Artes Mundi 12 Selector/Juror Announcement

We are delighted to announce the Artes Mundi 12 selector/jurors comprising major figures within contemporary visual arts: Dr Omar Kholeif, Yasmin Naderi Afschar and Zasha Colah. Their collective knowledge, expertise and networks are far reaching, conceptually, practically and geographically, creating a diversity and depth in support of Artes Mundi 12.

Thank you to everyone who made a nomination.

We look forward to announcing the shortlisted artists for Artes Mundi 12 in December!

About the Jurors

Dr Omar Kholeif is an Egyptian-born, British artist, author, curator, and cultural historian of Sudanese heritage. They are Professor of Global Art Theory and Practice at the Glasgow School of Art and Head of the Postgraduate Programme in Curatorial Practice in conjunction with the University of Glasgow. Professor Kholeif was previously director of collections and senior curator at Sharjah Art Foundation, UAE; Manilow senior curator and director of global initiatives at the MCA Chicago; exhibitions curator at Whitechapel Gallery; senior curator at Cornerhouse and HOME, Manchester; curator at FACT, Liverpool, founding director of Safar Film Festival, and co-director of art, technology and residency programs at SPACE, London. A prolific author, their more than two-dozen books have been translated into 17 languages. Exploring visual literacy, critical race, and gender, Kholeif is the series editor of imagine/otherwise published by Sternberg Press and co-host of the podcast, Studio Visit.

Yasmin Naderi Afschar is a Swiss-Iranian curator whose work operates at the intersection of institutions, the public realm and transformative social processes. She is part of the collective leadership of the Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst, where she is responsible for exhibitions. Since 2022, she has also served as a mediator for New Patrons, developing citizen-commissioned art projects that position contemporary art within a renewed democratic framework. Previously, she was Interim Director of Kunsthalle Mainz (2023–2024) and Curator at the Aargauer Kunsthaus in Aarau (2018–2021). In 2021-2022, she was awarded Asia Society Switzerland’s inaugural Curator Residency at Tai Kwun Contemporary in Hong Kong.

Her curatorial projects explore formats that multiply perspectives and critically engage with contemporary realities. Among the exhibitions she has curated are Mohamed Bourouissa. Pour Noubia at the Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst (2026); Unextractable. Sammy Baloji Invites at Kunsthalle Mainz (2023); Hannah Villiger. Amaze Me at Muzeum Susch (2023); and Emma Kunz Cosmos. A Visionary in Dialogue with Contemporary Art at Aargauer Kunsthaus (2021) and Tabakalera (2022). She has lectured at numerous academies, art spaces, and museums, including HEAD Geneva, ZHdK Zürich, University of Zurich, HKB Bern, Städelschule Frankfurt, Kunstmuseum Bern, Kathmandu Triennale, and M+ Hong Kong.

Zasha Colah is co-artistic director of Ar/Ge Kunst (with F. Verga, Bozen-Bolzano, 2023-) and lecturer in comparative curatorial studies at Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti (Milano, 2018-).

She is a founding member of Clark House Initiative (Mumbai, 2010–22). She curated the Berlin Biennale: passing the fugitive on (2025); Yinchuan Biennale: Starting from the Desert. Ecologies on the Edge (curatorial team of M. Scotini, 2018); Pune Biennale: Habit-co-Habit. Artistic Simulations of Some Everyday Spaces (with L. Cerizza, 2017); steirischer herbst: body luggage (Kunsthaus Graz, 2016); Prabhakar Pachpute. It wasn´t the locusts (with L. Cerizza, National Gallery of Modern Art, Mumbai, 2016); I love you Sugar Kane (Institute of Contemporary Art Indian Ocean, Port Louis, 2016). She is on the editorial board of the book series Geoarchivi (Meltemi & NABA), co-edits Novellas (Ar/Ge) a bookseries of contemporary experimental art writing, and collaborates on the podcast series POST IT (Rai Alto Adige, Radio 1). Her fellowship at 221A (Vancouver, 2021– 22) researched art practices as forms of insurgency under militarised states, titled Scorched Earthly. As QuiS research fellow at Städelschule (Frankfurt, 2025–26) she held two courses on performative and processual sculpture, and its implication on contemporary forms of exhibiting.