Sharjah Art Foundation, in collaboration with Alkazi Foundation for the Arts, Asia Art Archive and Contemporary And (C&), invites emerging and mid-career art writers living and working in Asia and Africa to apply for PARA, a fellowship programme supporting the development and publication of new critical writing about contemporary art.
PARA explores what it means to be alongside of, to move towards, 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, selected through an open call. Shortlisted candidates will have an opportunity to publish two pieces of art criticism; engage in biweekly online sessions led by established art writers and critics; attend a fully funded, week-long programme of visits and gatherings in Sharjah; and develop relationships with fellow writers, editors, publishers and academics, fostering collaborative and transnational networks.
PARA will engage fellows in collective discussions informed by histories and specificities in the region that also contribute to ongoing conversations about art and criticism internationally. The programme aims to cultivate a vibrant community of practitioners where diverse voices can speak to one another to reimagine and invigorate art discourse.
Who can apply:
Cultural practitioners, including but not limited to writers, artists, curators, journalists and academics, living and working in Asia or Africa are welcome to apply.
How to apply:
Complete the online application form through the website (sharjahart.org) and attach the following:
Primary text guidelines:
The text must be 1,000 words maximum (please indicate the word count at the end of your text):
Any submissions that do not comply with the parameters listed above will be deemed ineligible.
The application deadline is 11:59 pm, UAE local time (GMT +4), on Sunday, 20 July 2025. Late submissions will not be considered.
FAQs
1. What are the selection criteria?
Submitted texts should:
2. When must fellows be available for programme activities?
Fellows must be available for all parts of the PARA programme: online sessions (January–June 2026), in-person residency (March 2026) and editorial process (June–August 2026). Participation in all components of the programme is mandatory. Anyone not participating in all activities will be asked to forfeit the programme.
3. What is the language of instruction of the programme?
The language of instruction is English; however, fellows will have opportunities to work across different languages over the course of the programme if they choose to.
4. What will the fellows receive?
For further information about the fellowship programme, visit sharjahart.org.
The Alkazi Foundation for the Arts (AFA) is a Registered Charitable Trust based in New Delhi (India) since 2006. Over the years, AFA has been committed to sharing research on the humanities with a focus on fine art, photography and theatre. Through a series of scholarly publications, exhibitions, seminars, conferences, workshops, newsletters, blogs and archive visits, AFA has concentrated extensively on the interlinked subjects of the ‘metropole’, the ‘colony’, and the 'contemporary' via anthropology, image studies as well as art criticism, thereby exploring cultural histories of South Asia from the pre-and-post Independence period.
Asia Art Archive (AAA) is an independent non-profit organisation initiated in 2000 in response to the urgent need to document and make accessible the multiple recent histories of art in the region. With one of the most valuable collections of material on art freely available from its website and onsite library, AAA builds tools and communities to collectively expand knowledge through research, residency, educational programmes, and publications.
Contemporary And (C&) is a platform reflecting and connecting ideas and discourses on contemporary arts in Africa and the Global Diaspora. With its work being deeply rooted in a constantly growing network of creative voices from all over the world, C& publishes two magazines, facilitates educational formats, and develops projects online, offline and in-between.
Sharjah Art Foundation is an advocate, catalyst and producer of contemporary art within the Emirate of Sharjah and the surrounding region, in dialogue with the international arts community. The Foundation advances an experimental and wide-ranging programmatic model that supports the production and presentation of contemporary art, preserves and celebrates the distinct culture of the region and encourages a shared understanding of the transformational role of art. The Foundation’s core initiatives include the long-running Sharjah Biennial, featuring contemporary artists from around the world; the annual March Meeting, a convening of international arts professionals and artists; grants and residencies for artists, curators and cultural producers; ambitious and experimental commissions and a range of travelling exhibitions and scholarly publications.
Sharjah is the third largest of the seven United Arab Emirates, and the only one bridging the Arabian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman. Reflecting the deep commitment to the arts, architectural preservation and cultural education embraced by its ruler, Sheikh Dr Sultan bin Mohammad Al Qasimi, Sharjah is home to more than 20 museums and has long been known as the cultural hub of the United Arab Emirates. It was named UNESCO's Arab Capital of Culture for 1998 and the UNESCO World Book Capital for 2019.
Alyazeyah Al Marri
alyazeyah@sharjahart.org
+971 (0)6 5444113