Do it yourself as an international art project makes its local debut in Sharjah

A new exhibition cum workshop invites viewers to engage directly with well-known artists. It’s a can’t miss for UAE culture lovers.

Schoolchildren carry out Sudanese artist Fadlabi's instruction to create a painting that 'looks like African art' using a handful of acrylic paint colours and a canvas. Courtesy Sharjah Art FoundationShow more

One of the definitions of great art is that, while providing some insight into a truth of the human condition, it captures our attention, demands our concentration and inspires our imagination.

Whether it is the trance-like state of contemplation that envelops the viewer as they concentrate on a Rothko or the overwhelming sense of empathy and human fragility that emerges from one of Rembrandt’s late portraits, great art challenges us and, by rising to that challenge and engaging with its creativity, we change and become more creative in the process.

If 60 of the region’s most prominent artists have their way, that process of engagement and creativity will blossom in Sharjah for the next three months, and members of the public will become contemporary artists in their own right by turning, say, a museum into a food bank for the poor, creating their own video installations on social media, writing graffiti on walls, and even swapping eyelashes with total strangers in the street.

All that is required for these "happenings" to take place is to follow the written instructions or "scripts" – some contemplative and profound, some subversive, and others playful or just plain silly – that the artists have created for the latest incarnation of Do It.

Do It was originally the brainchild of Hans-Ulrich Obrist, the London Serpentine Galleries' co-director of exhibitions and programmes and director of international projects. It came about in 1993 when the uber-curator discussed the idea of how exhibitions could become more flexible and open-ended, with the artists Bertrand Lavier and Christian Boltanski in a café in Paris.

Their discussion brought up the question of whether a show could take “scores”, or written instructions by artists, as a point of departure, which could be interpreted anew each time they were enacted, effectively rendering the exhibition endless.

Like many of Obrist's ideas, the concept for Do It is a conceit. There is no permanent or continuous Do It exhibition, but there is a consistent set of rules that regulate each iteration of the show.

Obrist originally invited 13 artists to send instructions, which were then translated into nine languages and circulated internationally as a book.

Within two years, Do It exhibitions were being created all over the world and, with every version of the exhibition, new instructions were added.

Today, more than 360 artists have contributed to a project that has evolved, grown and been staged in more than 50 locations worldwide.

To mark the concept's 20th anniversary in 2013, Obrist published do it: the compendium, which featured scripts from 200 artists selected by Obrist including Carl Andre, Marina Abrimovic, Yoko Ono, the filmmaker David Lynch and Ai Weiwei.

"Do It rejects the notion of the original in favour of an open-ended conception of the creation of the work … No two versions of Do It instructions are ever identical when carried out," Obrist wrote in his compendium.

"The exhibition takes place in the inter-spaces between interpretation and negotiation … It is important to bear in mind that Do It is less concerned with copies, images, or reproductions of artworks, than with human interpretations."

Do It [Bil' Arabi] introduces the concept to the Middle East for the first time, thanks to the efforts of the Sharjah Art Foundation and the co-curation of Sheikha Hoor Al Qasimi, who has commissioned 60 new instructions from a list of artists that reads like a Who's Who of the contemporary arts scene across the region.

“The project presents us with a multitude of ideas, issues and questions to explore: How should we think about the richness of this language that unites this often divided and conflicted part of the world?” Sheikha Hoor, the show’s co-curator and president of the Sharjah Art Foundation writes in her introduction to the publication that will accompany the show.

“What does it mean to be creating and managing institutions in the emergent cultural landscape that is characteristic of much of the region? How should we be engaging with our local and regional communities?”

Among instructions by internationally established heavyweights such as the London-based Palestinian artist Mona Hatoum and UAE artists such as Mohammed Kazem and Hassan Sharif, there are also scripts by the Bahrain-based Lebanese artist Camille Zakharia, whose work often exhibits in Dubai, and Rayyane Tabet, whose narrative, interactive interventions have featured at Abu Dhabi Art.

Tabet's script, entitled ∞ (Infinity), alludes to Do It's original concept of an endless exhibition but will exist within the confines of the exhibition space.

“On the exhibition walls write numbers starting from 0 and counting upwards in a single ascending order.

Stop writing when you get bored.

The next person picks up the count where the last person left off.

The counting continues until the end of the exhibition. The last number written on the wall is recorded.

This number becomes the first one written on the wall in the next exhibition.

The counting continues until infinity.”

Other scripts have, however, been designed to have a life that exists beyond the confines of the gallery and which will require a longer-term commitment from the participant.

More than an artistic call to action, they aim to result in a shifting of consciousness that will affect an even broader public. Hazem Harb's Roots is a notable case in point.

“Undertake a study of the history of Arab architecture through photographs, then choose a photograph of a building you think is both important as well as marginalised and ignored, or on the verge of collapse,” the 35-year-old Palestinian writes. “Then photograph it or research it on the internet, recreate it by making a new drawing of it or copying it by hand, using paperless carbon copy or sketching it in 3D.

“Reaffirm it and draw attention to it, as a model to be reused or incorporated into contemporary architecture as a means of preserving the splendour and distinctive character of Oriental Arab architecture. In light of the loss of the features of Arab architecture, it is a call to research and thought, and the reinstatement of our heritage in modern context.”

When faced with such a call to arms, what other option is there for the self-respecting culture vulture? Go to Sharjah. Do it.

• Take part in do it [bil’ Arabi] at Sharjah Art Foundation’s Bait Al Shamsi Arts Area in Al Shuweiheen, Sharjah, until April 23 (www.sharjahart.org). Entrance is free.

Nick Leech is a features writer at The National.