Contemporary Arab art should not be defined by a single narrative or set of expectations, according to Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art director Zeina Arida, who said international exhibitions can help place artists from the region within broader global conversations.
Arida said one misconception about contemporary Arab art is the assumption that artists from the region share one story or are expected to address their work through a common lens.
“The Arab world encompasses many different histories, societies and artistic traditions, and contemporary artists and filmmakers approach their work from equally diverse perspectives,” she said.
She was speaking about Your Ghosts Are Mine: Expanded Cinemas, Amplified Voices, a multidisciplinary exhibition bringing together more than 40 artists and filmmakers from the Arab world, Africa and Southeast Asia.
For Arida, the exhibition's diversity matters because it lets audiences encounter Arab artists alongside creative voices from other regions, rather than viewing the Arab world in isolation.
She said this approach also reflects the complementary roles of three Qatar Museums institutions involved in the project: Mathaf, the future Art Mill Museum and Doha Film Institute.
Mathaf contributes its engagement with modern and contemporary art from the Arab world, while the future Art Mill Museum brings a broader international and multidisciplinary perspective. DFI, meanwhile, has spent years supporting filmmakers and storytelling from the region and beyond.
The collaboration also reflects a changing relationship between cinema and contemporary art.
Arida said artists increasingly move between film, video, documentary, fiction and installation, making it less useful to maintain rigid distinctions between traditional artistic categories.
“Artists increasingly move between film, video, documentary, fiction and installation, and Your Ghosts Are Mine embraces that fluidity rather than trying to separate these practices,” she said.
For Mathaf, she added, such openness is central to the role of a museum in contemporary culture.
“Museums should be places where established categories can be questioned and where audiences can encounter different artistic languages,” Arida said.
She said the approach also connects with the vision of the future Art Mill Museum, particularly its ambition to integrate cinema more fully into the history and presentation of art.
Arida sees Mathaf's international role as extending beyond presenting Arab art to audiences unfamiliar with the region. The museum also seeks to explore the connections between Arab artistic histories and those of other parts of the world.
“Artists, filmmakers and ideas have always moved across borders, and part of our role is to explore those connections and place artistic practices from the region within wider global conversations,” she said.
The exhibition's presentation in Chile therefore represents a two-way exchange, she said. While audiences encounter artistic voices and histories that may be less familiar to them, their own perspectives can generate new interpretations of the works.
Arida said Qatar Museums' institutional structure makes such exchanges possible by bringing together organisations with different areas of expertise.
For Mathaf, she said, the broader objective is to create meaningful encounters among artists, ideas, institutions and audiences.
Years of Culture initiatives can provide a framework for taking those conversations internationally, but Arida said their value ultimately depends on what follows.
“The strongest legacy is when those relationships continue beyond the designated year and lead to further exchange, research and collaboration,” she said.
She said this longer-term approach could help build sustained relationships among cultural institutions, artists, filmmakers and researchers rather than limiting cultural partnerships to individual exhibitions or designated calendar years.
