About the Arts & Culture Center

Sultan Sooud Al Qassemi

Sultan Sooud Al Qassemi is an Emirati columnist and researcher on social, political and cultural affairs in the Arab Gulf States. In 2018 Sultan ranked 19th on the “Arabic Thought Leader Index” by the Gottlieb Duttweiler Institute. Sultan has also held many lecture positions, including lecturer at the Council of Middle East Studies at Yale University (2019), adjunct instructor at the Center of Contemporary Arab Studies in Georgetown University (2019) and visiting instructor at the Islamic Civilization & Societies Program in Boston College (2020) Sultan is also the founder of the Barjeel Art Foundation, an independent initiative established in 2010 to contribute to the intellectual development of the art scene in the Arab region by building a prominent and publicly accessible art collection in the United Arab Emirates. In 2018, 100 works from the collection were hosted on a long-term basis at the Sharjah Art Museum. Sultan is currently conducting research for a book that documents the modern architecture of the city of Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates, and is a Senior Lecturer teaching a course on “Politics of Modern Middle Eastern Art” at the Art History and Fine Arts department in The American University of Paris.

Dr. Hatem Alzahrani

Dr. Hatem Alzahrani is a seasoned Saudi cultural practitioner, poet, critic, and academic specializing in Middle Eastern cultures. He holds an MA from Yale University and a Ph.D. from Georgetown University. As a senior advisor for international cultural relations in the Kingdom, he has made significant efforts to facilitate cultural exchanges between Saudi and Arab artists, scholars, and thought leaders and their counterparts worldwide. He has participated in forums such as the G20 and UNESCO’s Mondiacult, contributing to innovative policies for the global cultural and creative industries and leveraging cultural diplomacy to promote cross-cultural understanding.Dr. Hatem’s research interests include identity, influence, continuity, and authority in Middle Eastern cultures. His poetry, exploring identity and cultural dualities, has been translated into several languages, featured in prestigious publications, and has earned him several awards and invitations to international readings. His poems include “Celebrating the Dual at Yale” (2019) and “I Need the Ordinary,” (2020) published by Asymptote. Dr. Hatem’s contributions continue to foster Saudi-US cultural relations and advance appreciation of Middle Eastern arts and culture globally.

Saleh Barakat

Saleh Barakat is a Beirut-based gallerist who specializes in modern and contemporary art from the Arab world. He founded Agial Art Gallery (1991), and Saleh Barakat Gallery (2016) where he hosts an extensive program of exhibitions and events. He has also co-curated exhibitions elsewhere, including The Road to Peace (2009) at the Beirut Art Center, retrospectives of Saloua Raouda Choucair (2013), Shafic Abboud (2013), Michel Basbous (2014), and Jean Boghossian (2015) at the Beirut Exhibition Center, and he co-curated the first national pavilion for Lebanon at the 52nd Venice Biennale with Sandra Dagher, as well as the itinerant exhibition Mediterranean Crossroads, in collaboration with Martina Corgnati and the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He also participated in the launching of Parachute magazine’s 108th issue on the Beirut contemporary art scene. He has been a board member of the National UNESCO since 2015, and currently serves on the advisory board of the School of Architecture and Design at the Lebanese American University. In 2006, he was nominated as a Yale World Fellow.

Touria El Glaoui

Born and raised in Morocco, Touria El Glaoui completed her education in New York before beginning a career in the banking industry as a wealth management consultant. After 10 years in the field she relocated to London, where she initiated 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair in 2013. She has since launched the fair in New York in 2015, and in Marrakech in 2018. 1-54 is now a world-leading platform dedicated to contemporary art from Africa and its diaspora. Parallel to her career, Touria has organised and co-curated exhibitions of her father’s work, Moroccan artist Hassan El Glaoui, in London and Morocco. She has spoken widely and chaired numerous discussions on contemporary African art and women in leadership at leading institutions and events globally. Touria El Glaoui was listed amongst the 50 most powerful women in Africa by Jeune Afrique magazine in 2015, 2018 and 2019. She is Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres de la République Française since February 2019.

Leila Heller

Leila Taghinia-Milani Heller is the founder and president of Leila Heller Gallery, a contemporary art gallery in New York and Dubai with a curatorial emphasis on bridging the gap between the East and the West. Heller received her B.A. in Art History and French Literature from Brown University and her Masters degree in Art from Sotheby’s Institute in London, as well as a second Masters degree in Art History and Museum Management from George Washington University. Heller then became the art curator of an investment bank in New York before opening her own gallery in New York in 1982. Leila Heller Gallery was the first gallery in the United States to feature primarily Middle Eastern artists. Today, the gallery sits in the Upper East Side and still focuses on Middle Eastern artists as well as global contemporary and secondary market works.In November 2015 Leila Heller Gallery opened its first international location on Dubai’s Alserkal Avenue. At 1,500 square meters with 10-meter ceilings, the gallery is the largest in the U.A.E. with three distinct exhibition spaces. Leila Heller Gallery Dubai has featured many retrospectives of world renowned artists.

