Mophradat’s Arts Fellows program is a twelve-week part-time training program at an international art institution. The program is for young curators, arts managers, arts producers, and arts administrators of the Arab diaspora in and outside of the Arab world (including recent migrants and refugees). It enables them to develop their knowledge, skills, and professional networks in their adopted context.

Eligible fellows will have been living in the city where the program is taking place for no less than a year and speaks a local language. Mophradat provides each Arts Fellow with a stipend during the program. (Please note that this opportunity is not a residency program for artists.)

• Abdurabu Mohammed Saeed at CiC: Contemporary Image Collective, Cairo

Saeed (Yemen/Somalia, 1996) is a self-taught photographer and filmmaker who lives and works in Cairo since 2013. He publishes videos and short films on his Youtube channel AMSN Productions. He was a fellow at CiC: Contemporary Image Collective in Cairo.

CiC is a cultural institution with a special interest in the overlap of visual culture, artistic practice and critical discourse, CiC’s activities combine education and knowledge exchange, exhibitions and gatherings that allow for shared experiences of seeing, reading, listening and talking to each other as well as research, on and offline resources, a public library and a range of image production facilities. Based on a practice situated in the specific local context of Cairo, CiC forges connections with lines of inquiry, practices, works of art, individuals and organizations in the region and beyond.

• Laila Sharif at SALT, Istanbul

Sharif (Libya, 1971) is a multimedia artist based in Istanbul. She studied design and fine arts at the Faculty of Fine Arts and Media in Tripoli, and glass handcrafting at Scuola Del Vetro Abate Zanetti in Venice.

A not-for-profit cultural institution in public service, SALT engages in research, exhibitions, publications, web projects, conferences, and other public programs in Istanbul and Ankara, Turkey. It was founded as a post-departmentalized institution which does not prioritize any period, discipline or object-based practice, with the aim to channel content and substance into a broader discussion. SALT explores critical and timely issues in visual and material culture and cultivates innovative programs for research and experimental thinking.

• Doreen Toutikian at State of Concept, Athens

Toutikian (Lebanon, 1985) is a cultural entrepreneur, design researcher, university lecturer, and consultant to UN agencies. In the past 10 years, she founded Beirut Design Week, MENA Design Research Center, and the non-profit organization LOOP in Athens.

Founded in 2013 by art critic and curator iLiana Fokianak, State of Concept is the first non-profit institution with a permanent location and a yearly program to operate in Greece. It is an independent platform aiming to foster the appreciation for local and international contemporary art and the growth of artistic and curatorial practice. Operating as a bridge between Athens and the international contemporary art scene, its core interest is to bring to the fore artistic practices that question the current social, economic and political phenomena of Europe and beyond.

• Nouha Ben Yebdri at Centro de Arte Dos de Mayo, Madrid

Ben Yebdri (Morocco/Algeria, 1989) is an independent curator based between Madrid and Tangier. She is a member of Madrassa Collective and the founder of Mahal, an interdisciplinary art space for research and contemporary practices in Tangier.

CA2M opened in Madrid’s southern Mósteles district in May 2008 on the bicentenary of the uprising against Napoleon’s occupation of Spain. Madrid’s only museum dedicated only to contemporary art, it has a collection of over 2000 works, a library and a cafeteria, and its program includes exhibitions, screenings, symposia, workshops, courses, and debates. It works to question the present and articulate the narratives of contemporary Spanish art.

• Ali Eyal at Ashkal Alwan, Beirut

Eyal (Iraq, 1994) is a visual artist whose work explores relationships between community and politics. Using different media such as video, photography, and painting, Eyal examines social attitudes, particularly in the context of Baghdad and Iraq at large. He holds an undergraduate degree from the Institute of Fine Arts in Baghdad.

