Lost Horizons: Revisiting CAMP’s Indian Ocean Projects narrates the story of how, by creating a dialogue with the global arts, the Sharjah Biennial has changed the character of the author’s hometown. Reflecting on the profound urban transformations in the historic neighbourhood where the Biennial is situated, Vali revisits two important projects made by the artist group CAMP: WHARFAGE Project (2009), set at Sharjah’s old dhow port, presented at the 9th Sharjah Biennial, and From Gulf to Gulf to Gulf (2013), a film that the group made collaboratively with the Indian sailors they first met in 2009, presented at the Biennial’s ...

We write this almost exactly thirteen years after WHARFAGE was first published, as the world is slowly opening up again after a much more dramatic and consequential disruption of life than the 2007- 2009 Global Financial Crisis. At that time, there were stories of cars abandoned at Dubai airport by fleeing expats, but the creeks were alive with activity. We saw this as a reason to do the book. Last year, the creeks were empty, and now are slowly filling up again. Our desire in this book had been to create an account of what was transpiring between Sharjah creek, as ...