Alya Sebti

Director, ifa gallery, Berlin

 Since 2016 Alya Sebti has served as director of the gallery of the Institute for Foreign Cultural Relations (ifa) in Berlin, an organisation that promotes cultural dialogue through exhibitions, conferences and other programmes. Under Sebti’s leadership, there has been a growing focus at the institution, through both its exhibitions and research programme, on the investigation of colonial structures within contemporary society. Sebti continues to curate exhibitions and biennials of contemporary art across Europe and North Africa, including the Dak’Art Biennale in 2018, and the 5th Marrakech Biennial in 2014. In the lead-up to the Marrakech Biennial Sebti curated a series of online exhibitions for ArteEast that explored the contemporary art scene in the Maghreb. Sebti was part of the four-strong artistic team that curated this year’s edition of Manifesta in Marseille. The exhibition, titled ‘Traits d’union.s.’ (the French term for a hyphen) considers the complex socio-political history of Marseille, as a key point of contact and exchange between Europe, Africa and the Middle East.

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