One of Australia’s most prominent artists, Richard Bell is an activist and writer recognised internationally for bold installations, performances, videos and paintings that challenge racial stereotypes and reconceive Indigenous heritage and Aboriginal emancipation. In Umbrella Embassy (2021), Bell draws inspiration from the Aboriginal Tent Embassy, a permanent protest occupation site that has been fighting for the political sovereignty and social welfare of Aboriginal Australians and Torres Strait people for over 50 years. The movement began in front of Parliament House in Canberra in 1972, when there was a growing emphasis on political and conceptual artistic movements. Bell imbues Umbrella Embassy with vivid and saturated hues redolent of pop art’s aesthetic, while conversely rejecting its purely aesthetic politics. He reproduced an original photograph depicting three men protesting under the Aboriginal tent with signs condemning land exploitation and violence inflicted upon Aboriginal people. Part of documenta fifteen, Umbrella Embassy was presented within the framework of Bell’s Tent Embassy (2013–ongoing). The work is part of Sharjah Biennial 16.

^{*Currently exhibited at Sharjah Biennial 16}