Letter NO. 06 | Gemma Sharpe

Gemma Sharpe writes from within histories shaped by movement, power, and lived experience. An art historian and educator, her work grows from long engagement with modern and contemporary art in South Asia, where questions of belonging, ideology, and cultural inheritance are never abstract, but deeply felt. She approaches history not as a fixed record, but as something carried, through institutions, through teaching, and through the lives of artists working within and against larger structures.

Currently based in the United States, Gemma moves between research and pedagogy with care and attentiveness, creating space for reflection, nuance, and listening. Her letter joins the Bisheh Project as a thoughtful presence, one that looks closely at how the past continues to shape us, and how writing can become a way of staying in conversation with it.

Learn more about Gemma’s work here: gemmasharpe.info

“Play Me: Conversations with Amin Gulgee” now out in Amin Gulgee: No Man’s Land, (2025: Skira)

My essay on Amin Gulgee’s practice in its art historical context is now out in the monograph No Man’s Land published by Skira in 2025 and edited by John McCarry.