReview, e-flux architecture, Mada Masr, and others to be announced. While a second volume, "Rights of Future Generations: Propositions", will be published in spring 2020. It will feature documentation of the inaugural exhibition, alongside newly commissioned texts and translations, expanding and reflecting on the theme. The two volumes will appear in a double edition of English and Arabic.
Get to know more about the participants and their projects here.
