Anthony Downey

Professor of Visual Culture in the Middle East and North Africa

Birmingham School of Art

Email:: anthony.downey@bcu.ac.uk
Phone:: 0121 331 5970

Dr Anthony Downey is Professor of Visual Culture in the Middle East and North Africa (Birmingham City University), with a specific research focus on practice-based research, digital methodologies and knowledge production in visual cultures. In his capacity as Cultural and Commissioning Lead, he is a Co-investigator in a four year £2.2 million GCRF project (funded by Arts Humanities Research Council) that focuses on education, visual culture, and digital methods in Palestine, Lebanon, and Jordan (2020-2024). This award followed on from a 2019 AHRC Development Award (2019-2020).

Anthony is Associate Director of Research for External Funding (where he supports funding application development) and co-convenes the Art Activisms research cluster at Birmingham Institute of Creative Arts (BICA). He supervises PhD students with a focus on art practices in the Middle East and Global South, digital cultures and methodologies, pedagogical practice, migration and displacement, institutional critique, and the politics of contemporary art. He is an editor at two peer-reviewed journals, Third Text (Routledge) and the Journal of Digital War (Palgrave MacMillan), and, as of 2021, sits on the editorial board of the Journal of Memory, Mind & Media (Cambridge University Press). He is the series editor for Research/Practice (Sternberg Press).

Current Activity

Anthony is currently researching Unbearable States: Digital Media, Cultural Activism and Human Rights (forthcoming, 2022). In 2021, he will publish Displacement Activities: Contemporary Art, the Refugee Condition, and the Alibi of Engagement (Sternberg Press) and Topologies of Air (Sternberg Press, Berlin, and The Power Plant, Toronto). Anthony has recently curated a series of exhibitions, including Heba Y. Amin’s When I see the Future, I Close my Eyes (Mosaic Rooms, London), and co-produced an online programme examining contemporary digital methodologies and knowledge production in the arts. For further information on the latter, see: wheniseethefuture.com. In 2022, he will curate When Images Become Form for the New Art Exchange (Nottingham), a group exhibition that will tour the UK.

In his capacity as Cultural and Commissioning Lead, on a four year £2.2 million GCRF project (funded by Arts Humanities Research Council, 2020-2024), Anthony is currently working a series of projects in Palestine, Lebanon, and Jordan related to education and digital methodologies in the arts. In his capacity as the Associate Director of Research for External Funding, he is active in supporting funding application development across the faculty of Art, Design and Media, and as a co-convener for the Art Activisms research cluster at Birmingham Institute of Creative Arts (BICA), he currently oversees research seminars and events relating to arts practices and political engagement. He supervises PhD students with a focus on art practices in the Middle East and Global South, digital cultures and methodologies, pedagogical practice, migration and displacement, institutional critique, and the politics of contemporary art.

Areas of Expertise

Transnational cultural practices
Digital methodologies and visual cultures
Digital media and human rights
Civil society and collaborative art practices
New media, art and terrorism
Bio-politics and migration
The politics of cultural production in the Middle East and Global South

Qualifications

Ph.D, Goldsmiths College, London (awarded 2006).
Master of Arts (with Distinction), Goldsmiths College, 1996-1997
Bachelors of Arts (First Class Honours), Birkbeck College, 1992-1995

Memberships

Editorial Board, Journal of Memory, Mind & Media (Cambridge University Press).
Editor, Third Text (Routledge)
Editor, Digital War (Palgrave MacMillan)
Editor-in-Chief, Ibraaz (www.ibraaz.org)
Consultant Editor, The Open Journal (Open University)
Associate Researcher for the Institute of Human Activities
Member of Executive Committee of the Kamel Lazaar Foundation
Trustee of Strange Cargo
Trustee of the Maryam and Edward Eisler Foundation appointed 2011
Trustee of Arts Cabinet

Teaching

Anthony holds a PhD from Goldsmiths College, awarded in 2006, and his teaching focuses on the politics of global contemporary art practices; contemporary research practices and knowledge production in visual culture; human rights, bio-politics and migration; new media, collaborative and participative art practices; and contemporary cultural production in the Maghreb, the Middle East and Global South.

He lectures on all of these topics and supervises PhD students with research interests in contemporary art and the politics of cultural production in the Maghreb, the Middle East and Global South; digital media and research methods; neoliberalism, human rights, bio-politics, and migration in contemporary art practices; and new media, performativity and civil society in the Middle East.

