INTERVIEW Hoor Al Qasimi on path to shape contemporary art, from Sharjah to world

Hoor Al Qasimi, director of the Sharjah Biennial and founding president of the Sharjah Art Foundation in the United Arab Emirates / Courtesy of Chieska Fortune Smith

By Park Han-sol

• Published Feb 19, 2025 5:07 PM KST
• Updated Feb 20, 2025 2:26 PM KST

SHARJAH, United Arab Emirates — In 2003, Hoor Al Qasimi was just 22 when she took the helm of the Sharjah Biennial, the longest-running international art exposition in the United Arab Emirates and the wider Gulf region. With a royal lineage and a direct tie to the biennale’s founder — Sharjah’s ruler, who was also her father — her swift ascent seemed hardly a surprise, a privilege she isn’t afraid to admit.

But that didn’t mean it was smooth sailing. The organizing committee assumed that appointing the ruler’s daughter as its head would essentially confine her to a figurehead role behind the desk. When Al Qasimi — the youngest member and the only woman on the team — began questioning traditions and radically reshaping the biennial’s direction, half of the old members quit in protest.

“I had to prove myself, for sure,” she told The Korea Times in an interview at her modest, book-crammed office during the opening week of this year’s Sharjah Biennial.

The sweeping changes she introduced to the event in her home country were inspired by her visit to Documenta 11, the influential avant-garde exhibition held every five years in Kassel, Germany. In 2002, fresh out of the Slade School of Fine Art in London and still harboring the dream of being an artist, she witnessed firsthand the groundbreaking vision of Nigerian-born curator Okwui Enwezor. His edition of Documenta was widely hailed as “the first truly global, postcolonial” show, shifting the focus beyond Europe and North America to spotlight voices from the Global South.

For Al Qasimi, it was an eye-opening moment — one that soon led her to reimagine the possibilities for Sharjah’s own exposition.

“(Up until then,) in Sharjah, there was definitely a strong regional focus. Many of the great modern Arab artists had participated in previous editions. When I came along, I wanted to challenge the rules — no more country representation (that divided artists into a handful of national pavilion-like booths) and no more having the show in a trade center,” she said.

“I wanted it to be more of an experience and a curated exhibition that really engages with the city. I wanted to connect the show to our arts square, museums and even the small towns and villages.”

The result is a biennale that has since boasted a far more cross-cultural lineup of creatives and mediums, establishing its place on the global art calendar as a platform for foregrounding the less-heralded voices of the non-Western majority.

Its international character also, in some way, mirrors the unique social fabric of the UAE, a country with the world’s second-highest percentage of expatriates — where Emirati citizens make up only about 11 percent of the population.

The biennial’s 16th edition, curated by an all-female team of five operating beyond a West-centric lens, continues this vision. Among nearly 200 participating artists — hailing from Taiwan, Lebanon, Palestine, Korea and many other corners of the globe — Euro-American names are notably scarce. A staggering 650 works unfold across museums, heritage houses, abandoned buildings and even desert landscapes in the UAE’s third-largest emirate, transforming Sharjah itself into a sprawling canvas.

“It’s been 20 years [of] me doing this and suddenly I see the difference it made. It takes a generation to see that,” she said with a smile.

“The art scene (in the Gulf region) is still pretty young. In Sharjah, the biennial started in 1993; the Emirates Fine Arts Society was founded in 1980; and the Sharjah Art Museum opened in 1997. But that also means there’s room for more discussions and growth. You can see there’s a thirst for it. Now we have projects in Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Saudi Arabia. More people are coming through because they are growing up with these biennials and exhibitions.”

However, serving as director of the Sharjah Biennial is just one of Al Qasimi’s myriad of professional hats. She is also the president and director of the Sharjah Art Foundation, which she founded in 2009 to keep local audiences engaged year-round.

“We didn’t just want to host an international festival that happens once every two years. We wanted to create a year-round space for other types of exhibitions and learning that is inviting for everyone,” she said.

In recent years, Al Qasimi has expanded her expertise and influence far beyond the Gulf region as well. She is currently traversing the globe as the artistic director of the Aichi Triennale 2025 in Japan — the first non-Japanese to occupy the role — as well as the 2026 Biennale of Sydney.

Her impact has not gone unnoticed. In 2024, she claimed the top spot on ArtReview’s Power 100 list, the annual ranking of the most influential people in art.

“So many artists are not getting visibility and any opportunity we get to meet artists and try to show their work is really important — artists from everywhere, really, because there are artists everywhere,” she noted.

“That’s why I’m also interested in biennials outside of Sharjah. It’s a chance for me to bring together as many people as possible. I think as you create, you plant little seeds everywhere.”