PARA

Sharjah Art Foundation, in collaboration with Alkazi Foundation for the Arts, Asia Art Archive, and Contemporary And (C&), hosts PARA, a fellowship programme supporting the development and publication of new critical writing about contemporary art by emerging and mid-career art writers living and working in Asia and Africa. PARA explores what it means to be alongside of, to move toward, to stand against, or to wander beyond. It speaks to the sense of adjacency and expansiveness inherent to art writing—at once close to a subject while also broadening its scope across intersecting cultural fields. Seeking to interrogate established approaches to art criticism, PARA foregrounds situated practices that attend to diverse forms of criticality. The programme offers material, communal, and institutional support to five fellows, who are selected through an open call. Selected fellows will have an opportunity to publish two pieces of art criticism; engage in biweekly online seminars and tailored feedback sessions with established art writers and critics; attend a fully funded, week-long programme of visits and peer-led gatherings in Sharjah; and develop relationships with fellow writers, editors, publishers, and academics, fostering collaborative and transnational networks. PARA engages fellows in collective discussions informed by histories and specificities in the region that also contribute to ongoing conversations about art and criticism internationally. In doing so, it cultivates a vibrant community of practitioners where diverse voices can speak to one another to reimagine and invigorate art discourse in the region.