Jasmine Soliman
Curator and collections leader: building, caring for and opening up art and archival collections, from acquisition to access.
I am the Founding Head of Art, Archives and Special Collections at Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence (MBZUAI) in Abu Dhabi. I lead the university’s art, rare book, scientific instrument and archival collections end to end: curation and acquisition, cataloguing, storage and preservation, interpretation and access.
Since 2013 I have worked on collections projects in the UK, UAE, Egypt and Jordan, and collaborated remotely with collections in the USA, Kuwait and Syria. My archives work began at the German Archaeological Institute (DAI) Cairo Photo Archive and continued at NYU Abu Dhabi. There I joined Akkasah: Photography Archive in 2016 and became Chief Archivist for both Akkasah and the Arab Art Archive at al Mawrid: Arab Center for the Study of Art, working on over 45 collections.
In 2021I founded RepCinema.com which highlights repertory cinema screenings in the UAE and London, and co-founded of Collected Histories, which fosters discussion of personal documentation and archiving through film screenings and workshops.
I am neurodivergent, and this shapes how I think about the ways people access, navigate and experience collections, in the written word, physical and digital spaces. I endeavor to build collections that are inclusive and accessible in design and function, taking account of socio-economic circumstances and physical ability.
