The 14th edition of March Meeting, Sharjah Art Foundation’s annual convening of artists, curators and art practitioners to explore critical issues in contemporary art through panels, lectures and performances, will take place from 5 to 7 March 2022.
The 14th edition of March Meeting will convene under the banner of The Afterlives of the Postcolonial as an overarching theme which is intended to examine the persistent legacies of colonialism as well as emerging issues that have impacted recent global cultural, aesthetic and artistic practices. MM 2022 will build on the themes of MM 2021 as well as engage the theoretical framework of SB15: Thinking Historically in the Present in relationship to Okwui Enwezor’s conception of the ‘Postcolonial Constellation.’
The theme, The Afterlives of the Postcolonial, allows MM 2022 participants to explore the issues and challenges of our times in light of postcolonial studies, which has dominated the academy and transformed the cultural and artistic worlds for the last three or more decades. These current and emerging challenges encompass a wide range of issues that includes racism, settler colonialism, apartheid and other persistent structural inequalities, indigeneity and sovereignty as well as massive migrations to the North, new imperial wars and the return of colonial violence, social movements such as Black Lives Matter, Reparation, indigenous rights and climate change, in addition to restitution and repatriation of looted artefacts. These issues are compounded by intensification of surplus and extraction, the illusive nature of transnational capital, as well as the emergence of surveillance capitalism. They are exacerbated by environmental degradation and global warming, associated with the proposed Anthropocene epoch.
The meeting will also discuss new concepts and theoretical frameworks that have since emerged in the academy and the public sphere such as 'intersectionality’, ‘coloniality’, 'decoloniality’ and 'gendered identities.’
The ‘postcolonial’ in the title is perceived here in relation to postcolonialism as the critical study of colonialism and imperialism, and their legacies in all spheres of cultural and social studies. It is understood as the critical theory projected against hegemonic-imperial analyses of the historical, cultural, literary and artistic productions by both the coloniser and the colonised. Mindful of debates around the term postcolonialism as well as the asynchronicity of the colonial experience and decolonisation processes, the ‘postcolonial’ here refers to the ideological and cultural responses to colonialist structures and formulations, rather than making a claim for a condition that transcends colonialism all together. To discuss the 'afterlives’ of the postcolonial, MM 2022 will convene key voices whose work represent discourses, practices, theories and critical perspectives that may have emerged earlier from the terrain of the postcolonial, but are now decidedly informed by and focused on analyses of the world in the later twentieth and early twenty-first century and its present and future challenges.
Please note that in line with government health and safety guidelines, visitors are required to show either a negative RT-PCR test result or a green status on the Al Hosn app, in addition to wearing masks and keeping a safe distance from others at all times. Audience capacity at the venue will be limited to ensure adherence to social distancing rules and seating will be arranged accordingly.
5-7 March 2022