Sara Raza is PhD candidate at the Royal College of Art, an independent curator, longstanding contributing editor for ArtAsiaPacific Magazine (West and Central Asia) and regular contributor for Ibraaz and Harper's Bazaar Art Arabia. She is currently associate curator for Maraya Art Centre, Sharjah and associate curator for the Artist's Pension Trust. Since 2010 she has been a visiting lecturer at Sotheby's Institute of Art, London, for the Masters Contemporary Art programme. Sara was the founding head of curatorial programmes and education programmes for Alaan Artspace in Riyadh, and former curator at Tate Modern and has curated, lectured and published internationally. For a longer bio please see "About Sara" in the pages section to the right.

Sara's contact: critic[dot]curator[at]gmail[dot]com

Finnish-Iraqi artist Adel Abidin presents Blueprint curated by Sara Raza for Maraya Art Centre. Blueprint employs informal architecture and sound to create a large scale interactive drawing. Transforming the gallery into a mock factory, this powerful new work explores the manufactured and globalised nature of identity in a post-Arab Spring era and raises important questions during this time of great transition. Coinciding with his Maraya show Adel will also have a solo project in Dubai at LawrieShabibi Gallery curated by Basak Senova entitled Symphony. The exhibition will run from March until June.

Wafaa Bilal: The Hierarchy of Being (2013) curated by Sara Raza is a brand new sculpture commissioned for the launch of the Maraya Art Park, Sharjah by the international, New York based Iraqi-American artist and NYU professor. This work explores visual culture through the lens of pioneering Islamic sciences and examines how these ideas have impacted current thinking and is based on polymaths Al-Haytham and his discovery of the first camera and Al-Jazari’s rotary methods to produce kinetic motion. The result is a memorable immersive experience that re-creates the function of a pinhole camera. The project launches on 20 March and runs until the end of 2013.

* Canvas Daily: "Maraya Art Centre inaugurates the Maraya Art Park with an outstanding commissioned sculpture, The Hierarchy of Being, by Iraqi-American artist and NYU Assistant Arts Professor Wafaa Bilal. The project, curated by Maraya’s Associate Curator Sara Raza." Editor Myrna Ayad Mar 2013

* Khaleej Times: "Speaking of her involvement, Raza said: “’The Hierarchy of Being’ is an exhibition that recontexualises how art and architecture correspond with public space and time. I am delighted to have worked with Wafaa, an artist who is driven to explore new limits within our visual cultural understanding of vision and mobility.” Mar 2013

* Gulf Art Guide: "Curatorial shows give a lot of premise to artworks and exhibitions allowing them to be properly contextualized. In the context of contemporary art from the Gulf, where everything is very new and art histories are also new, it requires a curatorial responsibility." - Sara Raza interviewed by Arie Amaya Akkermans Jan 2013

*The Guardian: "The emerging conceptual aesthetic is evident, with mixed results, in the nascent gallery scenes in Jeddah and Riyadh. The Alaan Artspace opened in Riyadh last week with a show for three female Saudi artists curated by Sara Raza, formerly of Tate Modern." By David Batty (Oct 2012)

*BBC: Sara Raza in conversation with Samira Ahmed http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00y8vfr#p00z2r1d

*The Daily Telegraph: "New art centre opens in Saudi capital Riyadh, whose founder, creative director and chief curator are all women and whose inaugural show 'SoftPower' shows a selection of thought provoking works entirely by women." By Catherine Milner (Sept 2012)

* The National: "With grace, subtlety, and an indefatigable drive, young women are creating new boundaries for a contemporary art scene that barely existed just a few years ago. Their work is feminist in nature and asks questions about society without offering any clear-cut response." By Elizabeth Dickenson (Oct 2012)

*Harper's Bazaar Art: "Alaan Artspace is being touted as a 'multi-functional' artspace, which expansively includes an educational hub, as well as library, restaurant, shop and coffeehouse. Founded by artist and collector Neama A. Alsudairy and Mohammed A Alsudairy as head of business development, the gallery has its creative director Jamal Taraya Baroudy and Harper's Bazaar contributor Sara Raza as its head of curatorial programmes and education." By Arsalan Mohammed (Sept 2012)

* Ahram: " The edgy Soft Power artists are part of a contemporary art movement in Saudi Arabia that draws influences from global art. Soft Power curator and head of curatorial programmes and education at Alaan Artspace, Sara Raza, who has been working with art in the Gulf for a number of years; in Sharjah and Dubai, as well as Asia, says the Saudi art movement is still at a grassroots level, but it is rapidly growing." By Sara Elkamel (Oct 2012).

