Convened by Alia Swastika, Co-curator of Sharjah Biennial 16 with Jo-Lene Ong, Curator at esea contemporary and May Adadol Ingawanij, Professor of Cinematic Arts and Co-director of Centre for Research and Education in Arts and Media, University of Westminster, this invitation-only curatorial workshop was part of Sharjah Biennial 16 April Acts.
Unpacking Infrastructure Curatorial Exchange is a space of sharing of curatorial projects that reimagines infrastructure with social ecologies in Southeast Asia and the Emirates using situated knowledge, and includes both technical-material arteries as well as immaterial systems and cultural forms.
Infrastructure shapes the ways we move, connect, and sustain life. Yet, dominant models—driven by states and private interests—prioritise large-scale, standardised systems that often exclude the very communities they claim to serve. In contrast, those at the margins have long built alternative infrastructures rooted in local knowledge, cultural practices, and mutual support, challenging technocratic perspectives.
Bringing together curators from Southeast Asia (SEA) and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), this workshop explores how infrastructure is carried—through histories of migration, survival, and care. It considers how curatorial and institutional practices can engage beyond physical structures, embracing unruly archives, reciprocal networks, and community knowledge. In dialogue with one another, participants will share experiences, strategies, and resources for sustaining art and communities across geographies while weaving fabric of support to resist demands for growth and spectacle.
Anchored in the ethos of to carry, this workshop is a space of collective wayfinding—a moment to reflect on what we inherit, what we hold, and what we must reimagine in order to carry forward new formations of support, resistance, and continuity.
April Acts is a weekend programme of gatherings, performances, and conversations that expands on the curatorial framework of Sharjah Biennial 16. Anchored by the Biennial’s central question—what to carry and how to carry it—April Acts brings together artists, thinkers, and organisers to explore collective approaches to resistance, care, mobility, and life-enabling systems. Through panels, workshops, screenings, and live events, the programme invites diverse voices to reflect, listen, and act in response to societal transitions, ruptured histories, and reimagined communal futures.
