Paula Nascimento and Angela Harutyunyan Announced as Curators of Sharjah Biennial 17

Sharjah Art Foundation announces that Paula Nascimento and Angela Harutyunyan will curate the 17th edition of Sharjah Biennial, opening January 2027.

Harutyunyan, Professor of Contemporary Art and Theory at Berlin University of the Arts, and Nascimento, an independent curator and architect based in Luanda, bring distinct yet complementary curatorial approaches. Together, they will shape the Biennial as a space for experimental exhibition-making, collective reflection, and critical engagement.

"Angela and Paula bring unique perspectives rooted in their respective practices," said Hoor Al Qasimi, President and Director of Sharjah Art Foundation. "Their collaboration will offer a dynamic platform to explore contemporary realities and shared histories.“

Paula Nascimento (b. 1981, Luanda, Angola) is an architect and independent curator based in Luanda. Her practice is rooted at the intersection of visual arts, urbanism, geopolitics and arts education. Nascimento engages with interdisciplinary methodologies with a focus on contemporary readings of historical themes in and around Africa and the Global South. An associate curator of the sixth and seventh editions of the Lubumbashi Biennial (2019, 2022), she has also developed projects and curated exhibitions internationally, including Rencontres de Bamako – African Biennale of Photography, Experimenta Design, Triennale di Milano and the Angola Pavilion at the 55th Venice Biennale, which received the Golden Lion for best national participation in 2013. She is a curatorial advisor to Hangar Centre of Artistic Research, Lisbon and a member of the acquisitions committee of CAM – Centro de Arte Moderna Gulbenkian.

Based in Berlin, Angela Harutyunyan (b. 1982, Gyumri, Armenia) is Professor of Contemporary Art and Theory at the Berlin University of the Arts. She is a founding member of The Ashot Johannissyan Research Institute in the Humanities, Yeravan, and the Beirut Institute of Critical Analysis and Research. She has curated several exhibitions, including This is the Time. This is the Record of the Time (with Nat Muller) at Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam (2014) and the American University of Beirut Art Galleries (2015). Harutyunyan obtained her PhD from the University of Manchester in 2009 and previously taught at the American University in Cairo (2009–2010) and at the American University of Beirut (2011–2023). One of the founding editors of ARTMargins, she has extensively researched and written on post-Soviet art and culture, Marxist aesthetics, historical temporality and curatorial theory. She is the author of The political aesthetics of the Armenian avant-garde: The journey of the 'painterly real’ 1987–1994 (Manchester University Press, 2017).

The Biennial will present a range of projects across Sharjah, continuing the Foundation’s commitment to artistic experimentation and global dialogue.

For more information, please visitsharjahart.org