* Art and Auction: "Alāan Artspace—alāan means “now” in Arabic—has opened in Riyadh. The Saudi capital’s first curated space for contemporary art and design. The inaugural exhibition, “SoftPower” (through December 10), organized by Sara Raza, a curator and critic based in London, features emerging artists Sarah Mohanna Al-Abdali and Sarah Abu Abdallah and the widely exhibited Manal Al Dowayan." By Marcia E. Vetrocq (Oct 2012)

ARTINFO: "Saudi Arabian Art Scene Makes Room for Women: Women artists and curators are playing a big role in the development of arts and culture in Saudi Arabia, with the debut of Alaan Artspace, a gallery launched by (female) curator Sara Raza and collector Neama A Alsudairy." (Sept 2012)

*ArtAsiaPacific: "Our [Alaan Artspace's] primary focus will be on providing Saudi artists the opportunity to participate in well thought out curated shows. We have enlisted Sara Raza as our head curator." By Reza Faroughi (Sept 2012)

*The Art Newspaper: "First curated contemporary art space to open in Riyadh next month [Alaan Artspace]. The opening exhibition, “Soft Power” (26 September-10 December), represents a breakthrough, featuring three Saudi female artists. Soft Power" and Alaan Artspace's educational programmes are organised by Sara Raza, the former curator of public programmes for Tate Modern in London." By Gareth Harris (Aug 2012)

* The National: "Saatchi launched its 100 Curators 100 Days project. The geographical spread has been impressive and the focus shifts to the Emirates, as the choices of Sara Raza, associate curator at the Maraya Arts Centre in Sharjah go live." By Ben East (Aug 2012)

*The National: "Many of the artists that Raza has selected explore the transformative power of transition. The portmanteau of Migra (-tion) and Sophia (philosophy) in the show's title suggests that those whose lives are defined by migrancy take on a certain outlook, and are somehow equipped to deal with the unfixed, nation-less state of a globalised world." By Chris Lord (Apr 2012)

Gulf Today: "Sara Raza, curator of the exhibition, said that Migrasophia is not a regional survey show of the post-Soviet sphere of Central Asia and its neighbouring regions of the Caspian and the Caucasus. She explained that it is instead a critical curatorial inquiry into the relationship between migration and philosophy." (Mar 2012)

Canvas: "Curated by Sara Raza Migrasophia is the first show on contemporary practices from the Post-Soviet terrain to be staged in the UAE." (Mar 2012)

*The National: "Smart, interactive and welcome to varied interpretation, Dust Breeding is a worthy insight into a conceptually tight voice in new Turkish art....The show has been brought to The Pavilion by Sara Raza, a London-based curator, who also worked with Cavusoglu on his recent RAMPA show." By Chris Lord (Nov 2011)

* Dubai in a Frame: Turkish artist Ergin Çavusoglu’s exhibit entitled, ‘Dust Breeding’ at The Pavilion Downtown was nothing short of brilliant. I am forced to ponder over how some people are blessed with such an ingenious mind. (Nov 2011)

* Gulf News: The informal architecture Çavusoglu has created through his perspective drawing, based on the notion of a real building... in the context of Dubai, refers to the reclamation of the desert for the expansion of the metropolis, the invisible borders between the old and the new, and between different cultures, the ephemeral, ever-changing landscape and the transient population. (Oct 2011)

* ArtInfo/ArtReview: "Best of Art HK 11: Kazakhstani artist Erbossyn Meldibekov's mocking riffs on the "Lost Paradise" of the Soviet Union at Rossi & Rossi curated by Sara Raza." (May/Jun 2011)

*BBC: Sara Raza in conversation with Harriet Gilbert http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p006w445 (Mar 2010)

* AAP Almanac 2010: "..set[ting] the tone for the internationally renowned Kazakh artist's [Erbossyn Meldibekov] first solo exhibition in the UK...curated by ArtAsiaPacific's West and Central Asian desk editor Sara Raza." By HG Masters (Jan 2010)

*Oasis Magazine, Saudi Arabia: "[Bastakiya Art Fair, Dubai] "quenches the mind .... most interesting part of the fair was the BAF Art School organized by ex-Tate curator Sara Raza." By Sara Saeb (Spring 2009)

*Time Out Dubai: "10 reasons to love BAF Art School's programme, curated by Sara Raza, present[s] a compact and lively series of talks and events... these two-hour, weekday sessions offer a chance for artists, critics, students, collectors and members of the public to engage in a daily art debate." By Chris Lord 8 (Mar 2009)

*The National, Abu Dhabi: "BAF Art School, a series of open-access talks curated by Sara Raza, a former curator of public programmes at Tate Modern...It’s being billed as an alternative art school because there’s no art school in the UAE...Sara’s developed some interesting topics which perhaps you would talk about in your visual culture MA.. and it’s about first-time collectors coming along and meeting younger artists.” By Katie Boucher (Mar 2009)

Financial Times: "To represent Central Asia and the Caucasus, curator Sara Raza has alighted on the work of the outlandish Kazak performance artist Erbossyn Meldibekov and also on the emerging Georgian artist..." By Susan Moore (Sept 2008)

Artnet.com: "ShContemporary is co-produced by Lorenzo Rudolf and Bolognafiere Spa...The special exhibition of 30 artists dubbed "Best of Discovery," is to be overseen by independent Beijing curator Huang Du, with input from seven other experts including London-based critic and curator Sara Raza." (Mar 2008)