Mitra Abbaspour (@mma221) served as an Associate Curator in the Department of Photography at The Museum of Modern Art and an Assistant Curator at the California Museum of Photography, in addition to having served as a guest curator for a number of exhibitions at various institutions.

At MoMA, she led the curatorial branch of an interdisciplinary research initiative that resulted in the print and digital publications Object: Photo: Modern Photographs 1909-1945. She has authored numerous essays on contemporary artists in this field, most recently contributing to monographs of Reza Aramesh, Lalla Essaydi, Dor Guez, Hassan Hajjaj, and Shirin Neshat and has also taught courses both in her specialization, the modern and contemporary Middle East and, general area specializations—Islamic art, modern art, and the history of photography—at The Cooper Union, Hunter College, and Brooklyn College.

Nabila Abdel Nabi is an art historian and writer based in the UAE. She holds degrees from the University of Chicago and the Courtauld Insistute of Art, where she recently completed an MA in Art History. She currently manages exhibitions at The Third Line in Dubai and has previously worked with the curatorial team of the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi.

Leena Aboutaleb (@leena.jpeg) is an Egyptian and Palestinian writer based in Amman. Her writing appears in Third Text, Mizna, LIFTA Volumes, Strange Horizons, FIYAH Lit Magazine, The Boiler, and others. She holds an MA in Media and Strategic Communications from the George Washington University, where she focused on Palestinian temporality and language-making.

Nayrouz Abu Hatoum is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Concordia University, Montreal. Her research explores visual politics in Palestine and focuses on alternative imaginations, people’s place-making, and dwelling practices in contexts of settler-colonialism. 

Ruba Al-Sweel (@rrrrrruuuuuubbbbbbzzzzzz) is an arts and culture writer and researcher with words in Art Asia Pacific, Vogue, VICE, MOUSSE magazine, and The Brooklyn Rail, among others. She holds a Master's degree in Media and Creative Industries from SciencesPo, Paris, and takes particular interest in the emergence of internet subcultures.

Manal Al Dowayan (@manaldowayan) is a conceptual artist whose work revolves around the ideas of active forgetting, modern archiving, and collective memory. She has worked with black and white photography, neon, large-scale installations and participatory art. Past residencies include: The Delfina Foundation in London, The Town House Gallery in Cairo, and Mathaf Project Space in Doha. Al Dowayan has been featured at exhibitions such as Prospect New Orleans 2014, Noorderlicht Festival in Groningen, Netherlands 2011, collateral exhibitions at the Venice Biennial in 2011 and 2009, the Berlin Biennial in 2010, and Contemporary Istanbul in 2010. Her works have been collected by the British Museum, LA County Museum, Mathaf Museum of Modern Arab Art. Al Dowayan was born and raised in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia and holds a Master’s degree in Systems Analysis and Design. She worked as the Creative Director of the Saudi Arabian oil company for ten years before becoming a full-time artist. Represented by Cuadro Gallery in Dubai, she currently lives and works between her native Dhahran, Saudi Arabia and Dubai, UAE.

Latifa Al Khalifa is a curator and arts manager who found her passion for Arab contemporary art while studying for her MFA in Cultural and Creative Industries at King’s College London. In 2013, in partnerships with Edge of Arabia and the Ministry of Culture in Bahrain, Al Khalifa curated In the Open, a group exhibition at the Mayor of London Shubbak Festival. The exhibition marked the first time a Bahraini contemporary art group had participated in an art event in London. In 2016, she launched Too Far Company, an art platform that focuses on promoting artists and visual art from the MENA region in the global art market as well as offering skills-based art education programs in Bahrain.

Lulu M. Al-Sabah (@lulwa_mubarak.al.sabah) is the Founder and Director of JAMM, an art advisory firm, which specializes in contemporary Arab and Iranian art. She hosted the first contemporary art auctions in Kuwait from 2010 through 2013. From 2012 through 2016, she established and ran a permanent exhibition space in Dubai. Ms. Al-Sabah is the former Director of the Middle East at Phillips de Pury & Company. She previously worked for Christie’s and has contributed to cultural magazines such as Canvas, Eastern Art Report, and Tribe.

Alia Al-Senussi, PhD., is an active member of the contemporary art world, with a special focus on arts and culture in the Middle East and promoting young patronage of the arts. Alia is Chairman of the Tate Young Patrons, founding International Co-Chair of the Chinati Foundation Contemporaries Council, as well as a member of the Committee for the Serpentine Gallery Future Contemporaries group. Amongst Alia’s professional commitments, she is the VIP Representative for the United Kingdom and the Middle East for Art Basel.

