Film Forum

Since its founding in 2003 as a NY-based cultural institution specializing in Middle Eastern film programming, ArteEast has become a leading organization advocating for and supporting Southwest Asia and North Africa (SWANA) artists’ engagement with U.S.-based arts communities and audiences. Through strategic partnerships, exhibitions, content rich online platforms, including a legacy ArteArchive program preserving and presenting over 17 years of film and video from and about the SWANA region, and much more, ArteEast plays an essential role in bridging a community of understanding between the two regions.

Lila Nazemian (she/her) is an independent curator and the Special Projects Curator at ArteEast in New York. Her research and curatorial practice are focused on reimagining approaches to histories from the Middle East/Southwest and Central Asia region in an effort to counter narrative revisionism and collective amnesia. Recent curatorial projects include: “Now That We Have Established A Common Ground” within Protocinema’s Emerging Curator Series, (2022);  "A Few In Many Places, New York," Protocinema, Governors Island New York, (2021); "I open my eyes and see myself under a tree laden with fruit that I cannot name," Center for Book Arts, New York (2020); "On Echoes of Invisible Hearts: Image Making and Popular Archiving in Times of Unrest," Station Beirut, (2019); "On Echoes of Invisible Hearts: Narratives of Yemeni Displacement," Poetry Project, Berlin (2018); and "Spheres of Influence," Mohsen Gallery, Tehran (2016). In 2017, she was the U.S. Projects Director at CULTURUNNERS, where, on behalf of the King Abdulaziz Center for World Culture (Ithra), she managed a Saudi artist residency in New York and supported various American Museums to produce their exhibitions of Saudi art. Prior to this, she was the Curatorial Associate at Leila Heller Gallery, New York. She received a B.A. in History from Scripps College, California; and an M.A. in Near Eastern Studies from N.Y.U., New York. She was a QAYYEM 2019 Curatorial Fellow, was among the inaugural participants of the 2018-2019 Interdisciplinary Art and Theory Program in New York and participated in ICI’s 2018 Curatorial Intensive in Bangkok.

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