Trailblazers | Hoor Al-Qasimi
VIEW EVENT DETAILSSaturday, November 9, 6pm onwards
“If we talk about politics in the news, why not talk about it in museums?”, said Hoor Al-Qasimi, the founder, director, president of the Sharjah Art Foundation, in a past interview. This provocation is essential to Al-Qasimi's practice as a curator and institutional head. The Sharjah Art Foundation, established in 2009, oversees the reputed Sharjah Biennale and activates several venues, all year round, in the third-largest emirate in the UAE, with a uniquely diverse focus to contemporary culture and its role in society.
Al-Qasimi, the 2019 Asia Society Game Changer Awardee, is a celebrated name in the art world – originally trained to be an artist, she took over the execution of the Sharjah Biennale in 2002, and has, since then, been a consistent champion of the arts as a social tool for critical engagement with the real world. It is under her leadership that Sharjah has earned a reputation for being an active hub that encourages and sustains creative experimentation. Among several passion projects that she took on early in life, perhaps the biggest has been the revamp of the biennale in the city since the time she came onboard as a young 22-year-old with revolutionary ideas about the potential of the arts. Al-Qasimi often mentions the initial difficulties she faced in bringing in new ideas of decentering arts and culture, crediting her own explorations in rethinking the arts ecosystem in Sharjah to her visit to the monumental 2002 edition of Documenta, curated by Okwui Enwezor. The theoretical concepts of postcolonial enquiries that Enwezor had raised through his work as a curator and cultural thinker proved to be central to Al-Qasimi’s approach towards the arts.
As her practice has grown, so has her influence. In 2015, she was named the curator for the UAE’s national pavilion at the 56th Venice Biennale. In 2020, she curated the Lahore Biennale. In 2023, she developed the 15th edition of the landmark Sharjah Biennale, which was initially a project conceived by the late Enwezor. In 2024, Al-Qasimi has been named the artistic director for the 2026 Biennale of Sydney, and the lead for the 2025 Aichi Triennale in Japan. Her curatorial projects are supplemented by Al-Qasimi’s attention-to-detail on several interdisciplinary interests – she oversees her late brother’s fashion-line Qasimi, is deeply passionate about conservation of heritage architecture within and on the periphery of Sharjah, is a self-taught restaurateur, and serves on the board of directors of several renowned cultural institutions across the world. Al-Qasimi is probably one of the busiest people in the art world. But regardless of how much is on her plate, she chooses to meet, collaborate and undertake projects that allow for multifaceted dialogue on a wide range of ideas.
Asia Society India Centre’s inaugural Trailblazers programme features Hoor Al-Qasimi in Mumbai for a landmark convening that opens the week of Art Mumbai, taking place between 14-17 November 2024. In a moderated discussion, Al-Qasimi will take us through her journey in the arts: the early inspirations that led her to this field; her interdisciplinary focus on cultural encounters; current and future projects; and the particular lines of enquiry that have driven her work as a cultural practitioner over the last two decades of her career. The session will offer a chance to hear from Al-Qasimi, first-hand, her experience of working and collaborating with artists and institutions across the world, and the many possibilities of imagining new and revolutionary ideas via publicly-focused cultural spaces.
Asia Society India Centre’s Trailblazers is an ongoing series that features long-form, one-on-one discussions with artists and pathbreaking creative practitioners in the visual arts, performance, literature, film and media from around the world.
Hoor Al Qasimi is President and Director of Sharjah Art Foundation, the public art institution she established in 2009 as a catalyst and advocate for the arts in Sharjah, UAE, and around the world. With a passion for supporting experimentation and innovation in the arts, Al Qasimi has continuously expanded the scope of the Foundation to include major international touring exhibitions; artist and curator residencies in visual art, film and music; commissions and production grants for emerging artists; publications and publication grants; performance and film festivals; architectural research and restoration; and a wide range of educational programming in Sharjah for all age groups.
Al Qasimi was curator of the critically acclaimed Sharjah Biennial 15: Thinking Historically in the Present (2023). In 2003, she co-curated Sharjah Biennial 6 and has remained Biennial Director ever since. Under her leadership, Sharjah Biennial has become an internationally recognised platform for contemporary artists, curators and cultural producers. Her leadership in the field led to her election as President of the International Biennial Association (IBA) in 2017, an appointment that transferred IBA’s headquarters to Sharjah. In addition to her role at the Foundation, Al Qasimi also serves as President of The Africa Institute, Sharjah; President and Director of the Sharjah Architecture Triennial; and Creative Director of the London-based fashion brand QASIMI. In 2025, she will serve as Artistic Director of the sixth Aichi Triennale, becoming the first person to be chosen for the role from outside of Japan. The following year, she will curate the 25th Biennale of Sydney (7 March to 8 June 2026) as Artistic Director.
