Dr Omar Kholeif
Dr Omar Kholeif is an author of prose and poetry; an artist of lyric and performance; a curator in the physical and the virtual sphere; a cultural historian of the academy and its peripheries, and a broadcaster who explores the public’s understanding of technology and its relationship to art, culture, and social justice. These themes have been explored in over a dozen award-winning short and medium length films that they have developed as a commissioner, executive, producer, script adviser and screenwriter.
Their writing often tackles issues that eschew official records or history, reflecting on matters such as the aesthetics of mental health, the contours of gender, and the politics of code-switching. Found regularly in magazines, Kholeif is the author or co-author of over two dozen books that have been translated into 12 languages. The curator of 60 visual art exhibitions and more than 100 artist commissions, realised on six continents, Kholeif’s work has been presented at the leading cultural institutions of our time — from Tate to the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA), Chicago; the Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology (MAAT), Lisbon; the Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA), Dublin; the Whitechapel Gallery and the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA), London. They have served the government in leadership roles in agencies; from Abu Dhabi, Dubai, and Sharjah; collaborated with broadcasters from the BBC to Channel 4; and curated ambitious exhibits at international festivals, including the Sharjah, Liverpool, and Venice biennials. Ambitious projects have also been realised with the Manchester International Festival; Frieze Art Fairs; the Armory Show and as Curator of Forum at 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair.
Kholeif is the founder of the only continuing film festival in the UK devoted to Arab cinema, Safar Film Festival, and has acted as a programmer and consultant to the International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) and Sundance. They are the co-founder of the roving curatorial engine, the Centre of Cultural Confusion and is founder of artPost21: www.artpost21.com, a publishing and broadcasting platform that fosters a nurturing space for 21st-century polymaths and their ideas. Their book, Internet_Art: From the Birth of the Web to the Rise of NFTs, is a memoir told from inside of the “digital art world” and is forthcoming from Phaidon and Macmillan in February 2023.