The culinary off-site project Upon a Shifting Plate (14–15 October 2017) will be followed by SB13 Act II, the concluding exhibitions and performance programme of the Biennial. On 14 October, Act II will launch two exhibitions in Beirut, conceived by guest curators Reem Fadda and Hicham Khalidi and presented at the Sursock Museum and Beirut Art Center respectively.
 
In this final chapter of the Biennial, Reem Fadda takes the idea of dormancy, from sleep to digestion, and looks at an embodied experience in the evolution of a language of art that beckons for more. In her exhibition Fruit of Sleep, artists delve into the imaginative, harnessing the aesthetic, not neglecting the contemplative, but also using their art to respond to the urgencies and needs of the social.
 
Rather than asking for solutions and sketching utopias, Hicham Khalidi’s exhibition An unpredictable expression of human potential, seeks to respond to the present global moment, one in which a paradigmatic shift can be tasted in the air, where young people are frustrated and protesting against decisions imposed on them by older generations, sensitive to an inheritance they did not ask for and did not shape.

Act II features theatre and dance productions across the city, as well as film screenings, including new SB13 commissions. Commissioned books will also be launched during the opening week of Act II, together with a compilation of the publications released through SB13 in Beirut, Dakar, Istanbul, Ramallah and Sharjah.
 
Act II is co-organised by Sharjah Art Foundation and the Lebanese Association for Plastic Arts, Ashkal Alwan, a non-profit organisation based in Beirut. Since 1993, the association has been committed to the production, facilitation and circulation of creative and theoretical endeavours across a range of disciplines and media.

To download Act II full programme, please click here.