Dust hangs in the air as wooden crates are pried open inside Kuwait’s first museum. A young girl leans forward, eyes wide, as archaeologists lift fragments of pottery from sand-packed boxes. Her father, a pioneering educator who helped bring the institution to life, watches closely beside her — every discovery a triumph.
Salwa Mikdadi studies each artefact closely. The air smells of earth and history; glass cases catch the desert light. “I remember the excitement,” she says. “The sense that these objects were alive, that they carried stories.”
That early fascination became the foundation of her life’s work. What began as curiosity in a museum storeroom evolved into a lifelong dedication to art, history, and the cultural connections between them.
Mikdadi, Professor of Practice of Art History at NYU Abu Dhabi, is one of the foremost historians of modern and contemporary Arab art. For decades, she has worked to document, curate, and teach the region’s artistic production, introducing it to new audiences and perspectives.
Her landmark 1994 exhibition, Forces of Change: Artists of the Arab World, brought together 350 artworks by 73 women artists from across the Middle East and North Africa — a project that reshaped the conversation around Arab art in the United States.
“I wanted to show that women from the Arab world were not just subjects of art, they were the creators, the innovators,” she says. “Their work reflects strength, imagination, and a deep sense of place.”
The exhibition, which toured five major US venues, was a feat of determination. Mikdadi personally raised more than a million dollars in funding and in-kind contributions, coordinated loans across 16 countries, and persuaded galleries and ministries of culture to lend their support.
“We had no institutional structure behind us,” she recalls. “I handled everything, from the research and curation to arranging the shipping crates. But the energy was incredible. I had volunteers everywhere. Everyone wanted this story told.”
The result was a revelation. Forces of Change offered audiences an unprecedented view of women’s artistic practice in the Arab world, spanning painting, photography, sculpture, and mixed media. For Mikdadi, it was more than an exhibition — it was a cultural bridge. “It wasn’t just about displaying art,” she says. “It was about sharing ideas and showing how creativity connects people.”
That conviction still drives her. At NYUAD, Mikdadi now leads the al Mawrid Arab Center for the Study of Art, which she founded to preserve and digitize archives, oral histories, and conduct research related to modern art from the Arab world. The center is the first and only such resource available online.
“We’re racing against time,” she says. “Many archives are scattered or at risk of being lost. Digitization of these primary documents isn’t just a technical process — it’s an act of cultural continuity.”
Although she initially studied science at her mother's insistence, Mikdadi’s real fascination lay in art. In the 1970s, after moving to the US, she studied art history at UC Berkeley, beginning a lifetime of research and advocacy.
Her early fieldwork often required improvisation. “There was no funding or formal guidance in this field at the time,” she says. “I learned directly from artists in their studios, over coffee, by listening.” Those encounters shaped her understanding of art as a historical and social record. “Art tells us who we are and what we value,” she says.
Among the artists she met, few left as strong an impression as the late Algerian painter Baya Mahieddine. “She was a self-taught artist,” Mikdadi recalls. “Picasso invited her to his studio when she was 17 because he saw something extraordinary in her work. Her sense of color, her freedom of expression — it was remarkable.”
Her interview with the artist, now part of Mikdadi’s archive at the NYUAD library, has since been used by generations of curators. “It’s humbling to see these materials take on new life,” she says. “Every document, every photograph becomes a doorway for someone else’s research.”
Beyond her curatorial work, Mikdadi has edited and contributed to numerous books and exhibition catalogues and authored the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s reference guide on twentieth-century art in West Asia and North Africa. In recognition of her pioneering scholarship, the Association for Modern and Contemporary Art of the Arab World, Iran, and Turkey (AMCA) established the Salwa Mikdadi Research Award in her name.
Her influence today extends well beyond academia. As the art landscape in the Gulf flourishes, Mikdadi’s early advocacy looks prescient. “The UAE has become a catalyst,” she says. “Culture is not peripheral here; it’s part of the national vision.”
Still, she remains focused on the quieter work of scholarship through cataloguing, teaching, and mentoring. “It’s easy to be dazzled by the market,” she says, “but art history requires patience. It’s about listening to what the work is saying, not what it’s worth.”
Asked what continues to inspire her after half a century in the field, she pauses. “The artists,” she says simply. “Their persistence, their courage, their humor. They keep creating even when no one is watching. That’s what drives me — to make sure someone is.”
