Sixteen years after its initial exhibition, Art Dubai, Dubai’s leading international art fair, is back with a stunning collection of contemporary art from around the world. Held under the patronage of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the fair is scheduled to take place from March 1 to 5 at Madinat Jumeirah, Dubai.

Founded in 2007, [Art Dubai] [https://www.artdubai.ae/the-fair/] acts simultaneously as a space for curation and exposure to artworks from across the Middle East and surrounding region, as a launch pad for new and upcoming artists and as a platform for dialogue about art on a global scale. In doing so, it reimagines traditionally western-led narratives, facilitating engagement with contemporary art practices from a variety of countries and traditions.

While the art fair is held annually in March, it provides some year-round programming in initiatives like [Campus Art Dubai][https://www.artdubai.ae/campus-art-dubai-10]. CAD brings together the creative community in the UAE, including artists, curators, writers, and architects, for a comprehensive educational program that includes seminars, workshops, and networking events.

This year, Art Dubai’s gallery programme will feature pieces from [forty countries with thirty first-time participants] [https://gulfnews.com/friday/art-people/art-dubais-largest-ever-edition-to-take-place-from-march-1-to-5-2023-1.1675424776090] across its Modern, Contemporary, Bawwaba, and Digital sections. The [programme] [https://www.artdubai.ae/galleries-page/] collectively explores not only emerging art scenes, but also Modern art from the Middle East, South Asia, and Africa, as well as intersections of art, design, music and more in its Digital section.

As part of its not-for-profit programme, the [Art Dubai Commission][https://www.artdubai.ae/art-dubai-commission-2023] collaborated with its foundation partners like [Ishara Art Foundation][https://www.ishara.org/] to bring South Asian art to the forefront as part of its mission to center art from the Global South. The Ishara Art Foundation is a [non-profit organization][https://www.ishara.org/about/] located in Dubai with a commitment to showcasing contemporary South Asian art, hoping to advance critical dialogues about global interconnections in the art world.

The [commissioned pieces][https://www.artdubai.ae/art-dubai-commission-2023] will use food, performance, and design to address themes of community and connection, activating the six senses for a fully immersive experience. Amongst the artists slated to be featured is [Anoli Perara][https://www.anoliperera.com/pages/about-me/], a Sri Lankan artist whose works engage with themes of identity, colonialism, and post-colonial anxieties. Her past installations have included works such as [“Memory Keeper,”][https://www.anoliperera.com/project/memory-keeper/] which engage with questions of memory, history, and identity through the lens of visual art, asking what it means to exist between historical moments and in liminal spaces in a series of pieces that bring together material and symbolic objects.

In a city like Dubai, where [71 percent of the total population][https://worldpopulationreview.com/world-cities/dubai-population] are Asian expatriates, the focus on South Asian art allows for engagement by and for diaspora populations with contemporary art from their countries of origin. In doing so, it highlights a series of interactions across artistic practices in a world [increasingly characterised by migration and movement][https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/12/16/key-facts-about-recent-trends-in-global-migration/#:~:text=India%20remains%20the%20top%20origin,Russia%20with%20about%2010.8%20million.], speaking to issues of what it means to build community and connections. It also centers the work of artists who might otherwise be sidelined by western-led art-historical narratives on a global platform.

Alongside an exciting curation of artwork from across the globe, the art fair will feature an extensive conference program of over fifty sessions comprising of dialogues with an array of curators and artists. One highlight is the [Global Art Forum][https://www.artdubai.ae/global-art-forum-2023/] entitled “Predicting the Present” as it asks questions about how to navigate our changing and uncertain times, using Dubai as its backdrop. [Christie’s Art and Tech Summit][https://www.artdubai.ae/christies-arttechsummit/], meanwhile, provides another exciting opportunity to learn more about the intersection between art and technology from the world’s leading artists and innovators. Other talks are said to [feature topics] [https://gulfnews.com/friday/art-people/art-dubais-largest-ever-edition-to-take-place-from-march-1-to-5-2023-1.1675424776090] including trends in collecting, the role of the art patron in the present day, and decolonising the art-historical canon.

Open to the public from Friday, March 3 to Sunday, March 5, 2023, the fair offers [free entry][https://www.artdubai.ae/visitor-information/] for children aged 18 and under and university students, as well as the chance to engage with questions surrounding global art and practices in a constantly changing world.