Rose Issa

Rose Issa is a curator, writer and producer who has championed visual art and film from the Middle East and North Africa in the UK and internationally for more than 30 years. She has lived in London since the 1980s showcasing upcoming and established artists, producing exhibitions with public and private institutions worldwide, and running a publishing program. As well as holding exhibitions at Rose Issa Projects in London, she frequently co-curates exhibitions with international private and public institutions, including the Middle East Institute, Washington DC (2019); Beirut Art Fair, Lebanon (2017); Crawford Art Gallery, Cork (2014); Virginia Commonwealth University Qatar, Doha (2014); the Victoria & Albert Museum, London (2013, 2006); Tate Britain, London (2008); the European Parliament, Brussels (2008); the State Museum of Oriental Art, Moscow (2007); the Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg (2007);. Rose also lends work to and advises on collections for public and private institutions and organisations around the world, including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (2014); The Drawing Room, London (2014); Cultuurcentrum Bruges, Belgium (2014); FotoFest Huston (2014); Uppsala Art Museum, Sweden (2014); Museum of Fine Art, Boston (2013-2014); the Smithsonian, (Sackler/Freer Gallery and National Museum of African Arts) Washington (2013), The British Museum; the Imperial War Museum; The Museum of Mankind; the Victoria & Albert Museum, and more.

Dr. Adila Laïdi-Hanieh

A writer, academic, curator, and cultural manager, Dr. Laïdi-Hanieh has been the Director General of the Palestinian Museum since 2018. She developed the Museum’s first five-year program strategy, encompassing knowledge production and research, multi-generational education, collections valorization, digital platforms, and an original exhibitions program. Adila manages a staff of 60 and a seven-figure budget. During her tenure, the Palestinian Museum won the 2019 Aga Khan Award for Architecture. Dr. Laïdi-Hanieh was the founding director of the Khalil Sakakini Cultural Centre, building its programs around three foci: cultural identity, visual arts, and outreach, while growing its budget and successfully transforming it into an independent NGO with international reach. Dr. Laïdi-Hanieh published several books and essays, including the artist biography “Fahrelnissa Zeid. Painter of Inner Worlds.“ She also published “Palestine. Rien ne nous manque ici,” which interrogates and celebrates contemporary perspectives of Palestine. Her academic work encompasses critical theory, aesthetics, and ideology theory. Adila received a PhD. in Cultural Studies from George Mason University as a Fulbright Scholar, and obtained an MA in Arab Studies from Georgetown University. She also taught at Birzeit University.

Salwa Mikdadi

Salwa Mikdadi is Associate Professor Practice of Art History and the Director and Principle Investigator of the Arab Center for the Study of Art at NYU Abu Dhabi. Her research focus is on modern and contemporary art of the Arab world, Arab art exhibitions and institutions, gender politics in art, and museums and society. Mikdadi was a lecturer in Art History at Sorbonne University Abu Dhabi, and held leading positions at Art and Culture institutions in the Arab World and in the US. Mikdadi was the founding director of the Cultural & Visual Arts Resource/ICWA, USA (1988-2006) She curated several exhibitions in the US and in Arab countries, including the ground-breaking Forces of Change (1994-5), the first Palestinian exhibition at the 53rd Venice Biennial (2009); co-curated Permanent Temporariness, and A Century in Flux. She is the author and co-editor of several publications, among them- “Cities and Legends: Elias Zayat” (Skira 2017), “New Visions: Arab Contemporary Art of the 21st Century” ( Thames & Hudson 2009), “Palestine c/o Venice” (2009), “In/Visible: Arab American Artists” (2005), and a reference guide on the history of twentieth-century art of West Asia and North Africa for the Metropolitan Museum of Art Timeline.

Venetia Porter

Venetia Porter is a curator of Islamic and Contemporary Middle East art at the British Museum where she has been since 1989. She has a BA in Arabic and Persian and an MPhil in Islamic Art from the University of Oxford. Her PhD from the University of Durham is on the history and architecture of Medieval Yemen. She has curated two major exhibitions at the British Museum, Word into Art (2006) and Hajj: journey to the heart of Islam (2012) and was the lead curator for the Albukhary Foundation Gallery of the Islamic World which opened in October 2018. Her research and publications range from Arabic inscriptions to contemporary art and include Islamic Tiles (1995), Arabic and Persian Seals and Amulets in the British Museum (2011). She is also a contributor to The Islamic World: A history through objects (2018) and recently edited her mother’s autobiography Thea Porter’s scrapbook (2019). Her current project is a book on the British Museum’s collection of works on paper by artists of the Middle East.

