We live in paradoxical times, where within our increasingly "mediated" environments certainty of the actual is sacrificed. Ironically this has led to a new formalism, as though seeking to re-join the mystically inflected symbolism of the past. We are a rapidly urbanizing species, and yet the result is often an increasing neo-provincialism.

The production of knowledge must derive from an honest and unbiased engagement with reality. If biennials are places that produce new knowledge, then they must be places of liberation from Eurocentrism, Globalism, and any other -isms.

As Ken Lum wrote in the Sharjah Biennial 7 catalogue, "Criticality in art was highly circumscribed by the prevailing Euro–American codes of art historical understanding, not by the politics of difference with its intersections with postcolonial, feminist, and anti-racist debates."

This is a shift away from a theoretical inquiry into the "universal" nature of the modern individual in favor of an inquiry educed from the complexity and diversity of locally rooted cultures, societies and political manifestations: the actual physical practice of each individual artist.

Sharjah is historic and present, social, natural and political. It is a place that encourages thinking and negotiating with others. My natural response to its dynamism is the wish to bring to it a Biennial which questions what kinds of practices are possible through art, and what kinds of knowledge can be produced, a Biennial which opens up undefined territories and encourages new production in the hands of many artists, architects, designers, scientists and engineers.

The sahn courtyard of Islamic architecture, with the howz pool and fountain at its centre, is my inspiration. I want to create a fountain of ideas that gush forth continuously, only beginning with this Biennial, then becoming a place to which we return, time and again. The fountain is generous. It is hospitable. But it is not uncritically open.

To derive knowledge and practice from this fountain one must have discipline. Discipline inevitably asks, "Do you know how to use this?" "Do you know why?" "Are you using it for the purposes of life?"