Join Locust Projects and Oolite Arts for a convo with Wassan Al-Khudhairi, independent curator

Wassan Al-Khudhairi is an independent curator. She was recently appointed curator for the 2025 Hawaii Triennial. Al-Khudhairi is a curatorial advisor for the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis where her upcoming projects include exhibitions and accompanying publications with artists Hajra Waheed and Dominic Chambers.

Most recently, Al-Khudhairi held the position of Ferring Foundation Chief Curator at the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, where she organized exhibitions and new commissions with artists Gala Porras-Kim, Martine Gutierrez, Derek Fordjour, Stephanie Syjuco, Paul Mpagi Sepuya, Bethany Collins, Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Guan Xiao, Hayv Kahraman, among others. She co-produced the podcast Radio Resistance to accompany the publication and exhibition Stories of Resistance, a thematic group show with over 20 participating artists.

 Al-Khudhairi was co-curator for the 6th Asian Art Biennial in Taiwan in 2017 and co-Artistic Director for the 9th Gwangju Biennial in South Korea in 2012. She served as the Hugh Kaul Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Birmingham Museum of Art where she organized the first large-scale exhibition of the museum’s contemporary collection, Third Space / shifting conversations about contemporary art. Serving as the Founding Director of Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art in Qatar, Al-Khudhairi oversaw the opening of the Museum in 2010 and co-curated the exhibition Sajjil: A Century of Modern Art and curated Cai Guo-Qiang: Saraab. 

She has a BA in Art History from Georgia State University and an MA in Islamic Art and Architecture with Distinction from the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. Al-Khudhairi is a graduate of the Getty Leadership Institute, the recipient of the 2021 VIA Curatorial Fellowship Grant, and a fellow in the 2021 Center for Curatorial Leadership program.