Dana Farouki

Dana Farouki is a curator and patron, specializing in Middle East contemporary art. Farouki was the first member of the Guggenheim Museum Abu Dhabi curatorial staff, serving as Assistant Curator until June 2010. She received her bachelor’s degree in History of Art and Architecture from Brown University in 2003, and completed her master’s degree in the History and Theory of the Art Museum at the Courtauld Institute of Art in London in 2005. She also held a one-year fellowship at The Museum of Modern Art, New York. She is currently a Trustee of MoMA PS1, the leading New York museum committed to emerging art and artists. Farouki also serves on the Board of Trustees for Creative Time, New York’s foremost public arts projects organization. She is the founding Chair of The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation’s Middle East Circle and sits on the board of Bidoun Projects. A great advocate of regional cultural initiatives, she oversaw the largest commissioning based prize in collaboration with Art Dubai until 2018.

Sheryl Fiegel

Sheryl Fiegel is a trained art historian with more than three decades of practical and professional experience. She is the founder of ART+Specialists LC which provides art advisory services including art acquisition, appraisals, collection management, and exhibition development to the nation’s top firms, corporations, organizations, and institutions, as well as to private collectors. She has been a Professional Affiliate member of the American Institute of Architects since 1976. Other professional associations include ArtTable, a national membership organization for women leaders in the visual arts.

Anne Keiser

Anne B. Keiser, daughter of the late George Camp Keiser, the founder of the Middle East Institute, has been a member of its Board of Governors since 1990. Ms. Keiser is a freelance travel photographer based in Washington, D.C. From 1972 to 1986 she worked at the National Geographic Society as a photo editor and still photographer in its television division. As a freelance photographer, she has documented the humanitarian work of famed mountain climber, Sir Edmund Hillary, who devoted his life to improving the lives of the Sherpa people of the Everest region of Nepal. She has written three books on this topic, including Sir Edmund Hillary & the People of Everest, published as part of the fiftieth anniversary celebrations of the first ascent of Mount Everest by Hillary and Tenzing Norgay Sherpa. Ms. Keiser currently serves on the boards of the Choral Arts Society of Washington, the Washington Tennis and Education Foundation and the Greater Himalayan Foundation. She is a member of the National Council of the World Wildlife Fund U.S. and the Smithsonian Women’s Committee.

Amy Landau

Dr. Amy S. Landau is Director of Education and Interpretation at the Fowler Museum at UCLA and Director of Art, Religion and Cities, which she co-founded with Dr. Harold Morales and Dr. Homayra Ziad. At the Fowler, she oversees educational and programmatic initiatives and sits on the UCLA Arts AEDI Commission and the GO UCLA Arts Campus Communications Team. From 2009-2018, she served as Director of Curatorial Affairs and Curator of Islamic and South Southeast Asian Art at the Walters Art Museum. Landau has a Ph.D. in Islamic Art and Archaeology from the University of Oxford and was a fellow at the Center for Curatorial Leadership in 2017. Landau lectures and publishes on Islamic art and fostering empathetic learning in museums. In addition to Morgan State, she has taught at the Maryland Institute College of Art and Johns Hopkins University. Committed to social justice issues in internal and external museum activities, Landau is a stakeholder in museums honoring all human histories.

Betty Sams

Betty Hamady Sams has long been involved in US-Arab relations. Currently, she serves on the Advisory Board of the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies at Georgetown University and is a member of the American Task Force for Lebanon. She is a past president of the American Committee for Tyre and has served on the Board of Governors of the Middle East Institute, the Leadership Council of Churches for Middle East Peace, and the National Advisory Board of the Arab American National Museum. A former co-chair of the American Forum of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, she has also served on the Visiting Committee of the Smith College Museum of Art and the Board of Trustees of the Washington National Opera. A Michigan native, Betty Sams earned a BA in Government from Smith College and studied at the American University of Beirut.

Abu Dhabi Music and Arts Foundation (ADMAF) | ABU DHABI  

Abu Dhabi Festival | ABU DHABI  

Al Sadu Society | KUWAIT 

Antiquities Coalition | WASHINGTON, DC   

Art Jameel | JEDDAH  

Asia Society | NEW YORK CITY  

Beirut Center of Photography | BEIRUT  

Beirut Museum of Art | BEIRUT  

British Council | WASHINGTON, DC  

Commission on Arts and Humanities | WASHINGTON, DC  

Edge of Arabia | LONDON  

George Mason University | FAIRFAX, VA  

Georgetown University | WASHINGTON, DC  

Goethe Institut | WASHINGTON, DC  

IA&A at Hillyer | WASHINGTON, DC  

Institut du Monde Arabe | PARIS  

MBC Group | RIYADH  

MENART Fair | PARIS 

Ministry of Culture | RIYADH  

Ministry of Foreign Affairs | CAIRO  

Ministry of Foreign and Expatriates Affairs | AMMAN   

Misk Foundation | RIYADH  

National Council for Arts Bahrain | MANAMA  

National Building Museum | WASHINGTON, DC  

The National Council for Culture, Arts, and Letters | KUWAIT 

National Museum of Women in the Arts | WASHINGTON, DC  

NYU Abu Dhabi Art Gallery | ABU DHABI  

Rola Z Productions | WASHINGTON, DC   

RAK Art Foundation | MANAMA  

Royal Commission for AlUla | ALULA  

Tribe Photo Magazine | WASHINGTON, DC  

Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts | VIENNA, VA