The Kalba Ice Factory building, which was opened in time for the Sharjah Biennial, has 20,000 square meters of display space. It was originally used to store ice and was surrounded by a tundra of the desert. The Kalba Ice Factory is now the newest cultural facility in the United Arab Emirates.
A historic city on Sharjah’s eastern coastline called Kalba is where the plant is situated. It was initially constructed in the 1970s and utilized as a fish feed mill and a location to store the ice that would be used to ship freshly caught fish to Dubai, which is 120 kilometers distant. It will reopen in time for the 2023 Sharjah Biennial, one of the most important contemporary art exhibitions, having just undergone restoration.
The biennial opening reception is on February 7th, and its theme is “Thinking Historically in the Present.” Her Highness Sheikha Hoor bint Sultan Al Qasimi, President and Director of Sharjah Art Foundation, is in charge of curating the exhibition, the brainchild of the late Nigerian curator and art historian Okwui Enwezor. She founded the Sharjah Art Foundation in 2009 after witnessing Enwezor’s acclaimed Documenta curatorship in 2002.
In repurposing the factory, Her Highness was committed to “preserving the industrial rawness of the factory space and protecting the unique ecosystem of the surrounding landscape,” Her Highness said in a statement.
The demolished factory served as a free-form site for successive iterations of the Sharjah Biennial, most recently serving as the backdrop for performance pieces like the South African artist Mohau Modisakeng’s Land of Zanj, the highlight of the 2019 edition.
The architecture studio 51-1 Arquitectos, based in Lima, Peru, was commissioned by the Sharjah Art Foundation in 2020 to refurbish the abandoned factory. “[They] did so with the minimum level of intervention to allow temporary art installations in its naves without losing its powerful spatial qualities as an industrial ruin,” Her Highness says.
51-1 Arquitectos has designed a 20,000 square meter exhibition facility using this brief. Studios, workshops, and living quarters have been carved out of the factory’s interior to accommodate visiting artists participating in residency programmes. The factory is next to Kalba Creek, which is now known as the Al Qurm Nature Reserve and has been declared as a mangrove sanctuary as part of the restoration effort. The sanctuary is home to unique species of birds, animals, and reptiles and is located near the Hajar mountain range on the coasts of the Gulf of Oman. Green turtles, which are at risk of extinction, can occasionally be spotted nesting on the local beaches.
The Sharjah Biennial takes place from 7 February to 11 June in 2023. Artists Rebecca Belmore, Ibrahim Mahama, Pak Khawateen Painting Club, Doris Salcedo, Abdulrahim Salem, Kahurangiariki Smith, Inuuteq Storch, and Nari Ward will exhibit their most recent works in the factory.
