Date: May 4, 2023
Time: 6 pm – 7 pm
Venue: The Common Room, Alserkal Avenue
Organised by: Ishara Art Foundation, hosted by the Common Room, Alserkal Arts Foundation
Registration: Click here

Ishara Art Foundation presents a talk by UK based artist-composer Haroon Mirza. In his first public presentation in the UAE, Mirza will share recent works underpinned by his interest in energy and power in their various forms. Mirza considers electricity as his primary artistic medium, creating from it visual, sculptural, acoustic and performative compositions in time and space. Moderated by art critic and editor Jyoti Dhar, the talk will offer insights into the ideas, questions, research and explorations that underlie Mirza’s practice.

The event is a companion to the exhibition Notations on Time curated by Sandhini Poddar and Sabih Ahmed, currently on view at the Ishara Art Foundation.

The talk will be delivered in English. Pre-event registration is mandatory due to limited seating.

With Special thanks to Lisson Gallery and Alserkal Arts Foundation for their support.

Haroon Mirza
Haroon Mirza (b. 1977) was born in London, where he still lives and works. He has a B.A. in painting from Winchester School of Art, an MA in critical practice and theory from Goldsmiths College, London, and an MA in fine art from Chelsea College of Art and Design. While evolving an adisciplinary practice, he manipulates electricity as his primary medium to devise sculptures, performances and immersive installations that ask us to reconsider the perceptual distinctions between noise, sound and music.

Recent solo exhibitions of his work have been held at Lisson Gallery, London (2023); Max Goelitz, Berlin (2022); CCA Kitakyushu, Kitakyushu (2020); John Hansard Gallery, University of Southampton, and Aberdeen Art Gallery, UK (2019); Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne (2019); Sifang Art Museum, Nanjing (2019); Ikon, Birmingham (2018); Asian Art Museum, San Francisco (2018). A selection of group shows and biennials include the Islamic Arts Biennale, Jeddah (2022); Lofoten International Art Festival, Lofoten (2022); 21^st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa (2022); Lille Triennale (2021); Liverpool Biennial (2021); Lahore Biennale (2020); Shenzhen Sculpture Biennale (2012); and the Venice Biennale (2011), where he was awarded the Silver Lion. Among other prizes, he is a recipient of the COLLIDE International Award (2017).

Jyoti Dhar
Jyoti Dhar is an art critic and editor based in the UAE. Over the last 18 years she has lived and worked in Dubai, New Delhi and Colombo, writing about contemporary art in South Asia. Her writing has appeared in books on artists that include Seher Shah, Nasreen Mohamedi, Jitish Kallat and Geoffrey Bawa, and periodicals such as Art Asia Pacific, Asian Art News, Artforum, Aperture, Even, Flash Art, Isskustvo Arts Journal, Modern Painters, Motherland, post at MoMA, Scroll Projects, Vogue India, WeAreOrlando and The Sunday Times in Sri Lanka. She was the founding editor of ChinarTree.com, assistant editor of The Ceylon Chronicle and contributing editor for Art Asia Pacific. In 2014, she won the Forbes India Emerging Art Writer of the Year award. In 2017, she was awarded First Prize at the International Awards for Art Criticism 4. She currently manages editorial and content strategy for the Sharjah Art Foundation.