Nada Alaradi (@nadaalaradi_) is a Bahraini artist and curator. She received her MFA in Curatorial Practice in 2016 from Maryland Institute College of Art, and her BFA in Interior Design from New York Institute of Technology in 2009. She creates connections between art and audiences through narratives, and in 2012, she co-founded a socially responsive group, Ulafa’a. Her exhibitions have been shown in non-profit galleries, federal museums, and grassroots organizations in the Middle East and United States. Her artwork has been exhibited in many national exhibitions including at the Bahrain Female Artist Annual Exhibition, Albareh Contemporary, AlRiwaq Art Space, and Alwan 338.

Tara Aldughaither is an independent curator, writer and budding sonic artist. Aldughaither’s passion for music and performance is integrated with an education in cultural communication and curatorial studies. This merge found her practice forming a special interest in curating, writing about and making art that mirrors the influence of intangible culture on society. Her independent practice is fully focused on empathy-driven initiatives that are informed by the sonic and performative elements of any context — with a special focus on retrieving women’s folk culture and exploring its role in contemporary spaces.

Maha Alsharif (@mahasharif) is a writer and emerging critic. She recently founded theartcricket.com, and independent blog that provides critical writing on contemporary visual culture. Prior, she worked with art galleries, institutions, and artists in the UAE, Palestine, and UK. Alsharif obtained her BA in Art, Design, and Media from Richmond University in London. Having an interest in art management, she went on to complete an MA in Art Business at Sotheby’s Institute of Art where she focused her research on cultural policy in the Arab World.

Arie Amaya-Akkermans (@dilmunite) is an art critic and senior writer for The Markaz Review based in Turkey, formerly Beirut and Moscow. His work is mostly concerned with the relationship between archaeology, classical antiquity and modern culture in the Eastern Mediterranean, with an emphasis on contemporary art. His byline has appeared previously on Hyperallergic, the San Francisco Arts Quarterly, Canvas, Harpers Bazaar Art Arabia, and he is a regular contributor for the popular Classics blog Sententiae Antiquae. Previously, he was a guest editor of Arte East Quarterly, a recipient of an experts fellowship from IASPIS, Stockholm, and a moderator in the talks program of Art Basel.

Saira Ansari (@sairaansari) is an independent writer, researcher and editor who employs creative non-fiction to think about art practice and criticism, feminist histories, gardens, grief, science fiction, and South Asia and its real and imagined peripheries.

Katrina Weber Ashour (@katrinaweberashour) is an arts strategy and communications specialist. Her extensive experience in the Middle East spans cultural organizations from the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Lebanon and Palestine, as well as global institutions from Belgium, Canada, Hong Kong, Italy, Korea, Switzerland and across the United States. She graduated with honors from Wellesley College and is currently based in Washington, D.C.

Munira Al Sayegh (@munira.alsayegh) is an independent curator and cultural instigator based in the United Arab Emirates. She is the founder of Dirwaza Curatorial lab, an Abu Dhabi-based creative incubator and projects partner. Al Sayegh is a published author and prominent voice in the region on the importance of non-institutional thinking to build regional art movements from the bottom-up. In 2012, she joined NYU Abu Dhabi’s FIND project (2012) and currently sits on the advisory board for the university’s art gallery. From 2014 she has joined and pioneered curatorial initiatives across Art Dubai where she curated the Residents section (2019) and started the Now series, looking at non-government funded creative platforms in the region. She recently served as lead tutor and curator for Campus Art Dubai. Her curatorial solo debut was Bayn: the in-between (2017), at the third edition of UAE Unlimited. That same year, she curated and developed the program series for the Guggenheim’s The Creative Act: Performance, Process, Presence. Later, she curated the Talks Program in Abu Dhabi Art. In 2020, she premiered The Cup and The Saucer commissioned by 421 (Sheikha Salama bint Hamdan Foundation), where she has also led in-house public programs. She has advised sculptural commissions for Expo Dubai 2020 Public Art Programme. Al Sayegh is part of the UAE Ministry of Culture Visual Arts Committee as well as Dubai Collection’s Steering and Curatorial Committee.

