Sharjah Art Foundation unveils 2025-2026 Residency Artists

November 14, 2025 / 8:38 PM

Sharjah Art Foundation has announced the first cohort of selected artists for its Residency Programme 2025-2026. Nearly 2,400 applicants from 126 countries responded to an international open call inviting local, regional, and international artists and creatives interested in experimental, interdisciplinary practice. The programme provides residents with time, space, and resources to conduct research and develop new projects in dialogue with the Foundation, local contexts, and wider regional networks.

Residency locations and duration

The selected artists will be in residence at Bait Obaid Al Shamsi in Sharjah City and Kalba Ice Factory in Kalba from November 2025 to January 2026. A second cohort will be announced in February 2026.

First cohort of artists

The first programme includes Maitha Abdalla from the UAE; Afraa Ahmed from Yemen; Mila Balzhieva from Buryatia, Russia; Daria Goncharova from Russia; HUNITI GOLDOX from Jordan/Germany; Fatemeh Kazemi from Iran; and the duo Jim Jasper Lumbera and Joey Alexis Singh from the Philippines.

Artist profiles

Maitha Abdalla (UAE)

Maitha Abdalla is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice spans painting, sculpture, installation, and performance. Drawing on folklore, mythology, and theatre, her work explores tensions between the individual and the collective, as well as between the body and social order. Abdalla has exhibited at major biennials and institutional exhibitions and is the co-founder of Bait 15, an artist-run platform in the UAE.

Afraa Ahmed (Yemen)

Cairo-based Afraa Ahmed works across installation, sculpture, photography, and video, examining how notions of home and safety persist after displacement. She has exhibited in Malaysia, Egypt, Jordan, Qatar, and the United States, with support from the Arab Fund for Arts and Culture (AFAC) and Culture Resource (Al-Mawred Al-Thaqafy).

Mila Balzhieva (Buryatia, Russia)

Mila Balzhieva’s interdisciplinary work focuses on multispecies conviviality, ecological grief, and ritual through textiles, plants, digital media, and drawing. Her work has been presented at CERN in Geneva, the Venice Biennale, and Vienna Design Week. She is the recipient of the Kunsthalle Wien Prize (2023) and BMKÖS AI in Art grant (2025).

Daria Goncharova (Russia)

Based in Belgrade, Daria Goncharova combines research-based practice with critical engagement in social and infrastructural systems. She has exhibited internationally and received support from the Goethe-Institut’s Culture Moves Europe grant and the European platform IN SITU.

HUNITI GOLDOX (Jordan/Germany)

The collaborative practice of Areej Huniti and Eliza Goldox, HUNITI GOLDOX explores political systems and histories of violence shaping landscapes and bodies of water through film, VR, installation, and performance. Their projects have been exhibited at Hauser & Wirth Menorca, the Institute for Postnatural Studies in Madrid, and Darat al Funun in Amman.

Fatemeh Kazemi (Iran)

Fatemeh Kazemi is an interdisciplinary artist and researcher whose work takes the form of installation, film, writing, and collective organizing. Her practice engages with communal grief, ritual, and subculture. Kazemi’s work has been shown internationally, including at Smack Mellon in New York, Ruschman Gallery in Chicago, Bayt Al Mamzar in Dubai, and screened at major film festivals in London and Dresden.

Jim Jasper Lumbera and Joey Alexis Singh (Philippines)

Jim Jasper Lumbera and Joey Alexis Singh are an artistic duo working between archive, performance, and moving image. Their sensorial practice explores the entanglement of humanity and spirituality through symbolic gestures and expanded cinema. They are current residents at the Singapore Art Museum and Cemeti Institute for Art and Society, and future guests at Rijksakademie, Amsterdam, in 2026.