CURATORS TALK
A series of talks by curators that delves into the invited professionals' approaches to exhibition-making, research, critical thinking, artistic collaboration, and beyond.
What do curators do? Is a curator a caretaker, a classifier, or a commentator? Are they scholars or administrators? Be they conduits or conductors, there seems to be very little that does not fall under the rubric of curating today.
Curators Talk is a new series presented by The NYU Abu Dhabi Art Gallery in which curators discuss their distinct approaches to curatorial practice. This series will survey the various individual positions and institutional models in the UAE and beyond, offering a public arena to discuss questions that pertain to exhibition-making, critical thinking, artistic collaboration, and beyond.
Curators Talk offers engaging, behind-the-scenes insights for art aficionados as well as being an active hub for professional exchange. We aim to connect practitioners and also develop informed participants–be they artists, critics, curators, or viewers.
Conceived and programmed by Duygu Demir.
Previously in this Event Series

Presented in Collaboration with al Mawrid Arab Center for the Study of Art
Suheyla Takesh
Offstage: the Less Visible Facets of Collecting Art
We invite you to: CURATORS TALK, a new series presented by The NYUAD Art Gallery in which curators discuss their distinct approaches to curatorial practice.

Presented with the NYUAD Institute and NPUAE
Faysal Tabbarah
Field Notes from Aridly Abundant Landscapes
Faysal Tabbarah is Curator, National Pavilion UAE, 2023 and Associate Dean and Associate Professor of Architecture, American University of Sharjah

Salwa Mikdadi

Michele Bambling
Michele Bambling, Senior Director of the Japan Society Gallery in NYC.

Shabbir Hussain Mustafa
How Easily Modernism Could Be Disturbed
Shabbir Hussain Mustafa, Senior Curator and Head of Exhibitions at Guggenheim Abu Dhabi

Nada Raza
Discomfort as Method: Curating through the Pain
Nada Raza is the Director of Alserkal Arts Foundation.

Hammad Nasar
Curating Nation: Exhibitions as Infrastructures of Difference and Belonging
"Rock, Paper, Scissors: Positions in Play", Hammad Nasar’s project for the UAE’s National Pavilion at the Venice Biennale (2017), explored play as a framework for embodied practices of belonging.

Munira Al Sayegh
Exhibitions as Cultural Correctors
"Exhibitions as Cultural Correctors" is a lecture by Munira Al Sayegh where she’ll explore the role of a curator as sociopolitical ambassador.

Murtaza Vali
Infrastructure as Method

Sabih Ahmed
An Archaeologist in the Middle of an Earthquake