Joud Halawani al Tamimi is an artist and curator. She holds a bachelor's degree in Politics and Economics (2015) and a master's degree in Near and Middle Eastern Studies (2016) from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London. She worked as a curator at Darat al Funun from 2019-2021. Her work explores value systems, insurgent economies and anticolonial futurities. 

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Kriti Bajaj (@wildirisgenealogy) is a writer and editor focusing on history, genealogy and visual culture. She studied literature at the University of Delhi and social anthropology at SOAS, University of London. Kriti has worked with international publications, auction houses and independent clients, and is based in India. 

Shiva Balaghi, PhD., (@shivabalaghi) is an independent scholar and curator based in Los Angeles, California. Follow her point of view on the art world on Instagram.

Rose Balston (@rosebalston) is a freelance lecturer and guide, a TV presenter, and Founding Director of Art History UK, a boutique London-based cultural tours company. Operating between London and Dubai, Rose offers bespoke art history courses, lectures, tours, and curated art events for corporations, networking groups, private member clubs, and families. In March 2017, an eight-part Sky Arts series was released, with Rose co-presenting Fake! The Great Masterpiece Challenge alongside Giles Coren. Rose has commentated for BBC Breakfast, Sky News, Al-Jazeera, and is Condé Nast Traveller London Art Expert. She holds an art history MA from Edinburgh University. www.arthistoryuk.com

Michele Bambling, PhD., is Creative Director and Curator of Lest We Forget, an innovative archival initiative recently launched under the Salama bint Hamdan Al Nahyan Foundation. She was curator of the National Pavilion UAE exhibition, Lest We Forget: Structures of Memory in the UAE, held at the 14th International Architecture Exhibition in La Biennale di Venezia. Dr. Bambling is Curator and Editior-in-Chief of the exhibition and accompanying book, Lest We Forget: Emirati Family Photographs 1950-1999. Dr. Bambling holds a Ph.D., M.Phil., and M.A., from Columbia University in art history. She received a post-doctorate Jane and Morgan Whitney Fellowship from the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Geraldine Kirrihi Barlow is a curator, writer and creator. Born on the Yarra, she currently lives on the Brisbane/Maiwar River. Whakapapa connects her across the waters to Ireland, England and the Hokianga, Aeotearoa, Ngāpuhi are her iwi, her hapu Te Hikuti and Ngāti Rangi.

Her curatorial projects include the major exhibitions ‘Air’, ‘Water’; ‘Sugar Spin: you, me, art and everything’ and ‘Gerhard Richter: The Life of Images’ (as co-curator) at QAGOMA; and before this ‘Concrete’, ‘Liquid Archive’ and ‘The Ecologies Project’ at MUMA.

Valerie Behiery, Ph.D., is an arts writer and independent scholar specializing in contemporary art and visual culture, especially that related to the Middle East and North Africa. She also covers other topics that she holds to heart like the environment or women accomplishing great things. Having lived in six countries, Valerie is endlessly intrigued by life, the world, and the people she meets.  Recognizing the transformative power of the arts on both individuals and collectives, she is fuelled by a vision of a more ethical and peaceful world. Her non-fiction writing has been published in art magazines and catalogues, freelance publications, books, and academic journals. Her sensitivity to the uncanny languages of words and images has been nourished by her varied professional experience in teaching, public speaking, and museum consultancy, as well as by her own poetry writing and art making. Valerie looks forward to working with you to help you bring media visibility to great talent, ideas, and initiatives. An experienced writer, English teacher, and copy editor, she can also assist you in strengthening the message, structure, and style of your texts, be they grant applications, reports, academic books or novels. 

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Juliet Cestar is a photographer and art historian specialising in contemporary art from the Middle East. She has collaborated on several publications and exhibitions with Rose Issa, including Arabicity: Contemporary Arab Art and Signs of our Times: From Calligraphy to Calligraffiti.

Aaron Cezar (@theaaroncezar) is the founding Director of Delfina Foundation, where he curates and develops its interrelated programme of residencies, exhibitions and public platforms. Cezar has curated external exhibitions and performances at Hayward Gallery Project Space, SongEun Artspace, and the 58th Venice Art Biennale's official performance programme.

He has written for The Art Newspaper, Harper’s Bazaar, and ArtAsiaPacific, among others. He is Advisor-at-large at Art Jameel and Strategic Advisor at Asymmetry Art Foundation. He has been appointed to numerous boards, committees, and juries, including the Jarman Award and the Turner Prize.

