IBA Stage: Sharjah Biennial 16 – Alia Swastika

Sharjah BIennial 16 Curator Alia Swastika. Courtesy Sharjah Art Foundation

IBA Stage: Sharjah Biennial 16
June 6, 2025 (Friday) and June 10, 2025 (Tuesday)
1:00 pm (Sharjah/GMT+4)

In preparation for the IBA Stage event dedicated to Sharjah Biennial 16 to carry, we are giving space to present each of the five curators who envisioned it and brought it to light. Today, we begin with Alia Swastika whose role and commitment within IBA and the biennial community is well represented by her long presence as IBA Board Member.

Alia Swastika is a curator, researcher and writer whose practice over the last 10 years has expanded on issues and perspectives of decoloniality and feminism. Her different projects involve decentralising art, rewriting art history and encouraging local activism. She works as the Director of the Biennale Jogja Foundation, Yogyakarta, and continues her research on Indonesian female artists during Indonesia’s New Order.

She established and was Program Director for Ark Galerie, Yogyakarta (2007–2017). She was co-curator for the Biennale Jogja XI Equator #1 (2011); co-artistic director of the 9th Gwangju Biennale (2012); and roundtable curator for contemporary art exhibitions for the Europalia Arts Festival (2017), including presentations at Oude Kerk, Amsterdam; M HKA, Antwerp; and SMAK Ghent, Belgium. Her research on Indonesian women artists during the New Order was published in 2019.

In Sharjah Biennial 16, Alia’s curatorial contributions reflect a continued commitment to examining cultural memory and the politics of place, engaging with artistic practices that carry inherited histories while resisting singular narratives. Through her work, we see the biennial’s title to carry unfold as an inquiry into what it means to hold the past and present in dialogue—across territories, generations, and forms of knowledge.

Join us on June 6 at 1PM Sharjah Time for Part I of our IBA Stage event, featuring Alia Swastika alongside fellow curators Amal Khalaf and Natasha Ginwala, as we explore the curatorial frameworks that shape one of the most multifaceted editions of the Sharjah Biennial to date.

Stay tuned for more news from us on this upcoming IBA Stage event and keep following communications on the Sharjah Biennial here.

To have the possibility to hear and discuss with the individuals behind biennials has been a key component of what we believe IBA can offer to our members and the wider public and we value your participation through our live streams. As always IBA Stage events are meant as a moment to hear about a project through its makers and have the opportunity to participate in a Q&A session at the end of the presentation.

Click here to register for the first part of the event!

Click here to register for the second part of the event!

Stay connected with us through our social media channels for updates and further details.