Research

Contemporary Cultural Production in the Maghreb, the Middle East and Global South
Digital Methodologies and Practice-Based Research
Neoliberalism, Globalisation, and Cultural Critique
Artificial Intelligence and Targeted Disinformation in a Post-Truth age
Human Rights, Bio-politics, and Migration in Contemporary Art Practices
New media, Performativity and Civil Society
Public Space and Collaborative Art Practices

Postgraduate Supervision

Jacob Koster (Critical Practices in Contemporary Art)
Nat Muller (Futurism in Contemporary Arab Art)
Yuu Sachiel (Censorship in Chinese Art)
Lisa Deml (Spectatorship and Citizen Reporting after the Arab Uprisings)
Pierre D’Alancaisez (Art, Politics, and Change)

Recently Graduated:

Khulod Albugami (Installation Art as a tool for Social Change: A Case Study of Saudi Contemporary Art)
Rawan Sharaf Khatib (The Role Played by Palestinian Cultural Institution in the Formation and Transformation of Palestinian Visual / Cultural Identity)

External Co-Supervision:

Heba Y. Amin, doctoral fellow in art history at Freie Universität, Berlin (Co-Supervisor)
Anastasia Shanaah, doctoral fellow, School of Communication and Culture, Aarhus University (Co-supervisor)

Publications

Selected Books and Edited Volumes

Downey, A., Unbearable States: Digital Media and Cultural Activism in a Post-Digital Age (forthcoming, 2022)
Downey, A., Displacement Activities: Contemporary Art, the Refugee Condition, and the Alibi of Engagement (Sternberg Press, 2020)
Downey, A., Research/Practice (Sternberg Press/MIT, 2019). ISBN: 9783956794766
Critique in Practice: Renzo Martens' Episode III: Enjoy Poverty (Sternberg Press, 2019). ISBN: ISBN: 9783956795053
La Primavera árabe y el invierno del desencanto: Prácticas artísticas y medios digitales en el Norte de África y Oriente Medio (Ripio Press, 2019), ISBN: 978-987-46999-1-6
Downey, A., Don’t Shrink Me to the Size of a Bullet: The Works of Hiwa K (Walter Koenig Books, 2017) ISBN 978-3-96098-160-2
Downey, A., Future Imperfect: Cultural Institutions and Contemporary Art Practices in the Middle East (Sternberg Press, 2016) ISBN 978-3-95679-246-5
Downey, A., Dissonant Archives: Contemporary Visual Culture and Contested Narratives in the Middle East (I.B. Tauris, 2015) ISBN 978-1-784-53-4110
Downey, A., Uncommon Grounds: New Media and Critical Practice in North Africa and the Middle East (I.B.Tauris, 2014) ISBN 978
Downey, A., Art and Politics Now (Thames and Hudson, 2014) ISBN 978-0-500-29147-41784530358

