Ala Younis

Ala Younis is an artist engaged in curatorial, film, and publishing projects. She has presented her work in solo exhibitions across Amman, Dubai, Sharjah, New York, London, Seville, and Prague. Additionally, she has participated in group exhibitions at major biennials, including those in Venice, Istanbul, Gwangju, Ljubljana, Kaunas, Ural, Orleans, Sharjah and the Islamic Arts Biennale in Jeddah. In 2012, Younis co-founded Kayfa ta, an independent publishing initiative focused on research, exhibition, and publishing related to independent practices. She curated the first Kuwaiti Pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2013 and co-curated numerous exhibitions, including the Singapore Biennale (2022), How to Maneuver: Shapeshifting Texts and Other Publishing Tactics at Beirut Art Center (2019), MMAG Foundation (2020), and the Kochi-Muziris Biennale invitation program (2022); How to find meaning in dead time at SAVVY CONTEMPORARY (2021) and How to know what’s really happening at Betonhalle Silent Green (2023) both as part of Berlin's Archival Assembly festival organized by Arsenal - Institute for Film and Video Art; and Out of Place at Tate Modern and Darat al Funun (2011). She also co-directed and co-curated the Berlinale Forum Expanded program from 2021 to 2024. In 2023, she was appointed as the Artistic Director of Akademie der Kunst der Welt (Cologne), and produced a series of exhibitions, commissions, and encounters as part of the Not Afraid of Art project.