Sharjah March Meeting 2025: To Carry Songs

Sharjah Art Foundation’s annual symposium this year explored how culture is preserved and shared within communities

Chaar Yaar (the Faqiri Quartet) closing the Sharjah Art Foundation’s annual symposium, 2025.

Al Qasimiyah School, Al Manakh, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates
7 – 9 March 2025

by ALLIE BISWAS

Founded almost two decades ago, the March Meeting was conceived as a novel yearly gathering that would allow art professionals in the Gulf States to get together and share their experiences of working in the region. Like Sharjah’s longstanding biennial that is also directed by the Sharjah Art Foundation, expertly led by Hoor Al Qasimi, whose father is the emirate’s sheikh, the event quickly grew in reach – and status – with visitors attending from much further afield to find out what institutions and artists in that part of the world were up to. Over the years, owing to an inspiring vision that has been consistently well executed, the foundation has become a sort of headquarters for research into art being made today in the Middle East, Africa and Asia, as well as the art histories of these regions, bringing writers, artists and curators from around the world to its two flagship events, whether as participants or members of the audience.

Taking its theme from the current biennial, titled To Carry, which opened in February and closes in June, this year’s March Meeting considered how a community’s culture can be preserved through verbal means, whether songs or chants, or words as they appear in writing or conversation. The press release termed this in typically obscure terms (“What is preserved and what is transmitted through the body, through voice, through the quiet solidarities of the everyday?”), but thankfully in reality such a statement took the form of a variety of musical performances and panel conversations that often thoughtfully explored how sound and storytelling can commemorate and rejuvenate. Added to this was the fact that the meeting coincided with Ramadan, which meant that each day’s programme started at night, following the breaking of the fast, and was marked by the sharing of meals provided by the Foundation – a pronounced feeling of gathering that lent itself to the programme’s overall objectives.

The Māori electronic artist Mara TK, Sharjah Art Foundation’s annual symposium, 2025.

Out of a diverse programme there were two standouts, both performances. Opening the second night was Mara TK, a Māori electronic artist from Aotearoa (New Zealand), who performed a bare-bones solo set, just vocals and guitar. Mara sings with soul and his songs are guided by his native language (Te Reo Māori) and his commitment to “Kaupapa Māori”, an approach that prioritises storytelling from an Indigenous perspective, with the intention of emphasising the value of his culture and creating new impressions of it. Of Kai Tahu and Ngāti Maniapoto heritage, Mara is part of a lineage of well-known musicians in his country, namely his father and brother, and while he originally made a name for himself through beat-making and electronically produced music inspired by American hip-hop artists, he states that it is Aotearoa’s Indigenous projects that sustain him the most.

On the final night, Chaar Yaar (the Faqiri Quartet) was the closing act, taking to the stage at midnight. Madan Gopal Singh, an English Literature scholar in his 70s who also sings and composes, is the leader of this multigenerational ensemble of four from Delhi, consisting of harmonium (Singh), guitar (Deepak Castelino), sarod (Pritam Ghosal) and tabla (Amjad Khan), played a high-energy set that largely drew from ancient Punjabi folklore and Sufi music, while at times showing an equal inclination towards western influences (their rendition of John Lennon’s Imagine came as a surprise). An affinity for such blending can be attributed to Singh’s experiences of living in Delhi in the 1970s. Born in the aftermath of Partition when Punjab was divided, he grew up in a refugee colony in Delhi and it was the desolate conditions within a still-broken India decades later that drew him to Sufi sounds and led to him becoming a singer, sourcing from the varied musical references that Delhi offered him. Singh opened the performance with an anecdote about his group, explaining how each member came from different parts of India and belonged to different religions: Chaar Yaar (four friends in Persian), he suggested, was symbolic of an affiliation that transcended such differences.

Left to right: Meena Kandasamy, Natasha Ginwala and Athena Farrokhzad, Sharjah Art Foundation’s annual symposium, 2025.

Aside from the stories transmitted through melody, one conversation about poetry and translation explored how writing plays a part in preserving and fighting for a community. The poet and journalist Meena Kandasamy read part of an article she wrote after visiting Silger, a village populated by the Indigenous Adivasi in a mineral-rich forest in the Bastar region of Chhattisgarh state in central India, in 2022. She went there to observe hundreds of residents marching against land-grab initiatives that intend to incorporate mining and military camps. The collective who organised the protest was banned last year amid the killing of hundreds of villagers and, as Kandasamy pointed out in a piece she published in the Hindu shortly after her appearance in Sharjah, violence against the people of Silger by the government continues to escalate: the state is now disposing of Adivasi lives through a ploy – one that accuses them of being Maoists, the ultimate threat.

An emphasis on indigenous or historical art forms was common among works included in this year’s biennial, with the artists’ message (sometimes seemingly not more than just wanting to draw attention to such traditions) often preceding any artistic objectives. At the March Meeting, the artistry itself was palpable – the sense that music and words were an instrument “to carry” thoughts and feelings within and across cultures prevailed.

• The Sharjah Biennial 16: To Carry is on until 15 June 2025.