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Aimee Dawson (@amldawson) is the associate digital editor at The Art Newspaper. She specializes in art and culture from the Middle East and North Africa having a BA in Arabic and Middle East Studies and an MA in Contemporary African and Asian art. She has contributed to a number of publications including Harper’s Bazaar, Ibraaz and MOJEH, and was the writer-in-residence for Shubbak Festival of Arab Culture and Nour Festival of Arts in 2015.

Anabelle de Gersigny is the founder and curator of the Safina Radio Project (safinaradioproject.org). She also works the Programming Manager at Tashkeel, a non-profit studio site in Dubai, developing residency, design and critical practice programmes. Previously, de Gersigny worked for TCA Abu Dhabi on the Saadiyat Cultural District initiatives including Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, Louvre Abu Dhabi and Zayed National Museum from 2011 to 2013. Anabelle was the founder and director of the Tram Depot, an artist run project space in London from 2005 to 2009 and has worked in various positions within contemporary art including research and editorial positions with Hauser & Wirth (London), Phaidon Press (London) and CAPHouse Studios (Japan). She has curated numerous art and design exhibitions and is a freelance writer and editor, working through publications, online platforms, magazines and directly with artists and designers. She is the co-founder of FNND.

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Laura Egerton (@lauralouiseegerton) is part of the founding team behind Art Dubai, curating art projects during the inaugural edition and going on to manage important educational aspects of the art fair such as the Global Art Forum, Art Week, the Abraaj Group Art Prize and the art fair’s internship program. She regularly contributes to The National, Canvas, Selections and Open Skies, among others. She has also edited publications for Akkadia Press, Jameel Arts Centre and private galleries.

Yasmine El Rashidi is an Egyptian writer. She is a regular contributor to The New York Review of Books, and an editor of the Middle East arts and culture quarterly Bidoun. She lives in Cairo, where she is currently translating the works of Egyptian novelist Khairallah Ali.

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Effat Abdullah Fadag, PhD., (@effatfadag) is an Associate Professor of Fine Arts at the University of Jeddah and an artist, academic, and curator working in the field of higher education since 1990. She received her BA in Islamic Art, King Abdulaziz University and her MA and PhD of Fine Art from the UK. Fadag participated in the pioneering visual art movement in Saudi Arabia. She served as the Chair of the Islamic Art Department at KAU, and the Dean of the Hekma School of Design and Architecture. In 2019, she was the curator of the 21,39 Jeddah Arts with the theme Al Obour or ‘crossing’ and Ard Altoud, with Misk Art Institute.

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Maryam Ganjineh (@maryamganjineh) is an arts specialist and writer based in Dubai.

Lamya Gargash (@lamya_gargash) is an Emirati artist. After graduating from the American University of Sharjah in 2004, she moved to London to pursue a postgraduate degree in Communication Design at Central Saint Martins. Gargash is heavily inspired by inhabited and abandoned spaces and cultural heritage in contexts of rapid change. Exploring modernity, mortality, identity, and the banal, Gargash captures the beauty of human traces and the value of the mundane. Her work is part of the permanent collection at the Barjeel Art Foundation and Sharjah Art Foundation, UAE. Gargash currently lives and works in Dubai.

Natasha Gasparian is a Beirut-based art writer and historian. She works with Saleh Barakat as a curator at Agial Art Gallery and the Saleh Barakat Gallery.

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Rania Habib is the Deputy Editor of Architectural Digest ME, and has written extensively about the Middle Eastern art and design scene. She obtained a Bachelor’s degree in Journalism from Montreal’s Concordia University and has written for various publications including Canvas, Harper’s Bazaar Art Arabia, Brownbook, Selections, Alef, and Rolling Stone Middle East.

Kit Hammonds is Curator of the Museo Jumex in Mexico City, having relocated from Taiwan in 2017. His projects to date include Learning to Read with John Baldessari (2017) and Scripted Reality: The Life and Art of Television (2018) as well as commissioning site-specific works by Michael Smith and Fritz Haeg & Nils Norman. Formerly, Hammonds was a curator, art writer, and academic in the UK and Taiwan, having realized projects in Europe, Asia, and the Americas. He was part of the curatorial teams for The Invisible Hand: The Second CAFAM Biennial, Beijing (2014); and the Goethe Institut’s international project Europe to the Power of N (2011-2014).

