Ava Ansari

Ava Ansari is an artist, educator, and curator. She is the associate curator of The Edge of Arabia US Tour, where she recently co-curated the Culturunners Storytelling Symposiumat MIT's Art, Culture and Technology Program. She is the co-founder of The Back Room a curatorial and pedagogical project that facilitates exchanges between artists and scholars in Iran and the U.S. Recent projects include, Open Relationship, an eight-week workshop developed in collaboration with CultureHub, New York, Sazmanab Center for Contemporary Art, Tehran, and Mani Studio, Isfahan; I Am Only a Reporter, an exhibition of later works by Ardeshir Mohassess, Modern Section of Art Dubai, 2014; A Call, a project conceptualized with Wafaa Bilal and eighty participating performers, which opened concurrently at Aaran Gallery, Tehran, and White Box, New York. As an artist, Ansari has presented work at ISEA2014, Dixon Place, La Mama, Eyebeam, the AC Institute, and the Museum of Contemporary Art Santa Barbara, among others. She has previously worked at Aperture Foundation, New York; Shirin Gallery, New York; Basement Gallery, Dubai; and Silk Road Gallery, Tehran. She holds a B.A. in Public Relations and Journalism from Allameh Tabatabaei University in Tehran, and an M.A. in Art Politics from the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University.