Selected Essays and Chapters in Books

"After Mosul: The Cultural Economy of Destruction and Reconstruction", in Terrorism and the Arts (edited by Jonathan Harris, Routledge Press, forthcoming 2021).
“The Future of Protest in a Post-Digital Age”, in The Protest and the Recuperation, Wallach Art Gallery, Columbia University, 2021
Downey, A, Heba Y. Amin, Abdelkarim Mardini, and Adel Iskandar, “Egypt’s 2011 Internet Shutdown: Digital Dissent and the Future of Public Memory” Camera Austria, March, 2021.
Amin, H, and Downey, A., “A Brief History of Drone Warfare” Frieze, October, 2020.
Amin, H.Y., Downey, A. “Contesting Post-digital Futures: Drone Warfare and the Geo-politics of Aerial Surveillance in the Middle East”, Journal of Digital War (2020). https://doi.org/10.1057/s42984-020-00021-y
Amin, H.Y., Downey, A. “Avian Prophecies and the Techno-Aesthetics of Drone Warfare”, in (W)ARCHIVES: Archival Imaginaries, War, and Contemporary Art, ed. Daniela Agostinho, Solveig Gade, Nanna Bonde Thylstrup and Kristin Veel (Sternberg Press, 2020), ISBN: 9783956794568
Downey, A. and Sansour, L. “Epigenetics and Speculative Research” MIT Reader, April 2020
‘”Where Is The Knowledge We Have Lost in Information”: Speculative Research and Digital Methodologies’, in Balaskas and Rito, eds., Institution as Praxis: New Curatorial Directions for Collaborative Research (Sternberg Press, 2020) ISBN 978-3-95679-506-0
Downey, A, and Rakowitz, M. “Leonard Cohen and the Concert That Never Was”, MIT Reader, February, 2020
Downey, A, and Paglen, T. “Algorithmic Anxieties” Trevor, Journal of Digital War, Vol. 1, No. 1. ISSN: 2662-1975 (print); ISSN: 2662-1983 (electronic)
“Is There a Right Way to Do Wrong? Enjoy Poverty and the Case Against Ethics”in Critique in Practice: Renzo Martens' Episode III: Enjoy Poverty (Sternberg Press, 2019).
“Hiwa K: Interview with Anthony Downey and Amal Khalaf” in Brayshaw, T., Fenemore, A. and Witts, N. The Twenty-First Century Performance Reader (forthcoming, Routledge, 2019, pp. tbc)
"The Politics of Shame: Ai Weiwei in conversation with Anthony Downey", The Large Glass: Journal of Contemporary Art, Culture and Theory, Museum of Contemporary Art, Skopje (Macedonia), No. 25 / 26, 2018, pp. 28-42. ISSN: 1409 – 5823
“Where to Now?: Imminent Impermanence in the Work of Sheela Gowda”, in Sheela Gowda, Ikon Gallery, November 2017. ISBN 978-1-911155-10-2
“Scopic Reflections: Incoming and the Technology of Exceptionalism”, in Richard Mosse, Barbican Art Gallery, March 2017, ISBN 9780995708204
“Exemplary Subjects: Camps and the Politics of Representation”, in Giorgio Agamben: Legal, Political and Philosophical Perspectives. Ed. Tom Frost. Oxon, UK: Routledge, 2013. 119-42.
“Zones of Indistinction: Giorgio Agamben's 'Bare Life' and the Politics of Aesthetics”, in Theory in Contemporary Art Since 1985. Eds. Zoya Kocur and Simon Leung. 2nd ed. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012. 416-35.
“Zu Giorgio Agamben: Das Nackte Leben' Und Die Politik Der Asthetik”, in Open Space: Schnittpunkte Aktueller Kunstpraxis. Ed. Gulsen Bal. Vienna: Divus, 2010. 64-79.
“The Production of Cultural Knowledge in the Middle East Today”, in Art & Patronage in the Middle East. Eds. Hossein Amirsadeghi and Maryam Homayoun. Eisler. London: Thames & Hudson, 2010. 10-15.
“127 Cuerpos: Teresa Margolles and the Aesthetics of Commemoration”, in Understanding Art Objects: Thinking through the Eye. Farnham: Lund Humphries, 2009. 104-13.
“An Ethics of Engagement: Collaborative Art Practices and the Return of the Ethnographer”, in Third Text 23.5, 2009. 593-603.
“Towards a Politics of (Relational) Aesthetics”, in Third Text 3rd. 21.3, 2007: 267-75.
“Critical Imperatives: Notes on Contemporary Art Criticism and African Cultural Production"”, in Wasafiri 21.1, 2006. 39-48.
“Yinka Shonibare in conversation with Anthony Downey”, in BOMB 93, Fall 2005.
“Curating Africa: ‘Africa Remix’ and the Categorical Dilemma”, in Wasafiri 45.2, 2005. 47-55.
“The Spectacular Difference of Documenta 11”, in Third Text 17.1, 2003. 85-92.
The Future of a Promise: Contemporary Art from the Arab World (Ibraaz Publishing, 2011).

Selected Recent Conferences and Talks

2021

Symposium Co-Convenor (with Carolina Rito), Practice Research: Interdisciplinary Methodologies in Cultural Institutions and HEIs, in collaboration with the AHRC Midlands4Cities Doctoral Training Programme, 10/06/2021
Public Talk: “The Future of Protest in a Post-Digital Age”, Wallach Art Gallery, Columbia University, 26/03/2021
Book Launch: (W)archives. Archival Imaginaries, War, and Contemporary Art, Mosaic Rooms, London, 25/02/21
Egypt’s 2011 Internet Shutdown: Digital Dissent and the Future of Public Memory, Mosaic Rooms, London, 28/01/21

