Within a relatively short amount of time, Saudi women have been rising to an increasing number of prominent and key positions in the sectors of science, politics, social activities, and in the field of arts and culture.
Curator and historian Mona Khazindar is precisely one of the Saudi women who has been publically acknowledged for her incredible efforts in the arts and culture. She is namely the first woman – and the first Saudi – to be appointed Director General of the prominent cultural hub Institut du Monde Arabe (IMA) in Paris.
But let’s take a step back to see that Mona Khazindar has always be destined for greatness in the arts and culture. She was born in the United States where her father was studying at the time, her father being the prominent Jeddah-based intellectual Abed Khazindar. Mona Khazindar’s mother is Shams al-Husseini Khazindar, an editor who dedicated herself to the women's page in Al-Yamamah Newspaper from as early as 1964.
Mona Khazindar studied comparative literature at the American University in Paris and she then rounded off her academic career with a master’s degree in modern history from the Sorbonne. In addition to her mother tongue Arabic, she is also fluent in English and in French.
Long before her appointment to Director General in 2011, Khazindar was a specialist in contemporary plastic art and had been with the IMA since 1986, which was at the time a relatively young institution. In her early days, she took on the roles of curator of contemporary art and photography and she also oversaw the institute’s permanent art collection.
Khazindar told Arab News that being the first woman to run the institute was as much a challenge as being the first Saudi to take on this role: “There are lots of expectations,” she said. “I have to prove that Saudi women are no less capable than men — and no less capable than other Arab women. I have to prove that I am no less capable than my male predecessors from other countries.”
For her, she said, the IMA is a “window on Arab culture” and a place where Arab and Western cultures can interact. “We have a very important role: to show how both civilizations have mutually enriched each other and how today you have traces of Islamic civilization, architecture, literature and the like in the West and vice versa.”
Aside from curating and overseeing collections, Khazindar also translates and gives lectures all over the world. She notably co-curated the first Saudi pavilion at the 54th Venice Art Biennial in 2011 and in 2012 the Forum of Arab Women elected her “Woman of the Year.” In 2014 she published her first book “View from the Inside: Contemporary Arab Photography, Video and Mixed Media Art” and now she has another book called “Visions from Abroad: Historical and Contemporary Representations of Saudi Arabia” that is due to come out in 2019.
The world of art and culture, and not only that from Saudi Arabia, is definitely much richer thanks to the incredible expertise and dedication of women like Mona.
