Wided Rihana Khadraoui

Biography

Writer and art manager Wided Rihana Khadraoui works at the intersection of contemporary art and its production, research practice, and development theory in the Middle East and North Africa. She works with museums and cultural institutions to integrate digital strategy to help create future cultural institutions.

She writes on art, culture and politics and her articles include Don’t Forget the Women Who Forged Saudi Arabia’s Art Scene (artsy.net, 2018); Arguing Semantics: What Exactly is “Arab Art”? (Middle East Institute, Washington, 2017); and Art in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia (ArtAsiaPacific magazine, 2015).

She speaks regularly at industry conferences on the subject of technology and diversity in the arts, especially on technology’s potential to foster the inclusion of non-traditional and historically undervalued stakeholders in the creative sector.

Khadraoui has produced several cultural events including Art Riyadh, the city’s first art fair dedicated to unrepresented artists as well as international communication campaigns and public programmes for Saudi Design Week. She is also an instructor at the Node Center for Curatorial Studies and the Abu Dhabi Curatorial Programme.

Khadraoui founded and directed Tazuri Projects, a digital-first curatorial platform focusing on the professional development of minority artists until 2020, before switching her efforts to helping integrate digital strategy with overall goals of cultural institutions.

She holds a MA in Art and Cultural Enterprise from Central Saint Martins, London (2018) and an MSc from the London School of Economics in Comparative Politics (2010).

Born in 1987 in Annaba, she currently lives and works in Riyadh.

SAF participation:

March Meeting 2021