Writers Biographies
Stephen Stapleton is an artist, teacher and social entrepreneur. After encountering the artistic community in Abha during a journey across the Middle East in 2003, he founded the Offscreen Education Programme and Edge of Arabia as platforms for cultural dialogue between the Islamic and western worlds. He has a degree in art and philosophy from the University of Brighton, a PGCE in art education from the University of London and has exhibited his own work in Tehran, Amman, London, Oslo and New York. He has published several books related to the Middle East and won several awards for his work in the field of intercultural education.
Dr Venetia Porter is a curator of Islamic, modern and contemporary Middle Eastern art at the British Museum in London. She studied Arabic and Islamic art at Oxford University and obtained her PhD on the medieval history and architecture of the Yemen (where she has also lived) from the University of Durham. Her exhibitions include: Mightier than the Sword: Arabic Script, Beauty and Meaning, Melbourne (2003); Islamic Arts, Museum Kuala Lumpur (2004); Word into Art: Artists of the Modern Middle East, London (2006) and Dubai (2008); and The Hajj: Journey to the Heart of Islam (scheduled to open in January 2012 at the British Museum).
Dr Linda Komaroff is curator of Islamic art and head of the Middle East Art department at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). Her exhibitions at LACMA include Letters in Gold: Ottoman Calligraphy from the Sakıp Sabancı Collection, Istanbul (1999); The Legacy of Genghis Khan: Courtly Art and Culture in Western Asia, 1256-1353 (2003); A Tale of Two Persian Carpets (2009); and Gifts of the Sultan: The Arts of Giving at the Islamic Courts (scheduled to open in June 2011).
Tim Mackintosh-Smith is an award-winning writer and Arabist based in the Yemen capital of Sana’a for the past 26 years. His first book, Yemen: Travels in Dictionary Land, won the 1998 Thomas Cook/Daily Telegraph Travel Book Award and is now regarded as a classic of Arabian description. His two books on the adventures of the pilgrim and traveller Ibn Battutah, Travels with a Tangerine and The Hall of a Thousand Columns, are to be joined in 2010 by a third, Landfalls: On the Edge of Islam with Ibn Battutah. Tim’s journeys in search of Ibn Battutah have also been turned into a major BBC television series.
Ashraf Fayadh is a Palestinian poet and artist currently living in Abha, Saudi Arabia. His collection of poems, Instructions Within, was published in 2007 by Al-Farabi Publishing House in Beirut, and was listed by the Al-Hayat newspaper in London as one of 2008’s best- selling books across the Middle East. He has also written several essays on modern and contemporary art in the Middle East.
Ahmed Al-Omran is a leading Saudi commentator. His blog, saudijeans.org, is one of the most well-known and longest-running in the Middle East. He has written for major international and regional publications such as the New York Times and Arab News. He has also spoken at several conferences focusing on media and freedom of speech. Ahmed received a Bachelors degree in Medicine and Surgery from King Saud University, Riyadh. He is currently pursuing a Masters in Journalism at Columbia University, New York.
Aarnout Helb is the founder and director of the world’s first museum dedicated solely to contemporary art from Saudi Arabia, the Greenbox Museum in Amsterdam. The museum is the size of a cabinet of curiosities and has similarly modest aims to encourage discussion, learning and enjoyment. The museum only collects and exhibits work by artists living and working in Saudi Arabia.