Al Qasimi has curated major solo exhibitions at Sharjah Art Foundation, including Bouchra Khalili: Between Circles and Constellations (2024); CAMP: Passages through Passages (2022); Khalil Rabah: What is not (2022); Tarek Atoui: Cycles in 11 (2020–2021); Zarina Bhimji: Black Pocket (2020–2021); Amal Kenawy: Frozen Memory (2018–2019); the major retrospective Hassan Sharif: I Am The Single Work Artist (2017–2018), which travelled to KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin (2020), Malmö Konsthall, Sweden (2020–2021) and the Musée d’art moderne et contemporain, Saint-Étienne, France (2021); Yayoi Kusama: Dot Obsessions (2016–2017); and Robert Breer: Time Flies (2016–2017). Other notable projects at the Foundation include 1980–Today: Exhibitions in the United Arab Emirates, originally curated for the UAE Pavilion at the 56th Venice Biennale (2015), and the solo exhibitions Simone Fattal (2016), Farideh Lashai (2016), Rasheed Araeen: Before and After Minimalism (2014) and Susan Hefuna: Another Place (2014). Among her co-curated exhibitions in Sharjah are William Kentridge: A Shadow of a Shadow (2024); Antonio Dias: The Search for an Open Enigma (2024); Emily Karaka: Ka Awatea, A New Dawn (2024); Lala Rukh: In the Round (2024); The Casablanca Art School: Platforms and Patterns for a Postcolonial Avant-Garde (2024); The Otolith Group: Xenogenesis (2021–2022); and The Khartoum School: The Making of the Modern Art Movement in Sudan (1945–present) (2016–2017).
Al Qasimi curated the second Lahore Biennale (2020) and Dream Projects (2023) as part of the ninth Dream City Festival in Tunis. International exhibitions she has co-curated include Kamala Ibrahim Ishag: States of Oneness at Serpentine Gallery, London (2022–2023)—built upon a previous exhibition of Ishag’s work she co-curated for Sharjah Art Foundation (2016–2017—which travelled to Prince Claus Fund Gallery, Amsterdam (2019–2020); Bani Abidi: The Man Who Talked Until He Disappeared at MCA Chicago (2021–2022), which followed Bani Abidi: Funland at Sharjah Art Foundation (2019); the landmark exhibition Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige: Two Suns in a Sunset (2016), which debuted in Sharjah and travelled to Jeu de Paume, Paris; Haus der Kunst, Munich; and IVAM, Valencia; and When Art Becomes Liberty: The Egyptian Surrealists (1938–1965), Palace of Arts, Cairo (2016), and MMCA, Korea (2017).
Al Qasimi is Chair of the Advisory Board for the College of Fine Arts and Design, University of Sharjah, and a member of the advisory boards for Khoj International Artists’ Association, New Delhi; Darat al Funun, Amman; Independent Film Council, ICA, London; and the Eye Art & Film Prize Eye Filmmuseum, Amsterdam (2022–2024). She serves on the Board of Directors for Ashkal Alwan, Beirut, and was appointed President of the Alliance Française of Sharjah in 2023.
Previously, she served on the boards of MoMA PS1, New York (2010–2021); Kunst-Werke Berlin e. V.; and the UCCA Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing (2013–2016). She was also a member of the Prince Claus Award Committee (2016–2020) and took part in juries and prize panels for the Joan Miró Prize (2023), the MAXXI Bulgari Prize (2022), PinchukArtCentre’s fifth edition of the Future Generation Art Prize (2019), Bonnefanten Award for Contemporary Art (2019), Maria Lassnig Prize (2017), Mediacity Seoul Prize (2016), Hepworth Wakefield Prize for Sculpture (2016), Berlin International Film Festival–Berlinale Shorts (2016), Videobrasil (2015), Dubai International Film Festival (2014) and Benesse Prize (2013).
Al Qasimi holds an MA in curating contemporary art from the Royal College of Art, London (2008). She earned a diploma in painting from the Royal Academy of Arts, London (2005), and received a BFA from the Slade School of Fine Art, London (2002). She also holds an Honorary Doctorate from the University for the Creative Arts, Farnham, UK (2023).
In 2023, Al Qasimi was appointed head of Sharjah’s newly established Global Studies University, consisting of the College of African Studies and The Africa Institute, College of Asian Studies and Asia Institute, and College of European Studies and Europe Institute.