9 REPORTS Aferimage, Vol. 46, Number 3, pps. 9–14. issn 2578-8531 © 2019 by Te Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. Please direct all requests for permission to photocopy or reproduce article content through the University of California Press’s Reprints and Permissions web page, https://www.ucpress.edu/journals/reprints- permissions. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1525/af.2019.463002 SABRINA DETURK Sharjah Biennial 14 Sharjah Art Foundation, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates, March 7–June 10, 2019 In an empty courtyard surrounded by stone walls, visitors made their way around stagnant pools of water, drawn toward brightly colored panels set into the back wall of the space. Te sounds of birds and bubbling water surrounded them. Suddenly, a dead palm tree at the center of the courtyard spoke with a woman’s voice, telling the visitor about her slow death from loss of nutrients; the voice mourned not only life, but love, explaining that her lover drained her of existence. Tis mixed-media work, Aging Ruins Dreaming Only to Recall the Hard Chisel fom the Past (2019), was a collaboration between the Nigerian artists Otobong Nkanga and Emeka Ogboh and won the 2019 Sharjah Biennial Prize. Haunting and evoc- ative in its own right, the work also refects many of the themes addressed by artists through- out this biennial: the passage of time, loss, displacement, memory. According to Hoor Al Qasimi, the director of the Sharjah Art Foundation, this edition of the Sharjah Biennial sought to leave behind the “echo chamber” of mainstream media, with its closed feedback loops, and to “ofer opportunities to closely examine how stories are told and from what perspectives they are communicated and historicized.” 1 Te 14th Sharjah Biennial took the somewhat unusual approach of inviting three curators—Zoe Butt, Omar Kholeif, and Claire Tancons—to each shape their own section of the exhibition, a strategy that at times resulted in a lack of cohesion between approaches, even when individual works within the sections were strong [Image 1]. In “Journey Beyond the Arrow,” the section of the Biennial curated by Butt, the selected works were meant to refect on global connections and exchange, focusing on the human journey and the tools that make it possible. Two works by artists from Southeast Asia and Oceania were among the most compelling in this section, perhaps fttingly given the unique history of those regions in the ongoing collision between East and West, native and other. Kidlat Tahimik, from the Philippines, presented Ang Ma-bagyong Sabungan ng 2 Bathala ng Hangin, A Stormy Clash Between 2 Goddesses of the Winds (WW III–the Protracted Kultur War) (2019), a mixed-media installation that flled an entire gallery with a combina- tion of sculpture, audio, and video. Te installation commented on the onslaught of Western cultural values and commodities that threaten to overtake indigenous communities of the Philippines. In this work, the indigenous goddess Inhabian stands against the tsunami-like onslaught of Marilyn Monroe, in which Hollywood glamor and American consumerism 1. Sharjah Art Foundation, Sharjah Biennial 14: Leaving the Echo Chamber (Sharjah, UAE: Sharjah Art Foundation, 2019), 9.