Sarah Abdu Bushra is our first 2020 Curatorial Residency Fellowship Recipient

ARAK Collection is happy to announce Sarah Abdu Bushra as our first recipient of the Arak Collection Curatorial Residency Fellowship for 2020.
Sarah is a curator of visual and performing arts exhibitions. She’s a co-founder of Contemporary Nights, an Addis Ababa based curatorial forum. In her creative research practice, Sarah works with performing artists looking at the body and its representations as a focal point of exploration and a metaphor to navigate Ethiopian and East African contemporary identity. Towards this end, she has written a book called, Movements Mean More, documenting traditional dances, navigating Ethiopia’s historical and cultural anchor and weaving its contemporary identity through movements.

Sarah will be in residence at our Doha based research facility and we look forward to working with Sarah and sharing our collection and its potential with her and her new look into it.

Doha has become in the last decade a serious and relevant city for the appreciation, discussion and practice of contemporary art practices, having developed, hosted and initiated projects that involve Artists, Curators and Art Writers from all over the world. ARAK Collection is a complimentary contribution to this local and international dialogue, focusing on Artists, Curators and Art Writers from Sub-Saharan Africa.

We are proud to inaugurate our Curatorial Residency Program with an Ethiopian born curator that currently lives and works in Addis Ababa.

About ARAK Collection Curatorial Residency Program:

The ARAK Collection Annual Residency Fellowship Program aims to promote a better knowledge and understanding of Contemporary Sub-Saharan Art in the Middle East and Beyond through research of the extensive works part of their collection.

The resident guest curator is expected to research the collection with the intention of curating an exhibition and writing the exhibition catalogue at the end of the residency period, after in-depth research and the submission of a curatorial concept to be approved by the ARAK Collection Curatorial Advisory Committee.

The Residency Fellowship Program was created to support ARAK Collection’s Mission of developing and supporting young and mid-career artists and curators through promoting curatorial research, publications and exhibitions of their collection’s works. The exhibitions developed and produced by ARAK Collection aspire to be impactful and are all associated with relevant public programming.

About ARAK Collection:

ARAK Collection is an independent, Qatari-based initiative, that aims to promote through exhibitions, publications, research and educational programs, Contemporary  African Art and Artists.

The collection is a resource for Artists, Curators and Researchers, it hosts in-house and traveling exhibitions, it also lends artwork to regional and international organizations, institutions and museums, producing print and online publications, and impactful public programs associated with the exhibitions it produces and hosts. ARAK Collection is a public platform to foster critical dialogue around contemporary art practices with a focus on African Artists and educational programs that have an educational and developmental impact in the local community.

The collection consists of paintings, paper and prints of more than 170 young and mid-career artists of  African countries.

‍