2023: Live program curator for the Tasweer photography festival organized by Qatar Museums
My role involved planning workshops, talks, exhibition tours, photo walks, live and online conversations, round table meetings, and pop-up shows alongside the director Khalifa Ahmad Al Obaidly, the artistic director Charlotte Cotton, the head of exhibitions and project management, Sinem Yoruk, and the Tasweer team.
For more information, please check https://tasweer.org.qa/en/
2023: Curator of the exhibition “Eyes In Motion” EEA Norway Grants in Greece.
A pop-up show celebrating the EEA Norway Grants in Greece at Technopolis commissioned by the organization Human Rights 360. The exhibition Eyes In Motion brings us closer to the children’s gaze, refugee children who live in Greece without their families and have practiced in photography, painting, and collages through educational programs from 2021 to 2023.
For more information, please check http://tinyurl.com/az8kfjwn
2021: Co-founder of the initiative Print For Crisis
Print for Crisis is a Community Interest Company (CIC) based in London, that aims to raise funds through photography in support of freedom of expression at crucial moments in history. It is founded by photographers Chiara Luxardo and Olga Stefatou, motivated by the current crisis in Myanmar, where both has spent years of their life and important parts of their career.
Print For Crisis: United for Myanmar was a month-long photography fundraiser to raise money for freedom of expression since the military coup of February 1st put an abrupt end to Myanmar’s burgeoning democracy. More than ninty photographers came together to support people fighting for democracy in Myanmar. 523 prints have been sold and £28,000, 100% of net profits from the campaign, have been donated across seven organisations engaged in promoting arts, freedom of expression and independent media in Myanmar.
For more information please check https://www.printforcrisis.org/
2018 – 2020: Senior Photography Specialist with Qatar Museums
My role involved working alongside the Acquisitions and Collections Management teams at Qatar Museums for the purpose of cataloguing and supervising its vast photography collection with a focus on the 19th and 20th century.
In 2015, I had the chance to visit the Museum of Islamic Arts in Doha and was truly impressed by the building’s graceful design as well as its exhibits, including the “Qajar Women: Images of women in 19th century Iran” exhibition. Three years later, my dream of working for Qatar Museums became a reality when I was hired to curate one of the world’s most fascinating photography collections, alongside fellow specialist Mary Pelletier.
Qatar Museums oversees the Museum of Islamic Art, Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, National Museum, Doha Fire Station, QM Gallery at Katara, MIA Park and the archeological projects throughout Qatar.
For more details about Qatar Museums, the current exhibitions and future projects please visit the link https://www.qm.org.qa/en
The photographs featured in the images are created by Gerault de Prangey, Irving Penn and Pascal Sébah, and belong to the photography collection of Qatar Museums.
2014 – 2022: Creative Director of the Arts Programme at Saristra Festival on the Greek island of Kefalonia.
Saristra Festival
In August 1953, one of the most devastating earthquakes in the history of Kefalonia left Palia Vlahata in ruins and turned it into a “ghost village”. More than 60 years later, a group of young islanders were inspired by the village’s magical atmosphere and long history to create an event that would breathe life back to Palia Vlahata.
That idea give birth to Saristra festival, a three-day modern celebration of music and arts that has been taking place every summer since 2012.
Offering a diverse array of artistic events, Saristra Festival invites visitors and artists to embark on a journey through the past, present and future in order to create a collective memory in the abandoned village and also redefine the relationship between the old and the new.
Thanks to the variety of the events and the singularity of the location, the festival each year attracts people of all ages and backgrounds. Saristra is a free-of-charge festival, and most of its visitors are young people from Greece and abroad who seek a contemporary experience rooted in a natural landscape full of memories of a bygone era.
Saristra Arts
During the festival’s Arts programme, the wrecks of the houses in the old village are transformed into captivating spaces for visual art exhibitions, site-specific installations, performances, film screenings, seminars and lectures, as well as activities for children.
The festival’s events comprise a mix of styles and genres which, while varied, share a common desire for freedom that intuitively unites them in a purposeful way.
To be sure, the art presented at Saristra Festival is defined by certain prevailing concepts ranging from identity, trauma and crisis to revival, transformation and passion.
Inspired by the landscape, the participating artists express the untold, introduce new cultures and share their personal discoveries. The philosophy of Saristra Festival is based on the idea of social evolution though the arts, and for this reason it is important that each artist is present at the festival.
For more information about Saristra Festival, please check the link https://saristrafestival.gr/ .