The prominent art festival Sharjah Biennial that was supposed to take place in March 2021 has been postponed again. The event that was scheduled to take place in March 2021, was postponed first until March 2022 and then until 2023 due to the pandemic.

However, now, the 15th edition of the Sharjah Biennial festival will be opening in February 2023. The exhibition pays a posthumous homage to the scholar, critic and curator Okwui Enwezor who passed away on 15 March 2019.

The biennial has invited around 30 artists to be a part of the commissions that ‘explore histories that continue to shape our present,’ including ohn Akomfrah, Kader Attia, Sammy Baloji, María Magdalena Campos-Pons, Carolina Caycedo, Destiny Deacon, Manthia Diawara, Coco Fusco, Hassan Hajjaj, Mona Hatoum, Lubaina Himid, Isaac Julien among several other celebrated artists.

 
Subtitled ‘Thinking Historically in the Present,’ the event is a platform to reflect on the past fourteen editions of the Biennial. In doing so, envisioning the initiative as a model for disrupting the power of artistic monolingualism and as a theoretical and physical space.

The title and theme of the fifteenth edition of the Sharjah Biennial draw attention to Enwezor’s work on the Postcolonial Constellation, which serves as the Biennial’s conceptual framework and foundation.

Curated by Sharjah Art Foundation’s director, Hoor Al Qasimi, the 15th edition of the biennale reflects on Enwezor’s visionary work, that has transformed contemporary art and established an ambitious intellectual project that has influenced the evolution of institutions and biennials around the world.

The 2023 biennial’s programming began with the 2021 edition of the March Meeting, along with Sharjah Art Foundation's annual forum for artists, curators, and other art professionals. However, as the event has been postponed, conversations about art and its production will continue at March Meeting 2022, followed by the main affair.