Conversation between Shadi Harouni and Lila Nazemian

Lila Nazemian, Programs and Communications Director Lila Nazemian (she/her) is an independent curator and the Special Projects Curator at ArteEast in New York. In 2023, she joined the Brooklyn-based Transmitter gallery as a co-director. Her research and curatorial practice are focused on reimagining approaches to histories from the Middle East/Southwest Asia North Africa (SWANA) and Central Asia regions in an effort to counter narrative revisionism and collective amnesia. Recent curatorial projects include: Now That We Have Established a Common Ground, as part of Protocinema’s Emerging Curator Series at and in partnership with the Clemente, New York (2022); A Few In Many Places in New York, Protocinema, Governors Island New York, (2021); I open my eyes and see myself under a tree laden with fruit that I cannot name, Center for Book Arts, New York (2020). Nazemian teaches part-time at NYU Steinhardt’s Department of Art & Art Professions. She received a B.A. in History from Scripps College, California; and an M.A. in Near Eastern Studies from N.Y.U., New York. She was a QAYYEM 2019 Curatorial Fellow, was among the inaugural participants of the 2018-2019 Interdisciplinary Art and Theory Program in New York and participated in ICI’s 2018 Curatorial Intensive in Bangkok.