2020

Launch of the Journal of Digital War (Palgrave/ Macmillan, 2020), Mosaic Rooms, London, 2020/04/11
Collective Infrastructures and Knowledge Production in a Post-Digital Age, Mosaic Rooms, London, 2020/12/11
Book Publication: Heba Y. Amin: The General’s Stork (Sternberg Press, 2020), Mosaic Rooms, London, 2020/07/10:
Book Launch and Talk: The Matter of Critique, Tate Liverpool, April 30, 2020
Book Launch: Research/Practice 02: Heba Y Amin: The General’s Stork, HKW, Berlin, April 16, 2020
Book Launch: Balaskas and Rito, eds., Institution as Praxis: New Curatorial Directions for Collaborative Research, Nottingham Contemporary, Nottingham, March 26, 2020

2019

Book Launch: Research/Practice 03: Larissa Sansour: Heirloom, Copenhagen Contemporary, December 12, 2019.
Public Talk: “Beyond the Arab Uprisings: Cultural Activism and the Rise of Digital Authoritarianism in a Post-Truth Age”, Department of Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies, University of Copenhagen, December 12, 2019.
Lecture and PhD Workshop: “The Politics of Visual Culture in the Middle East and Global South”, Graduate School, Arts at Aarhus University, December 10, 2019
Public Talk: “Performing Rights”, Institute for Global Prosperity, UCL, London, 14 November, 2019
Public Talk: Trevor Paglen in conversation with Anthony Downey, Barbican Centre, London, 26 September, 2019
Keynote: “The Future of the Networked Image: Digital Archives in a ‘Post Truth’ Age”, Irish Museum of Modern Art Summer School, Dublin, June 11, 2019
Public Talk: Performing Rights, TrAIN Open Lecture, UAL, London, 24 Apr 2019
Public Talk: “Applied Futures”, The (Networked) Image in Conflict: Cultural Activism and Visual Culture, Modern Art Oxford, April 4, 2019
Conference Paper: “Conditions of Possibility”, The Midlands Higher Education and Culture Forum, March 27, 2019
Keynote: Applied Futures: Digital Archives in a “Post Truth” Age, Archive Kabinett Berlin/Silent Green Kulturquartier, Berlin, January 26, 2019
Public Talk: Was I sleeping, while the others suffered: Contemporary Art, the Refugee Condition, and the Alibi of Engagement, ifa, Berlin, January 28, 2019

2018

Keynote Lecture: “Art after ISIS: Digital Networks and the Future of the Post Conflict Image” Photographies and Conflict: Archiving and Consuming Images of Strife, ICPT Conference, Nicosia, Cyprus, November 22-24, 2018.
Public Talk: Akram Zaatari in conversation with Anthony Downey, New Art Exchange, Nottingham, 14 July, 2018.
Public Lecture: “Performing Rights”, Eastside Projects, Birmingham, 13 June, 2018.
Public Talk: “Unconformities: Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige in conversation with Anthony Downey”, Acropolis Museum, Athens, 30 April, 2018.
Public Lecture: “Performing Rights: Contemporary Art, Public Institutions and the Refugee Condition”, ThalieLab, Brussels, Belgium, 22 March, 2018.
Jury Member, Beirut Art Residency (BAR), Beirut, in conjunction with Ziad Antar, Sandra Dagher, Fouad Elkhoury, and Bernard Khoury. 24 February, 2018.
Public Lecture: “The Future of Image Production in the Middle East”, Nottingham Contemporary, Nottingham, 13 February, 2018.
Conference Talk: Anthony Downey in conversation with Edmund Clarke, “Edmund Clarke: In Place of Hate”, IKON Gallery, Birmingham, 12 February, 2018.
Public Lecture: “Who Benefits from the Work of Art: Political Exceptionalism and the Refugee Condition”, V-A-C Foundation, Moscow, 20 January, 2018.

