NEW YORK, NY.- Richard Armstrong, Director, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and Foundation, today announced that London-based curator, critic, and editor Sara Raza has been selected for the third curatorial residency of the Guggenheim UBS MAP Global Art Initiative . In her role as the future Guggenheim UBS MAP Curator, Middle East and North Africa, Ms. Raza will join June Yap (South and Southeast Asia), Pablo León de la Barra (Latin America) and Guggenheim staff in realizing this multiyear program, which supports contemporary art, artists, education, and professional exchange in three of the world’s most diverse and dynamic regions.

Building on MAP’s legacy of supporting research and scholarship, Sara Raza will be the third regional curator to accept a two-year residency with the Guggenheim Museum. She will work closely with the Guggenheim’s curatorial staff to research, identify, and acquire recent artworks by artists of Middle Eastern and North African origin that represent the most salient artistic and cultural practices of the region. Artworks chosen by Raza will enter the permanent collection and form the basis of an exhibition that will open at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, in 2016, and subsequently travel to the region. She will also work closely with education staff at the Guggenheim and each collaborating venue to program talks, workshops, and events related to the exhibition, and will be instrumental in extending the reach of the MAP initiative through related digital content on the project’s website.

“We are delighted to welcome Sara Raza to the Guggenheim UBS MAP team,” Richard Armstrong stated. “With her formidable scholarship, critical eye, and broad range of curatorial and programming experience, she will help us further our goal to realize the potential of art to expand people’s horizons everywhere. Her work will complement and extend the research that the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi curatorial team is undertaking and will greatly enhance the Guggenheim’s engagement with art and artists from the Middle East and North Africa, with lasting impact on the permanent collection through the acquisitions of artworks which, together with educational programs and online content, will create an invaluable cultural resource for the future.”

Jürg Zeltner, CEO of UBS Wealth Management stated, “The Guggenheim UBS MAP Global Art Initiative helps provide a holistic view of some of the world's most dynamic and fast-changing regions. We believe that in art, as in business, it is key to understand different areas of the globe in their cultural, historic, and economic complexity. The appointment of Sara Raza also underlines UBS's own commitment to the Middle East and North Africa.”

Sara Raza has been selected to become Guggenheim UBS MAP Curator, Middle East and North Africa, from a pool of exceptional candidates nominated by a committee of esteemed experts on this region: Sam Bardaouil, independent curator, art historian, performance practitioner, and co-founder of Art Reoriented; Okwui Enwezor, Director, Haus der Kunst, Munich, and Director of the Visual Arts Sector for the 56th Venice Biennale; Reem Fadda, Associate Curator, Middle Eastern Art, Abu Dhabi Project, Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation; Yael Reinharz, Executive Director, Artis; Nada M. Shabout, Professor and Director, Contemporary Arab and Muslim Cultural Studies Institute, University of North Texas; and Christine Tohme, independent curator and founding director of Ashkal Alwan – The Lebanese Association for Plastic Arts, Beirut.

Sara Raza stated, “This MAP curatorship is a wonderful opportunity to explore the depth of contemporary artistic practices emerging from the Middle East and North Africa, and to engage in a dialogue with new audiences. I am especially interested in the thinking sciences in relation to the region’s rich histories and visual and cultural geographies, and how this provides value to current art production and the origin of meaning. Having witnessed the diverse curatorial trajectories that the MAP initiative has taken thus far, I am looking forward to working with the Guggenheim and UBS to bring this remarkable endeavor to its fruition.”

Based in London, Sara Raza is an independent curator, writer, editor, and educator who works on projects in the Middle East, Asia, and Europe. She is the desk editor for West and Central Asia of ArtAsiaPacific magazine, and Head of Education and Public Programmes and Curator of the upcoming 2015 Public Art Festival, organized by Yarat Contemporary Art Space, to coincide with the 1st European Games in Baku, Azerbaijan.

Over the past ten years, Ms. Raza has organized numerous exhibitions at institutions including the Maraya Art Centre in Sharjah, where she was Adjunct Associate Curator from 2012 through 2014, and worked with such artists as Adel Abidin, Wafaa Bilal, and Mohammend Kazem, and launched the Maraya Art Park and international residencies program for Emirati and international artists (2012–14). She was the founding head of curatorial programs at Alaan Artspace in Riyadh, and organized Soft Power, an exhibition of work by three female Saudi Arabian artists, in 2012. Ms. Raza also co-curated Rhizoma, an exhibition of Saudi Arabian artists commissioned by Edge of Arabia at the 55th Venice Biennale (2014). Ms. Raza has curated several independent international exhibitions and projects for biennials and festivals, including Ergin Cavusoglu’s Middle Eastern debut exhibition at The Pavilion Downtown Dubai (2011), the Central Asian Salon for the 6th Tashkent Biennial at the Art Gallery of Uzbekistan (2011), Shezad Dawood’s first North American solo show at the Plug In ICA in Winnipeg (2010), Practices of Everyday Life, New Image Making in the Middle East and Cult of Personality: Erbossyn Meldibekov & Sophia Tabatadze at ShContemporary, Shanghai (both 2008), the 2nd Bishkek International: In the Shadow of Fallen Heroes at the Bishkek Historical Museum and Alto Square in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan (2005), and Art Hong Kong.

A former curator of public programs at Tate Modern (2006–08), Ms. Raza chaired, taught, and programmed one third of the education events at the museum, including symposia, artist talks, and artist workshops. As the recipient of a 2004 South London Gallery/Arts Council curatorial award, she organized a yearlong public program of films, talks, and panels, and co-curated ShowCASe Preview, an exhibition of seventeen British artists (in collaboration with the Contemporary Arts Society), and Depth of Field: Contemporary Art from Lagos. Ms. Raza serves on the educational advisory board of International Artists Development Association in Almaty, Kazakstan, and was previously an educational advisor to Edge of Arabia’s CULTURUNNERS US tour (2013–14). She was a jury member for the 2014 Akbank Contemporary Turkish Artists’ Prize, for which she also curated the shortlist exhibition (2014), and has previously been a nominator for the Jameel Art Prize of the Victoria and Albert Museum, and for the Future Generation Prize of the Victor Pinchuk Foundation. Between 2010 and 2013, she was a regular visiting lecturer at the Sotheby’s Institute in London, where she lectured on the Modern Middle East and Post-Soviet Central Asian Contemporary Art.

Sara Raza holds a Masters in Art History and Theory (20th Century) from Goldsmiths College, University of London, and is currently a Ph.D. candidate, researching post-Soviet Orientalism, at the Royal College of Art. She is currently editing a book derived from her research titled Punk Orientalism.