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Marina Iordan is an art consultant and writer based in the UAE. She regularly contributes to a number of publications which all have Middle Eastern culture as common thread. Her most recent articles were published in Harper’s Bazaar Art, Art Radar Journal, Jadaliyya, Aesthetica Magazine, and Contemporary Practices. In her blog, My Velvet Instant, she explores the art scene in and out of Dubai, focusing on contemporary art from the Middle East and beyond.

Rosemary Irons is a freelance writer with a focus on the visual arts scene and community engagement in the Middle East. She has worked for Art Dubai, Agial Gallery Beirut, and various arts initiatives.

Rania Jaber, PhD., (@readingnin) completed a Ph.D. in art history and world art studies, adopting interdisciplinary methods in anthropology and art history. Her research focuses on contemporary art in the Middle East, diaspora, translation, memory and women artists from Lebanon. She currently teaches anthropology at the American University of Beirut.

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Mysa Kafil-Hussain (@my_sa) is an art historian, archivist, researcher, and writer based in London, specialising in modern Arab art with a particular focus on Iraqi art and photography. Following an undergraduate degree in Arabic and History at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London, Mysa spent several years working in the charity sector before completing an MA in History of Art & Architecture of the Islamic Middle East. Mysa currently works in the London studio of Dia al-Azzawi, managing his extensive library and archive; and as a freelance writer and researcher for numerous international organisations, artists, and publications.

Abdellah Karroum is the curator of Wael Shawky’s solo exhibition at Fondazione Merz in Torino in 2016. He has been the Founding Editor of Hors’champs Publishing since 1999 and the Founding Director of L’Appartement22 in Rabat since 2002. He has been the Director of Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art in Doha since 2013.

Sophie Kazan is an art historian, a lecturer and curator. She specializes in global visual culture and works to broaden creative narratives and understanding through art.

Lara Khaldi is an independent curator based in Jerusalem, Palestine. She is a recent alumna of de Appel curatorial programme, Amsterdam, and the European Graduate School, Switzerland. Khaldi teaches at the International Academy of Art in Ramallah and at Dar Al-Kalima University College of Arts and Culture, Bethlehem. Khaldi has curated numerous exhibitions and symposiums in Palestine and other places. For her most recent project, Shifting Ground, Sharjah Biennial 13 Offsite project for Ramallah, Palestine in August 2017 where she commissioned nine artists’ publications and curated a symposium.

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Flounder Lee (@photoflounder)  is an artist/curator and postgraduate researcher in Art & Media at the University of Plymouth, UK pursuing his PhD in art and curatorial practice. He grew up on a farm in the US where he learned many skills that he still uses. He was raised on the ancestral lands of the Yuchi, Shawnee, Muscogee/Creek, and Cherokee peoples. Many of these peoples were forcibly removed in the 1800s to make way for settlers such as his ancestors who were from Europe.

He received his BFA from the University of Florida and his MFA from California State University Long Beach—both in studio art and photography.  His group exhibitions include: From Within in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia; Ishara: Signs, Symbols, and Shared Languages at Concrete in Dubai; and Tashkent Biennale VIII in Uzbekistan. He’s had solo shows in Serbia, the US, China, and Cambodia.

Exhibitions curated include: The Future is…Ordinary? at the Shangyuan Art Museum, Beijing, China; On this night, for the first time, something will happen… at the Jean Paul Najar Foundation, Dubai, and Aerospacial at Herron School of Art and Design in Indianapolis. He founded and co-ran SpaceCamp MicroGallery, a tiny project space in Indianapolis. He has written several essays including for Tribe: Photography and New Media in the Arab World. He co-directs the More Just, More Sustainable Futures: Artistic Symposium for PhD Students.

Several overlapping themes run throughout his work: decolonialism, mapping, science, the future, and environmental change. He is media agnostic, using various media such as photo, video, performance, sound, and installation to create work that touches on these topics. Many of the same themes and media are also part of his curatorial practice, but it is broader than his art practice. His PhD project deals with a quotidian, decolonial future through both an artistic and curatorial perspective. He works using anti-oppressive practices—anti-racist, anti-colonial, anti-patriarchal, anti-heteronormative, inclusive, and intersectional with decolonial, resistance-based, and curatorial activism approaches.

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Maha Maamoun is an Egyptian photographer, video artist and cultural producer. A subtle creator of images and archivist of the present, in her photos and videos Maamoun draws on an array of scenes from daily life and pop culture in Cairo. Parallel to her artistic work, she also maintains a strong presence in Egyptian cultural life as a curator and independent publisher.