2017

Conference Paper: “Neoliberal Visions: Cultural Institutions and the Political Economy of Global Culture in the Middle East”, Birzeit University, Birzeit, Palestine, 11 November, 2017.
Public Talk: Ai Weiwei and Anthony Downey, FOMU, Antwerp, 25 October, 2017.
Public Talk: John Akomfrah and Anthony Downey, Barbican Centre, London, 12 October, 2017.
Chair: “On Photography and Politics Today” (Ahlam Shibli, Edmund Clark, Nikolai Larsen), Unseen, Amsterdam, 23 September, 2017.
Conference Paper: “The Future of Image Production: Hermeneutic Suspicions and Neoliberal Conundrums”, Producing Image Activism after the Arab Uprisings Conference, University of Stockholm, 6-8 September 2017
Conference Paper: “The Archive as Alibi”, (W)archives Conference, University of Copenhagen, 21-22 August, 2017
Keynote Lecture: “Performing Rights: The Subject of Injustice and the Cultural Logic of Late Modernity”, Art, Justice and Terrorism, a one-day conference, Imperial War Museum, London, June 17, 2017
Chair: “Representing the Artist”, Survival of the Artist, a one-day symposium at the British Museum, London, 2 July, 2017
Keynote Paper: “Neoliberal Visions: Cultural Institutions and the Political Economy of Global Culture in the Middle East”, Decolonizing the Cultural Institution, CCLPS Conference, SOAS, London, 16 June, 2017.
Artist’s Talk: Anthony Downey in conversation with Judy Price and Lucy Reynolds, Mosaic Rooms, London, 26 April, 2017
Conference Paper: Instrumental Visions: Neoliberalism, Cultural Institutions and Cultural Policy in the Middle East, Westminster University, London, 21 April, 2017
Public Talk: Richard Mosse in conversation with Anthony Downey, Barbican Centre, London, 20 February, 2017

2016

Conference Paper: Hermeneutic Suspicions: Contemporary Visual Culture, Insurgency, and the Future of Archiving Conflict in the Middle East, Terrorism and Cultural Freedom, Birmingham City University, 7 June, 2016.
Public Talk: “Hermeneutic Suspicion: Digital Archiving, Conflict and Cultural Production in the Middle East”, University of Sussex, Brighton, 16 February, 2016.
Public Talk: “John Akomfrah in conversation with Anthony Downey”, Arnolfini, Bristol, Saturday 16 January 2016.

2015

Conference Convenor: “Archival Fever (Again)”, panel discussion for book launch of Gulf Labor’s The Gulf: High Culture/Hard Labor, edited by Andrew Ross for Gulf Labor (OR books, 2015) Rivington Place, London, 19 November 2015
Public Talk: “States and Non-States: Performance Art in the Middle East and Public Space”, The Institut d'Etudes Supérieures des Arts (IESA), Leighton House, London, November 2015.
Conference Paper: “Challenges of a Shared World: New Media and Social Networks”, University of Oxford, Oxford, 25 October 2015.
Conference Paper: “The Ethics of Ethical Criticism”, AICA: London Congress Symposium: Who Cares? Value, Veneration and Criticality”, Royal College of Art, London, 27 October 2015.
Public Talk: “Edinburgh International Book Festival: Art on the Attack”, Garden Theatre, University of Edinburgh, Scotland, 28 August 2015.
Pubic Talk: “Zarina Bhimji in conversation with Anthony Downey” NAE Nottingham, Nottingham, 15 July 2015.
Principal Convenor: “Visual Culture in an Age of Global Conflict.” National Museum of Bardo in Tunis, Tunisia. 28-30 May 2015.
Conference Paper: “Hermeneutic Suspicion, Digital Technology, And The Crisis Of Representation In The Middle East”, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, 14 April 2015.
Conference Paper: “What does Digital Activism in the Arts Mean Today?: The Middle East as a Case Study”, Harvard Centre for Government and International Studies/ Harvard & MIT Programming BBP, 17-24 January 2015.

2014

Conference Paper: “Digital Media, New Media and the Middle East”, University College London.
Conference Paper: “Research and Knowledge Production in the Middle East: Ibraaz as Case Study”, Critical Machines: Art Periodicals Today, American University of Beirut, March 7-8, 2014.
Public Talk: Art and Politics Now”, London School of Economics, 13 Oct 2014.
Principal Convenor: “Cultural Production and Cultural Relations,” National Museum of Bardo, Tunis, Tunisia. 9-11, April, 2014.

2013

Principal Convenor: “Future Imperfect: Cultural Propositions and Global Perspectives”, Tate Modern, 9 November 2013.
Conference Paper: “The Future of an Anachronism: Civil Conflict and Visual Culture in the Middle East, Centre for Media Studies, School of the Arts, SOAS, London, May, 2013
Conference Paper: “Knowledge Production and Distribution in the Middle East and Public Sphere”, Museum Infrastructure and Domestic Support SOAS, Regional vis-à-vis Global Discourses, Contemporary Art from the Middle East at the London Middle East Institute, Brunei Gallery Lecture Theatre, 5 July 2013.
Conference Paper: “Culture and Conflict”, WSA Global Futures, The Mosaic Rooms, London, June 2013.

