This publication serves as a guide to Sharjah Biennial 16: to carry, curated by Alia Swastika, Amal Khalaf, Megan Tamati-Quennell, Natasha Ginwala and Zeynep Öz. It provides Biennial visitors with project descriptions for the almost 200 participating artists, accompanied by unique visuals such as artist sketches, process documentation, fabrication details and film stills. It also includes a foreword by Sharjah Art Foundation director Hoor Al Qasimi, curatorial statements by the five curators and information about the 17 venues located across the Emirate of Sharjah.

The Sharjah Biennial 16 title, to carry, is a multivocal and open-ended proposition. The ever-expanding list of what to carry, and how to carry it, is an invitation to encounter the different formations and positions of the five curators as well as the constellation of resonances they have gathered. Forming an evolving collection of narratives told from multiple perspectives, geographies and languages, Sharjah Biennial 16 curatorial projects reflect on what it means to carry change and its technological, societal, animistic or ritualistic possibilities.