Redefining the Biennale: From 1895 to 2025

Principal of the award-winning architecture and research firm, Counterspace—Sumayya Vally’s design, research and pedagogical practice is searching for expression for hybrid identities and territory, particularly for African and Islamic conditions—both rooted and diasporic. In 2022, Vally was selected by the World Economic Forum to be one of its Young Global Leaders, and, as a TIME100 Next list honouree, has been identified as someone who will shape the future of architectural practice and canon. In 2019, Counterspace was invited to design the 20th Serpentine Pavilion in London, making Vally the youngest architect ever to win this internationally renowned commission. With the Serpentine, she has initiated and developed a new fellowship program, Support Structures for Support Structures, which assists artists and collectives working at the intersection of art with social justice, the archive, and ecology. Vally is currently collaborating on the design of the Ellen Johnson Sirleaf Presidential Center for Women and Development in Monrovia, Liberia, the first presidential library dedicated to a female head of state, where she will oversee the scenography, pavilions, and exhibition spaces. She is also working on a garden and gathering place commemorating the 5th Pan-African Congress held in Manchester, UK, in 1945. For 6 years (2015-2021), Vally led the masters’ studio, Unit 12, at the Graduate School of Architecture, University of Johannesburg—founded by Professor Lesley Lokko. Vally currently leads a new masters’ programme, Hijra هجرة, at the Royal College of Art and is an Honorary Professor in Practice at The Bartlett School of Architecture.

Julian Raby, born in London in 1949, studied as an undergraduate and post-graduate at the University of Oxford. He taught Islamic art and architecture at Oxford from 1979 for over 20 years before moving to become the Director of the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery—now the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art—from 2002 to 2017. A distinguished scholar, Raby’s works include Iznik: The Pottery of Ottoman Turkey (1989) and Qajar Portraits (1999), alongside groundbreaking research on cross-cultural themes such as the Pisa Griffin and Mehmed the Conqueror’s library. During his time at the Smithsonian Institution he directed over 30 major international exhibitions.

Founder of Azimuth Editions and Oxford Studies in Islamic Art, Raby has received honors from Portugal, Türkiye, and Japan for his contributions to art history.

Saad Abdul Aziz al-Rashid is a pioneering archaeologist and academic focusing on the Islamic history of Saudi Arabia. After receiving his bachelor’s degree in history from King Saud University, Riyadh in 1969, he studied for a PhD at the University of Leeds, presenting his thesis on Darb Zubaydah—the pilgrim road between Kufa and Makkah—in 1977. Since 1992 he has been a professor in Islamic archaeology at the College of Arts, King Saud University, as well as holding other senior posts at that institution, including chair of the Department of Library and Information Science (1989–90) and chair of the Department of Archaeology and Museology (1994–96). Between 1996 and 2005, he was Deputy Minister for Antiquities and Museums, Ministry of Education of Saudi Arabia. A leading scholar of Islamic archaeology in the Arabian Peninsula and wider Islamic world, he has supervised several excavation campaigns in Saudi Arabia and published extensive archaeological research in Arabic and English, both as a sole author and in collaboration with others. His books include Al-Rabadhah: A Portrait of Early Islamic Civilisation in Saudi Arabia (1986), Al-Suwaydira (al-Taraf Qadiman): Atharuha wa Nuqushuha al-Islamiyya (2009)—recording early Islamic inscriptions at the pilgrim station of al-Taraf—and Medieval Routes to Mecca: A Study of the Darb Zubaydah Pilgrim Trail (revised by Peter Webb, 2018). He has participated in a number of academic gatherings, among them the Seminar for Arabian Studies held in London in 2004, where he presented a survey of “The Development of Archaeology in Saudi Arabia.” His work for exhibitions includes editing the catalogue Selected Islamic Inscriptions from Makkah al-Mukarramah and al-Madinah al-Munawwarah (2002). Dr al-Rashid has received several awards in recognition of his work achievements in recording and conserving the heritage of Saudi Arabia, notably the Ameen Madani Award for Research in the History of the Arabian Peninsula in 1998 and the Abdullah Al-Nuaim Award (Archaeology Section) in 2022. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has also conferred on him the Order of King Abdulaziz (First Class), in 1999, and the King Khaled Medal (Third Degree), in 2020.

Dr. Azzam holds a BA and DPhil in Middle Eastern and Islamic
history from the University of Oxford. He is the author of Saladin: The Triumph of the Sunni Revival (2008), The Other Exile (2017), and The Return of Sebastian (2021). From 2007 to 2017, he served as Director of Communications and Cultural Advisor to Her Highness Sheikha Moza bint Nasser, Chairperson of Qatar Foundation (QF), where he led initiatives such as QF’s partnership with the British Library to digitize millions of documents. Previously Managing Director of The Islamic Texts Society and founder of Hood Hood Books, Azzam is a member of the KITAB project, exploring Arabic texts through digital humanities. He was also a senior advisor on AlMadar for the inaugural Islamic Arts Biennale in 2023.

Joachim Pissarro (b. 1959) is an art historian, theoretician, and museum consultant. He has taught at Yale University, Osaka University, Sydney University, and at Hunter College of the City University of New York. He has held curatorial positions at Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth; Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven; and the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York. His latest book Aesthetics of the Margins / The Margins of Aesthetics, Penn State University (with David Carrier), follows Wild Art, Phaidon, 2013. He has curated countless exhibitions including in 2021, the exhibition Jeff Koons: SHINE at Palazzo Strozzi in Florence. In 2021 Pissarro co-founded a new company with Philippe de Montebello and Jennifer Stockman called the Global Museum Strategies Group (GMSG), a company that helps the conception, planning, and development of new museums.