Alexandra (Ali) MacGilp, PhD., is a curator, writer and art historian. She has been a Director at Frith Street Gallery, London since 2018; before that she was Programmes Curator at the Contemporary Art Society, London and Curator at Maraya Art Centre, Sharjah, UAE. 

Ahmed Mater (@ahmedmater), a physician turned artist, is one of the most significant cultural voices documenting and scrutinising the realities of contemporary Saudi Arabia. Forging an ongoing, complex mapping of the country, his practice explores collective memories to uncover and record unofficial histories. The historical, geographical and topical breadth of his research-led inquiries are sharpened by the incisive actions of his conceptual works. With this scope, Mater imagines possible prognoses for a land of unprecedented religious, social, economic, and political influence.

Bekriah Mawasi is a self-taught photographer, translator, linguist, and art enthusiast. She lives in central Palestine. Her interests are multi-disciplinary — she translates from/to Arabic, English, and Hebrew, writes reviews and is involved in Mudam, a cooperative online project of rethinking translation, especially of texts that discuss the image and its interpretation. 

Anna Maydanik (@whereitallended) is a writer from Washington, DC. She is currently working on a documentary film that follows Ukrainian theatre artists onto the zero line.

Kevin Mitchell teaches courses in architecture, interior design and the Foundations Year at the American University of Sharjah (AUS), in the UAE, where he has served in a number of administrative positions, including leading the university as Chancellor. In 2022, the AUS Board of Trustees appointed Professor Mitchell as the university’s first Trustees Professor in recognition of his contributions to the institution and to advancing design education. Professional work focuses on design for climate and context through projects in the UAE and Europe. Mitchell has published widely on architecture, design and urbanism in the Gulf.

Yvonne McGahren has an MA in Creative Writing and over ten years’ experience of editing and writing for publications. Now a freelance features writer based in Dubai, she is currently editing and contributing articles to local magazines. She is writing a crime-fiction novel. 

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Amina Nasri is an independent art curator. Born and raised in Tunisia, she moved to Paris when she graduated from Ecole Polytechnique. She is a curator and manager for North African artists, working between Paris and Tunis. Nasri founded the first platform dedicated to contemporary Tunisian art, Art Tunis.

Mahasan Nasser-Eldin is a documentary filmmaker and lecturer in visual cultures. She is the curator of the Karimeh Abbud Photography Award and Exhibition. She is the director of the documentary film Restored Pictures about the life and work of Karimeh Abbud. Her films can be viewed through her website, www.mahasenfilms.com.

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Gabrielle Officer obtained a B.A. in Spanish and Politics in Bath, UK, and has moved frequently abroad including to Spain and China. Based in Bahrain, she has a passion for painting and writing and has previously contributed to Gulf-based arts and culture publications such as l’Agenda as a writer and translator. Combining her interest for painting and urban life, she specializes in representing urban environments in a realist style using acrylic paint.

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Stella Peisch (@stellamnla) is a researcher and consultant with a focus on post-conflict, memory, and dynamics around death in the Middle East. She is a PhD candidate in the International History and Politics Department at the Graduate Institute in Geneva (IHEID). She speaks English, Italian, and French, and her Arabic is a continuous work in progress. She has a BA from Georgetown University and an MSc from the LSE. 

Venetia Porter (@venetia_porter) was Senior Curator for Islamic and Contemporary Middle East art at the British Museum (1989-2022) where she is now Honorary Research Fellow. She studied Arabic and Persian and Islamic Art at the University of Oxford, and her PhD from the University of Durham is on the history and architecture of Medieval Yemen. She was the lead curator for the Albukhary Foundation Gallery of the Islamic World, opened 2018. Her research and publications range from Islamic tiles, Yemeni history, Arabic inscriptions and amulets to contemporary art, and include her mother’s autobiography Thea Porter’s scrapbook which she edited (Unicorn Press 2019). Her exhibitions include Word into Art: Artists of the Modern Middle East (London 2006, Dubai 2008), Hajj: journey to the heart of Islam (2012), Reflections: contemporary art of the Middle East and North Africa (2021) and Amakin, 21,39 Jeddah Arts, 9th edition, (Jeddah and Dahran 2022).  Artists making books: poetry to politics, published by British Museum Press will be out in August 2023 and accompanies an exhibition at the British Museum which is on until the end of 2023.

