Fara Abn

As an international Ph.D. student and art historian, Fara’s research and practice is situated within the most cosmopolitan of contemporary art exhibitions: La Biennale di Venezia. Having lived in Italy for over a decade granted her the opportunity to visit the Biennial, examine multiple editions, and collaborate with international artists and curators. Her research proposal consists of a comparative study on national participation at the Venice Biennial with a special focus on Iranian artists’ participation from 1956 to present. She inspects the display strategies used to include or exclude political and/or private interests into national self-representation on a worldwide stage. Working on Iranian contemporary art and museology since 2016, she is interested in investigating the role of cultural and political institutions in Venetian participations as well as the consequences of such exposure with regard to Iranian art history. Ultimately, this research topic would allow her to employ her linguistic resources (Persian, Italian, and English) and cross-cultural competencies to their maximum potential.

Fara is also enrolled in Graduate Diploma in Curatorial Studies and works as a Teaching Assistant at Carleton University. She has recently started her first curatorial project, PROTOHYVE, in collaboration with the School of Journalism and Communication at Carleton University. The exhibition will take place in Nov 2022.

Recent and Upcoming Conference Presentations:
“The Middle East at the Venice Biennial” Paper to be presented at the Middle East Studies Association (MESA) Annual Meeting, Montreal, December 2021.