Moderated by Iftikhar Dadi (Associate Professor, History of Art and Director, South Asia Program, Cornell University), the panel Biennials and Postcoloniality features Thembinkosi Goniwe (Assistant Professor of Art History, Rhodes University) and Hou Hanru (Artistic Director, MAXXI).

The panel reflects on postcoloniality and postcolonial theory and their role in the critical decentring of the art world in the context of the emergence of ‘Global South/Third World’ biennials. Sharjah, Havana and Dakar are among the locations where biennials conceived after the Cold War era have participated in the project of decolonising and decentring. These biennials and others arose out of historical and political experiences, engaging with critical thought in terms of the centre versus the periphery and the decentring of the art world and artistic production through engagement with critical forms of postcoloniality and the imagining of a ‘multi-trajectory’ contemporary art world.