Since 1993, Ashkal Alwan has produced, facilitated, and circulated creative and intellectual endeavors across a range of disciplines and media. Its programs include the Home Works Forum on Cultural Practices, curated projects in Lebanon and abroad, the publication of literary works and artists’ books, artists-in-residency programs and the video production and screening program Video Works. In 2011, Ashkal Alwan launched Home Workspace, a 2000m² facility in Beirut dedicated to arts education and production.

• Eyas Al Mokdad at Beurschouwburg, Brussels

Al Mokdad (Syria, 1981) is a filmmaker, producer, choreographer, and dancer. He holds a master’s degree in transmedia (audiovisual arts) from LUCA School of Arts in Brussels, and a bachelor’s degree in dramatic arts, ballet, and dance from the Higher Institute of Theatrical Arts in Damascus.

Beursschouwburg is a “platform for between-the-arts” in the heart of Brussels. Its three-speed program includes theatrical productions, performances, films, concerts, exhibitions, debates, lectures, parties and drinks in the BeursKafee. Founded in 2004, it is recognized as a polymorphic theater that provides a platform for young and innovative artists to reflect, show, scrap and start again in an ongoing dialogue with thinking and creative audiences.

• Ichraf Nasri at WIELS | Contemporary art centre, Brussels

Nasri (Tunisia, 1988) is a multidisciplinary artist working between photography, installation, video, and writing. She earned an MA at the Ecoles supérieure des Beaux Arts in Sousse, Tunisia, before moving to Belgium and completing an MA at La Cambre arts visuels. Ichraf lives and works in Brussels, and she is co-founder and member of GUSH collective.

A contemporary art institution without a collection, WIELS presents temporary exhibitions by national and international artists, both emerging and established. Through these and a host of complementary activities, it is a site of creation and for discussions of current events and issues starting with art and architecture. Housed in a 1930s brewery, WIELS opened in 2007 and has exhibition halls, a cinema, studios for artists-in-residence, a café and bookshop.

• Aly Talibab at Off Biennale, Budapest

Talibab (Egypt, 1991) is a spoken word artist and musician using music as a common ground for conversation and social critique. He has released two EPs, and several singles and videos.

Launched in 2014, Off Biennale Budapest is Hungary’s largest civil independent arts initiative. Organized on a grassroots basis by a micro-association, it is a DIY biennale based on self-organization and collaboration among artists, curators, cultural and civil organizations, galleries, students and more. Aiming to strengthen the local art scene and enhance the culture of democracy, Off Biennale does not apply for state funding and steers clear of state-run art institutions.

• Ruba Totah at Münchner Kammerspiele, Munich

Totah (Palestine, 1985) is a PhD researcher with the group Transnational Social Support at JGU in Mainz, focusing on Syrian artists experiencing refuge in Europe. She holds a gender and development MA on Palestinian performing art and social change with a view on religiosity, class and sexuality from BZU-Palestine, and has worked as cultural manager at NGOs such as the Tamer Institute for Community Education and the Edward Said Conservatory of Music.

Founded in 1906, the Münchner Kammerspiele is among the most important German-speaking stages. Shaped by an ensemble that seeks to dialogue with and confront the present, it is an aesthetically innovative, contemporary, and cosmopolitan municipal theater with a socio-political focus. Increasingly international in its collaborations, it probes diverse forms of and approaches to work, with production conditions custom-made for each director or collective. 

• Samar Ziadat at CCA: Centre for Contemporary Arts, Glasgow

Ziadat (Jordan/UK, 1988) is an art historian, activist, and co-founding editor at dardishi.com, which publishes artwork and writing produced by Arab women. Previously, she has worked at Glasgow Women’s Library, the Scottish Queer International Film Festival, and the University of Edinburgh’s Centre for Research Collections.

CCA presents cutting-edge exhibitions, film, music, literature, spoken word, festivals, Gaelic and performance. Aiming to commission new projects from artists and show them to the widest possible audience, CCA has played a key role in Glasgow’s cultural life since 1992. It curates six exhibitions of national and international contemporary artists a year, as well as exhibiting emerging artists and operating an open-source programming policy.