‘Who has the right to belong to the future of humanity, and who is condemned to disappear?'

Laymert Garcia dos Santos

These essays bring together voices that have been involved in cultural discourse outside the Western mainstream. Focusing on the concept of belonging, they explore how contemporary art produced outside dominant cultural circuits has responded to the challenges posed by globalisation. Entanglements between the local and the global, and the confluence of aesthetics and politics, are discussed from the point of view of the art historian, the sociologist, the critic and the curator.

All the essays in this volume originally appeared in the catalogue for Sharjah Biennial 7. The first section, Critical Perspectives, includes essays which were written before the biennial’s opening. The second section, The Sharjah Experiment, is a collection of essays written by members of the curatorial team who authored their texts while preparing for the opening of the Biennial.

Contributors consist of Hoor Al Qasimi, Frederick N. Bohrer, Kamal Boullata, Nicolas Bourriaud, Boris Brollo, Jean Fisher, Laymert Garcia Dos Santos, Elias Khoury, Ken Lum, Joseph Massad, Khaled Mattawa, Gerardo Mosquera, Achille Bonito Oliva, Jack Persekian, Nadia Tazi and Tirdad Zolghadr.