Photo by Gregg Richards
Shirine Saad is a Beirut-born journalist, programmer and DJ focusing on culture and social change. They were recently Assistant Professor of the Practice in Arts Journalism and Criticism at Brown University, where they were the Founding Editor of a new multimedia arts journal, MOVEMENTS. They are a PhD candidate in Philosophy, Art and Social Thought at the European Graduate School (ABD, committee: Denise Ferreira da Silva, Fred Moten, Jasbir Puar, Stefano Harney.)
Their theoretical essay on Arab* feminist and queer art is forthcoming at Routledge; a volume dedicated to the same topic is forthcoming at Saqi books.
Saad is an Advisory Council Member at Recess Art in Brooklyn and has received a research and programming grant from Columbia University’s Incite Institute. They have worked as Interim Programming Director and Ideas Editor at music organization National Sawdust and runs a DJ learning series for BIPOC women, nonbinary and LGBTQ folks and Hiya Live Sessions, a platform for radical feminist SWANA artists. They have programmed and DJd events for Creative Time, BAM, the Brooklyn Museum, The Brooklyn Library, National Sawdust, Soho House, The Rockaway Hotel, Miss Lily’s; launched the Rockaway Beach Reggae Jam and Gyal Tings Soundsystem.
Saad has collaborated with media companies including Artnews, Elle, BRIC, Four Seasons Magazine, CNN, Hyperallergic, Le Figaro, L’Officiel, MTV, The New York Times, New York Magazine, Nowness, The National and Vice. They have interviewed Adonis, Jean Paul Gaultier, Juliette Binoche, Bella Hadid, Marina Abramovic, Kehinde Wiley, Pierre Soulages, Gregory Crewdson, Jean Nouvel, Jim Jarmusch, Marlon James, Mickalene Thomas, Shirin Neshat, Virgil Abloh, Wangechi Mutu and many more. Their first guidebook, BOHO BEIRUT, is sold worldwide; they have also written the 2015 WALLPAPER* guide to Marseille.
Shirine holds degrees from McGill (B.A. in Art History and International Development) and Columbia (M.S. in Magazine Journalism; M.A. in Arts and Culture journalism) Universities.