Jack Persekian (@ackpersekian) is a Palestinian artist and curator from Jerusalem. He is the founder and Director of Al-Ma’mal Foundation for Contemporary Art and Gallery Anadiel in Jerusalem. He previously held the position of Director and Head Curator of the Palestinian Museum (2012–2015); Founding Director of the Sharjah Art Foundation (2009–2011); Artistic Director of the Sharjah Biennial (2007–2011); Head Curator of the Sharjah Biennial (2004–2007); founder and Artistic Director of The Jerusalem Show (2007–present), and Qalandiya International (2012-14). Persekian currently lives and works in Jerusalem.

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Sara Raza (@punkorientalism) is an award winning global contemporary art historian, curator and writer based in New York City. She is the author of the  Punk Orientalism: The Art of Rebellion published by Black Dog Press  London,  2022. Sara is a Red Burns Fellow  awarded by the New York University’s Tisch School of the Art’s Interactive Telecommunications Program for distinguished researchers and scholars, and teaches courses on the Masters program specializing in critical thought from a post-colonial and post-Soviet perspective, and is an adjunct faculty member in Media, Cultures and Communications at NYU Steinhart where she teaches on the undergraduate program. She is also faculty at School of Visual Arts  for the MA Curatorial Studies Program focusing on 21st century collecting practices. She has also served as a guest critic for MA programs’ thesis panels at MIT, RISD and Yale.

Yasmine Reggad (@yasreggard) is an independent curator, writer, researcher and performance artist working in Brussels, Belgium. She holds an MA in Medieval History from the Sorbonne University. She co-funded and is currently the curator of aria (artist residency in algiers).

She previously worked at the Delfina Foundation and Art Dubai Projects. Reggad is the co-curator with Sam Bardaouil et Till Fellrath of the French Pavilion at the 59th Venice Biennale.

Her research and projects focus on the politics of futurity, investigates alternative systems of knowledge and artistic modes of production, and explores performative methodologies inspired by dance and performance notations.

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Roï Saade (@roisaade) is an interdisciplinary artist interested in the intersectionality between graphic design, photography, and the arts.
Roi’s process-based practice centers on a close collaboration between artist, designer, and curator. His approach is complemented by comprehensive visual research and creative exchange. He is interested in finding and creating ways to resist systems of domination and inequality.
Through photography, Roi investigates collective memory, both past and present. By documenting personal encounters and the social fabric of the community, Roi aims to shed light on the shared experiences and histories that shape our understanding of the world.
Saade designs and curates photography exhibitions, film festivals, magazines and specializes in book design, where he blends his passion for visual culture and explores the social and cultural meanings of images.
Saade holds an MFA in Graphic Design from USEK University in Lebanon. He is currently a Research Associate and executive board member at Access in the Making research lab at Concordia University, Montreal.

Rana Sadik is an art collector and philanthropist of Palestinian descent. She is a Board Member of the Welfare Association, a Board Member of Ashkal Alwan, Beirut and Bidoun. She is also the director of MinRASY Projects. She conceived a four part public space project in Kuwait city thematically exploring Palestinians in Kuwait which has culminated into a museum project – Museum of Manufactured Response to Absence.

Simone Salvo has been a part of the Magnum Foundation (MF) for four years, where she manages communications and events and works on special projects. She received her BA in photography and human rights at Bard College, and spent a year-long fellowship at King’s Academy in Madaba, Jordan, developing the school’s community service program.

María Santoyo is a researcher and teacher specialized in the history of photography and image analysis. She has a degree in art history from the Complutense University of Madrid and has fifteen years of experience working in the cultural sector, as well as more than ten dedicated to the direction and management of exhibition projects. She has been working independently since 2014. Lately, she has been managing the Ragel Archive, a collection of about 10,000 negatives from the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Anna Seaman (@annaseaman1) is an arts writer, cultural journalist, and independent curator. She moved to the UAE in 2008 from London, where she worked for leading magazines and newspapers. In Abu Dhabi, she was part of the foundational team for The National newspaper. She is an experienced editor and has worked on several prominent publications in the arts and cultural field. She is also co-founder of MORROW collective, an NFT curatorship dedicated to bringing fine art into the crypto space.

