Sharjah Art Foundation Opens ‘Image Keepers’, the Inaugural Exhibition of Its New Photography Gallery

Bringing collectively over fifty works from the Sharjah Art Foundation Collection, ‘Image Keepers’ traces six a long time of inventive experimentation and engagement by means of the lens of images.

Rula Halawani, From ‘The Bride is Beautiful, But She is Married to Another Man’, 2017. Sharjah Art Foundation Collection. Photo: Ivan Erofeev

The Sharjah Art Foundation opens ‘Image Keepers’, the primary exhibition to inaugurate its new Photography Gallery in Al Manakh, Sharjah. On view from 8 November 2025 to 26 April 2026, the exhibition brings collectively greater than fifty works by seventeen artists and collectives from the Foundation’s assortment, exploring the photographic picture as a website of reminiscence, resistance, and inventive inquiry.

Presenting works in codecs starting from studio portraits to multimedia installations, ‘Image Keepers’ gives a panoramic view of how artists have used images to doc, query, and reimagine actuality throughout geographies and generations. Together, the works navigate six a long time of sociopolitical transformation and modernisation, mapping the shifting terrain of image-making in postcolonial and modern contexts.

Portraits of Place and Identity

The first chapter of the exhibition presents portraits that testify to the range of lived expertise throughout areas and occasions. These works file the intersections of ethnic, civic, and diasporic identities whereas revealing the intricate bonds between folks and place.

In her sequence The Bride is Beautiful, But She is Married to Another Man (2017), Rula Halawani captures Palestinians moments earlier than border checks, confronting the viewer with the quiet resilience and endurance of a folks below occupation. Sunil Gupta’s Black Experience (1986/2021) transports us to Eighties Britain, providing uncommon, intimate glimpses into the lives of diasporic South Asian communities throughout a time when the time period “Black” broadly encompassed all folks of color.

Absence, Conflict, and the Poetics of Memory

The exhibition’s subsequent part turns to the unseen—photos that have interaction with battle, migration, and the traces left behind. In Mame-Diarra Niang’s Léthé (2021) and Same Guent Guii (2021), abstraction and dreamlike imagery evoke questions of id, belonging, and self-discovery. Susan Hefuna’s Landscape/Cityscape (1999–2002), shot with a pinhole digicam throughout Cairo and the Nile Delta, immerses viewers in textured, atmospheric scenes the place reminiscence fades and re-emerges like mild on paper.

On the higher flooring, images turns into a cloth language in its personal proper. Artists have interaction archival, performative, and speculative approaches to reimagine collective histories. Mohammed Kazem’s Window (2003–2005) displays on the fast city transformation of the UAE, documenting each the development of recent buildings and the human tales inside them. In distinction, Fehras Publishing Practices’ Disappearances, Appearances, Publishing (2015–2018) constructs a pseudo-archive of greater than 15,000 publications from the Eastern Mediterranean and North Africa, revealing how publishing formed cultural id and historic consciousness throughout the area.

Women as Guardians of Memory

The exhibition takes its title from Zineb Sedira’s seminal video set up Gardiennes d’photos [Image Keepers] (1998–2001), a three-channel work that honours ladies as custodians of cultural reminiscence. The piece centres on Safia Kouaci, who preserved the photographic archive of her late husband, Algerian photojournalist Mohamed Kouaci. Through Sedira’s lens, remembrance turns into a residing act of resistance and continuity, linking generations by means of shared photos and tales.

A Panoramic Vision of Photography

Other featured artists embrace Amina Zoubir, Bani Abidi, Basma Al Sharif, Hrair Sarkissian, Kader Attia, Khadija Saye, Latif Al Ani, Rashid Mahdi, Rika Noguchi, and Rushdi Anwar. Together, their works kind a strong, emotional journey spanning continents and a long time.

‘Image Keepers’ celebrates images not solely as a instrument for documentation however as a medium that challenges notion and holds house for the neglected and the forgotten.

Curated by Jiwon Lee, Head of Curatorial, with Nada Ammagui and Osemudiamen Ekore, and supported by Souraya Kreidieh and Shahd Murshed of the Collection Department, the exhibition marks a brand new chapter in Sharjah Art Foundation’s dedication to increasing the visibility of images within the area.

‘Image Keepers’ runs from 8 November 2025 to 26 April 2026 on the Photography Gallery, Al Manakh, Sharjah. Free admission. For extra info and to e book tickets, go to sharjahart.org.