The 20th Biennale of Sydney: The future is already here — it’s just not evenly distributed was unveiled today by Artistic Director Stephanie Rosenthal.  Asia Pacific’s largest contemporary visual arts event features 83 artists hailing from 35 countries and is presented free to the public across seven venues or ‘embassies of thought’ and multiple ‘in-between spaces’ around the inner city, from Friday 18 March until 5 June 2016.

The Biennale’s seven ‘embassies of thought’ are: Cockatoo Island (Embassy of the Real); Art Gallery of New South Wales (Embassy of Spirits); Carriageworks (Embassy of Disappearance); Artspace (Embassy of Non-Participation); Museum of Contemporary Art Australia (Embassy of Translation); a roving bookshop (Embassy of Stanislaw Lem) and first time venue Mortuary Station (Embassy of Transition).

More than half of the 200 artworks in the exhibition have been specially commissioned for the 20th Biennale of Sydney, including a robust schedule of artist performances, which are an integral part of the 20th Biennale, presented at each embassy and at in-between locations by artists. Performance works include: boychild, Boris Charmatz, Neha Choksi, Mette Edvardsen, Mella Jaarsma, Lee Mingwei, Adam Linder, and Justene Williams, who is collaborating with Sydney Chamber Opera.

The exhibition is supplemented by a comprehensive schedule of public programs spanning three months including artist performances, daily guided tours, artist and curator-led talks, lectures, workshops, salons, reading groups and gatherings.

Art Month Sydney returns in 2016, from 1 March – 20 March, with new Creative Director, Barry Keldoulis at the helm. This follows Barry’s recent success as Director of Sydney Contemporary art fair in 2013 and 2015 and the Melbourne Art Fair in 2014. The dynamic program, inspired by the creative producers of Sydney, will expand across the city and inhabit new spaces and unexpected locations. Comprised of Exhibitions, Talks, Tours, Experiences and the much-loved Precinct Nights, Art Month Sydney will highlight the galleries, institutions, ARIs, art schools, artists and curators that generate Sydney’s marketplace of ideas.

The Collectors’ Space, an annual exhibition that celebrates private art collections, partners with long term sponsors, AON, and, for the first time in 2016, BresicWhitney, to present an exhibition at an unoccupied inner city house. The space, announced only weeks before the exhibition opens, will exhibit works from the collections of Sally Dan- Cuthbert, Courtney Gibson, Danny Goldberg, and Jasper Knight.

Precinct Nights return in 2016, beginning with a Mardi Gras-inspired queer night in East Sydney on Thursday, 3 March. Queer performers will activate restaurants, bars and retail stores during the night, while Alaska Studios hosts a queer cabaret in their untouched basement space. In addition, a pop up bar will be held in Crown Lane at Creative Space 99.

Indian artist Yardena Kurulkar, has won the $35,000 Blake Prize for 2016, for her work depicting her own heart decaying into nothingness in a series of 15 panels, which she says reflect the shape shifting ability of human nature.

Presented for the first time in 2016 at Casula Powerhouse Art Centre (CPAC) the Blake Prize is Australia’s longest standing and most prestigious art prize which encourages conversation about spirituality and religion through art. The Blake Prize exhibition is presented from 13 February until 24 April 2016 at CPAC, featuring the work of 80 finalists from across Australia, Ireland, the USA, Switzerland, France, Germany and New Zealand. This year there were 594 entries for the Prize with the 80 finalists selected by the curatorial team at CPAC.

The Naomi Milgrom Foundation announced the commission for the third annual MPavilion has been awarded to acclaimed Indian architect Bijoy Jain of Studio Mumbai. The announcement comes as the 2015 MPavilion closed on Sunday 7 February having welcomed more than 64,000 visitors attending 419 free events hosted over five months within the temporary architecture pavilion designed by award-winning British architect Amanda Levete of London-based studio AL_A.

Mumbai born Bijoy Jain is the founder of Studio Mumbai, known for working with a human infrastructure of skilled artisans, technicians and draftsmen who design and build the work themselves. The practice – which draws on traditional skills, local building techniques and materials – has had its work presented at the XII Venice Biennale and Victoria & Albert Museum and recently was awarded the Grande Medaille d’Or from the Academie D’Architecture in Paris (2014).

The first major exhibition in Australia of internationally acclaimed Ghanaian artist El Anatsui was unveiled today at Carriageworks as part of Sydney Festival 2016 marking the first Schwartz Carriageworks project.  Presented free ot the public from 7 January until 6 March 2016, El Anatsui: Five Decades showcases more than 30 works from the 1970s to the current day, including ceramics, drawings, sculptures and woodcarvings, alongside the intricate and expansive, large-scale installations for which Anatsui is best known.

The project represents the first Schwartz Carriageworks project following the recent gift to Carriageworks of $500,000 by Anna Schwartz, director and founder of Anna Schwartz Gallery, to develop a new five-year series of major international and Australian visual arts projects.