Leeza Ahmady (New York)

Opening Thoughts

Synopsis: In her opening remarks on day 2 of FIELD MEETING forum hosted at the remarkable Concrete hall of Alserkal Avenue in Dubai, Ahmady touched on the significance of this edition’s framework “collections,” and her notion of “seeing the artist as the first collector”. Quoting from her written curatorial narrative she discussed how: “For centuries, artists and other creative individuals have gathered all things physical and conceptual in their effort to create bodies or containers of insights that, at some point in time, become identified as art objects.” She encouraged the audience members made up of many of the MANASA region’s distinguished arts professionals to contemplate these interpretations on ‘colleting and collections’ also through the diverse and nuanced presentations of the invited artists, curators, and creative practitioners’ especially and newly conceived talks, performances, lecture-performances and pop-up installations throughout the day at FIELD MEETING Take 6: Thinking Collections.

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Bio: Born and raised in Afghanistan, Leeza Ahmady is an independent curator and has been the director of Asia Contemporary Art Week (ACAW) since 2005. She has connected New York and Asia’s leading institutions in citywide exhibitions and public programs with over 2,000 artists presented in 9 editions of ACAW in New York. Since 2014, she has staged the significant activities of 200 creative minds in 5 iterations of ACAW FIELD MEETING- signature forum for arts professionals presented at The Metropolitan Museum, Asia Society, Performa, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, and SVA Theatre. Ahmady was an Agent for DOCUMENTA (13) exhibitions in Kassel, Germany and Kabul, Afghanistan (2010-2013) and has presented numerous exhibitions, workshops and public programs at local and international venues, including: Museum of Modern Art, Independent Curators International, Queens Museum, Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art Cornell University, Venice Biennial and Istanbul Biennial amongst many others.