The March Meeting: A permanent address in Sharjah for annual gatherings of art organizations and practitioners

The Sharjah Biennial, in cooperation with the Young Arab Theatre Fund, Start organization and Art Dubai is hosting the "March Meeting", an encounter between various art organizations in the Arab world to address issues of concern that face the future of contemporary art in the Arab world.

The event is held from the 15th to the 17th of March 2008, and is hosted by the College of Fine Arts and Design in Sharjah University.

The March Meeting will address imperative issues that face artists in the region. The various organizations participating will be discussing the possibilities of developing mechanisms of support for the production of art, and identifying issues concerning the production of Arabic-language publications specialised in visual arts and the means to endorse the ever-increasing need for such specialised references.

The March meeting will also focus on the need to periodically organize encounters between artists, curators, producers and art experts from all around the world, and consequently cultivate recurring networking opportunities.

"The March Meeting is a serious attempt to engineer strategies of networking and collaboration to discuss and collaboratively brainstorm on topics of mutual concern and future possibilities." said Jack Persekian, Artistic Director of the Sharjah Biennial.

He added: "Our objective is to establish Sharjah as a permanent address for an annual gathering of artists, curators, institutions, writers, producers and art practitioners from different parts of the world."

The meeting invites 24 participants representing art organizations in the Arab world, which mainly focus on visual art. The participating organizations come from the UAE, Bahrain, Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, Jordan, Morocco and Oman.

The collaboration with the Young Arab Theatre Fund, Start organization and Art Dubai is a vital step to further enhance the cooperation between leading art organizations in the Arab world, and to foster exchange of ideas, resources and expertise between the various active players in the art scene regionally and internationally.

This March Meeting aims to prepare the basic ground necessary for a more diverse interaction between global art organizations, and is the first step towards developing and strengthening networks of cooperation and exchange regionally and internationally.