2012

Conference Paper: “Power, Knowledge and Patronage in the Context of Civil Society in the MENA Region”, Art and Patronage Summit, British Museum and Royal College of Art, London, 13 January 2012.
Conference Paper: “I am for an Art Criticism That… A Symposium on the use and Influence of Arts Writing Today|”, Witte de With Centre for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam, 28 November 2012.

To download copies of Professor Downey's essays and books, please see his website.

Media Work

Public Talk: Trevor Paglen in conversation with Anthony Downey, Barbican Centre, London, September 26, 2019.
Public Talk: Akram Zaatari in conversation with Anthony Downey, New Art Exchange, Nottingham, 14 July, 2018.
Public Talk: “Unconformities: Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige in conversation with Anthony Downey”, Acropolis Museum, Athens, 30 April, 2018.
Public Talk: Anthony Downey in conversation with Edmund Clarke, “Edmund Clarke: In Place of Hate”, IKON Gallery, Birmingham, 12 February, 2018.
Public Talk: Ai Weiwei and Anthony Downey, FOMU, Antwerp, 25 October, 2017.
Public Talk: John Akomfrah and Anthony Downey, Barbican Centre, London, 12 October, 2017.
Public Talk: Richard Mosse in conversation with Anthony Downey, Barbican Centre, London, 20 February, 2017
Interview: Future: Imperfect: An Interview with Anthony Downey, Di’van Journal, December 2016
Interview: “Art and Politics Now: An Interview with Anthony Downey” in Keen on Protest. 18 July 2016
Interview: "Interview with Anthony Downey Art Contemporain Arabe: La Subversion des Formes" in Qantara. Summer 2016.
Review: Slavs and Tatars in Art Asia Pacific, Almanac 2016
Review: Dissonant Archives in Art Asia Pacific, Almanac 2016.
Review: Art and Politics Now in E-International Relations, 22 February 2016.
Review: A Necessary Dialogue: JAOU Tunis 2015 in Kalimat Magazine, 14 June 2015.
Review: JAOU Tunis uses art and culture as a retort to extremism, 1 June 2015.
Review: SCTIW: Review of Uncommon Grounds, 2015
Review: Uncommon Grounds, H-AMCA, H-Net Reviews, May 2015.
Review: Uncommon Grounds in The Art Newspaper, 1 May 2015.
Review: Art and Politics Now in Art Review Asia, Spring 2015
Review: Transnational Cinema Review of Uncommon Grounds, 10 April 2015.
Review: New Texts Out Now: Uncommon Grounds in Jadaliyya, 4 March 2015.
Interview: The Monocle Weekly, Monocle Radio, 2 November 2014.
Interview: 7 questions for Ibraaz’s Anthony Downey, I.B.Tauris Blog, 10 October 2014.
Review: Best of 2014: Our Top 10 Art Books, Hyperallergic, 31 December 2014
Review: Uncommon Grounds on LSE Blog, 7 December 2014.
Review: Uncommon Grounds in Kalimat, 5 November 2014.
Interview: Downey, Anthony. "Geocentric Conundrums: Aesthetics and Ethics in Contemporary Art; Gemma Lloyd Interviews Anthony Downey." CAC Interviu. 16-17, 2010/2011: 53-60.
Interview: Downey, Anthony, “Yinka Shonibare: The Anarchist Artist”, CNN African Voices, 17 May 2010

Work With Industry

Creative industries and Contemporary Art in the Middle East and Global South
Publishing and Contemporary Art practices in the Middle East

Professional Affiliations:

Editor, Third Text (Routledge), appointed 2006.
Editor, Journal of Digital War (Palgrave Macmillan), appointed 2019.
Editorial Board, Journal of Memory, Mind & Media (Cambridge University Press).
Editor-in-Chief of Ibraaz (ibraaz.org), appointed 2011-2017.
Series Editor, Research/Practice (Sternberg Press/MIT), 2019-present.
Series Editor, Visual Culture in the Middle East (Sternberg Press), 2016-present.
Consultant Editor, Open Arts Journal at the Open University (openartsjournal.org), appointed 2012.
Trustee, Strange Cargo (an Arts Council funded organization focusing on community-based arts project, strangecargo.org.uk), appointed 2014.
Trustee, Maryam and Edward Eisler Foundation, appointed 2011.
Trustee, Arts Cabinet (an organization that develops international art and culture programmes in the Middle East and beyond, artscabinet.org), appointed 2015.
Research Associate, the Institute of Human Activities (humanactivities.org), appointed 2016.