The city will co-sponsor a new arts festival to cast an international spotlight on local artists.

The Honolulu Biennial Art Festival will be held from March 8 to May 8 at various locations, including Foster Botanical Garden, Honolulu Hale and Ala Moana Beach Park. The event is projected to bring as many as 42,000 visitors to Oahu and generate up to $50 million, said Honolulu Mayor Kirk Caldwell at a Wednesday news conference at the botanical garden.

Excited to be a part of the endeavor, Caldwell said the biennial will showcase work from local artists as well as highlight hidden gems in the urban core such as the botanical gardens. “Many people don’t even know about it.”

Honolulu will join other cities worldwide that host biennial arts festivals.

Co-founder Katherine Tuider of the Honolulu Biennial Foundation said the hope for the event is threefold: to promote local artists, provide art education opportunities to the community from keiki to kupuna, and to stimulate the economy.

“We thought a biennial is a perfect way to create a platform for local artists who could be shown alongside international artists,” said Tuider adding that the event could catapult careers, exposing local artists to art collectors and institutions.

Keith Tallett and Sally Lundburg of Les Filter Feeders of Hawaii island and Andrew Binkley of Maui are among the local artists to be featured at the event, as well as international artists Yuki Kihara and Fiona Pardington, both of New Zealand, and Mohamamed Kazem of Dubai, United Arab Emirates, whose work has been featured at the Guggenheim Museum in New York City.

The foundation has set a $2.5 million fundraising goal to include in-kind donations such as exhibition space. For two years, Tuider said, they have been reaching out to public and private entities, raising $1.25 million so far in monetary donations.

The state has also recently awarded the nonprofit organization a $250,000 grant for the event.