the research team

Mona Deeley

Lisa Le Feuvre
Lisa is a curator and writer based in London. She is Curator of Contemporary Art at the National Maritime Museum and teaches on the Curatorial Programme at Goldsmiths, University of London. Her recent curatorial projects include Avalanche 1970 - 1976 (2005 - Chelsea Space, London); Dennis Oppenheim: Recall (2006 - MOT, London); Simon Faithfull: Ice Blink (2006 - Stills, Edinburgh; Cell Project Space, London and Parkers Box New York); Dan Holdsworth: At the Edge of Space, Parts 1- 3 (2006 - National Maritime Museum, London); and the forthcoming Lawrence Weiner: Inherent in the Rhumb Line (2006 - National Maritime Museum, London). Her recent writing projects include publication essays on Yto Barrada, Chris Burden, Esther Shalev-Gerz, Wolfgang Weileder and Cerith Wyn Evans (all 2006).

Ayssar Arida
Ayssar is a practising architect and urban designer working in London. He has taught architecture and urban design at the American University of Beirut. His publications include his book Quantum City (www.quantumcity.com) and papers on the relationship between worldviews and the development of cities. His consultancy Q-Dar (www.q-dar.com) blurs the traditional boundaries between development, architecture and research. He is cofounder of the Centre for the Special Realm, a research body for expanding publicawareness of public space through science and art.

Malu Halasa
Malu is an editor and journalist who has written about the culture and politics of the Middle East since the 1990s, for the Guardian, the Financial Times, Time magazine among other publications. She is a founding editor of Tank magazine (1998-2002) and a former editor for the Prince Claus Fund, the Netherlands, and managing editor of the Fund’s visually led book imprint, (2000-2004). She co-edited Transit Beirut: New Writing and Images (2004) and Creating Spaces of Freedom: Culture in Defiance (2002). Last year she lectured on cultural and personal identity in popular publications for the British Council as part of Creative Lebanon and on studio photography, case studies from Iran, Palestine and Lebanon, for the Photographers’ Gallery, London.

Rana Salam
Rana Salam is a graduate from both Central St. Martins College of Art and in 1992 from the Royal College of Art with an MA in Graphics and Art Direction. She has been running her own London-based design practice www.ranasalam.com over 15 years.The studio specializes in Middle Eastern Popular Art and Street Culture, drawing on colorful imagery and using the latest design technology to create a unique vision of graphic design and at direction that has been commissioned by Paul Smith, Liberty's, Harvey Nichols,Villa Moda, Boutique 1 and the V&A (Victoria & Albert Museum), among others. She has been exhibited in Lebanon, Dubai and the UK by the Arts Council and inIVA. She also lectures and does workshops on the visual communication and art of the contemporary Middle East pop culture ­ for the British Council as part of Creative Lebanon, the British Museum's Offscreen project, and the International Design Forum in Dubai in May 2007.

Ghalya Saadawi
Ghalya has a masters degree from the London School of Economics in Political Science. She is currently a PhD candidate at Goldsmiths College. She will be investigating certain aspects of contemporary art in Lebanon. She has taught at the American University of Beirut, the Lebanese American University and Balamand University. She has worked as a researcher and consultant with a range of non-governmental organizations. She also has a collection of prose poetry currently in preparation.