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Lara Tabbara is Lebanese New-Yorker raised in Geneva, Switzerland. She is a freelance writer who covers art galleries in the Middle East. With a B.A. in Journalism and Art History from NYU, she now holds a Master’s from Christie’s Education. Tabbara is the founder of Art and The City, a blog documenting her experiences in the New York art scene, chronicling gallery openings, museum exhibitions, and artist retrospectives.

Chama Tahiri, based between Paris and Casablanca, her hometown, is an artistic director and cultural journalist. Aside from being co-founder of Lioumness, the first creative studio and cultural webzine in Morocco, she writes for other publications, produces events, promotes artists, and creates content to reshape the narratives around African and Arab cultures. Amongst her recent projects are the writing and artistic direction of the feature documentary Casa jusqúà là mer, the promotion of Bachar Mar-Khalifé’s latest album, and the opening strategy for The Grand Theatre of Rabat, designed by the late Iraqi architect Zaha Hadid. In her spare time, Chama volunteers in the education sector, attends conferences, and saves orphaned kittens.

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Emma Warburton (@hellohellomissy) is an independent arts writer and curator currently based in Toronto, Ontario. She holds an undergraduate degree in painting and drawing as well as a graduate degree in contemporary curatorial studies. She currently works full time as a Curatorial Intern for Modern and Contemporary Art at the Art Gallery of Ontario. Emma regularly writes for a number of print and online based art publications, and maintains an informal but active art practice based in painting, drawing, and ephemeral sculpture.

Ossian Ward is Head of Content at Lisson Gallery and a writer on contemporary art. Formerly the Visual Arts Editor for Time Out London, editor of ArtReview, and the V&A magazine, his book, Ways of Looking: How to Experience Contemporary Art, was published by Laurence King in 2014.

Sandra Williams is a PhD candidate in the department and focuses on gender and sexuality in the pre-modern Persianate world. Prior to joining Michigan, Sandra was an assistant curator in the Art of the Middle East department at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, a position to which she has recently returned. During her time at LACMA, she contributed to several on-site and travelling exhibitions and original research on a major permanent collection acquisition of a group of medieval Spanish ceiling panels. She completed her M.A. at the Institute of Fine Arts, NYU, where she wrote her thesis on Antoin Sevruguin and photography in Iran in the 19th century. Sandra is the founding managing director of Khamseen: Islamic Art History Online, a project dedicated to expanding the accessibility of the field of Islamic art history.

Michelle Woodward lives in Beirut. She is the photo editor for the magazine Middle East Report and editor of the Photography for Jadaliyya. She is an experienced photography researcher, pursuing historical research into photography of the Middle East.

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Ala Younis (@alayounis) is an artist with curatorial, film and publishing projects. She curated Kuwait’s first Pavilion at the Venice Biennale (2013) and Museum of Manufactured Response to Absence (2012-2014). She is co-head of the Berlinale’s Forum Expanded, member of the Academy of Arts and the World, and co-Artistic Director of Singapore Biennale 2022. In 2012, she co-founded Kayfa ta, a publishing intiative that researches and publishes on indepedent publishing efforts. She is currently a Research Scholar at al Mawrid Arab Center for the Study of art at New York University Abu Dhabi.

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Camille Zakharia (@camillezakharia)  left Lebanon in 1985 during the Civil War. Since then, he has spent time living in the USA, Greece, Turkey and Canada, before moving to Bahrain in 1999. He graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts from NSCAD University (Nova Scotia College of Fine Art & Design), Halifax, Canada in 1997 and a Bachelor of Engineering from the American University in Beirut in 1985. 

Camille uses his camera to document the journey taken since his departure from Lebanon. Through photo-montage, collage and print, he both reveals and reconstructs his encounters with people and places, exteriors and interiors. Within this process is an exploration of home, identity and belonging in the context of a globalised condition. A particular source of fascination is urban landscape and what is represneted socially and culturally by changes in the shape and size of cities. 

Sulaf Derawy Zakharia is a Bahrain-based arts writer. Her work on contemporary Middle Eastern art has been published in a number of print and on-line publications including L’agenda Golfe, Brownbook, NuktaArt, Tribe Magazine, Universes-in-Universe.com, and ArchronikaAnna.

Salwa Zeidan (@salwana56) is a Lebanese painter and sculptor. After having spent her formative years traveling around the world, she eventually settled in Abu Dhabi, where she established her signature contemporary art gallery. Throughout her career of over 25 years, Zeidan has dedicated numerous works to peace, love, and environmental awareness. Her artworks can be found in galleries and private collections from all around the globe.