Mai Abu ElDahab

Mai Abu ElDahab

Director, Mophradat, Belgium

Working in Belgium since 2007, Mai Abu ElDahab is a contemporary art curator from Cairo. Since 2015, she is director of Mophradat, an organization creating opportunities for artists from the Arab world while experimenting with what an art institution is and how it can be eccentric and relevant. She is engaged with contemporary dance, music, visual arts, and writing, and the conditions of work in the arts. In previous roles as curator, she focused on working and developing solo project with artists, and is particularly interested in long evenings that take the audience from listening to words, to being consumed by performance, to taking over the dance floor themselves. She enjoys publishing and had produced several publications with Sternberg Press and proudly commissioned two LPs. Her interest in publishing continues with Mophradat’s ongoing booklet series Read the Room, and recent books including Can We Rule It Out? Collective ideas for keeping sexual abuse out of art space (Mophradat, 2022), Why Call It Labour? On Motherhood and Arts Work (Archive Books & Mophradat, 2020), and Lentil Space, a book of recipes from artist’s homes (forthcoming, 2024).