Dr Zaki Aslan
Dr Zaki Aslan is the Director of ICCROM-ATHAR, an international body that works to conserve cultural heritage in the Middle-East. He is a conservation architect by trade and has managed ICCROM’s cultural heritage conservation in the Arab region programme from Rome since 2003. Aslan provided technical advice to the Arab States in the Mediterranean and Gulf countries on heritage conservation, management and planning, World Heritage procedures, national heritage strategies and governance, as well as education. Aslan holds a Ph.D. in Heritage Conservation and Management from the University College London. He previously worked as consultant for UNESCO, European Union, and ICCROM on heritage conservation and management in the Near East and Arab countries, including World Heritage education, training and development projects. He is a regular commentator on the destruction of heritage in the Middle-East and is seeking an internationally coordinated response.
Yasmine Chemali
Head of Collections, Sursock Museum
Yasmine Chemali graduated from the École du Louvre with a focus on preventive conservation and Islamic arts. From 2011 to 2014, she was the collection manager of The Fouad Debbas Collection, a photographic collection comprising over 30,000 images from the Middle East from 1830 till the 1960s.
At the Sursock Museum, Yasmine is responsible for studying the collection, and ensuring that it is kept in optimal conditions for its preservation. She is also taking care of the Fouad Debbas Collection, which is kept on a long term loan agreement within the Sursock Museum and exhibited at a rhythm of three exhibitions per year under multiple themes. There, she has curated multiple small shows including one on Portraiture, Music, the Human Scale, Aerial Views, or Beirut’s Hostels.
Sinem Gulmez
Sinem Ayşe Gülmez Saydam is a senior archivist at SALT. She has been working on archival process of SALT Research collections since 2012. She graduated from Istanbul University Information and Records Management Department. She is currently preparing a thesis on cataloging and digitizing of Architect Mustafa Şemsettin Şeniz Archive which is a part of SALT Research.
Shamoon Zamir
Shamoon Zamir is the associate Professor of Literature and Visual Studies at New York University Abu Dhabi. His research is focused primarily on the literature, intellectual history and photography of the United States. But he is also the Director of Akkasah: Center for Photography at NYUAD. The center is developing a photographic archive, and also a conference and publication program devoted to photography, with a primary focus on the Middle East and North Africa. He has published books on the African American writer W.E.B. Du Bois and photographer Edward S. Curtis. He has recently co-edited a volume of essays on The Family of Man exhibition and is at present co-editing a collection on photography from the Middle East.
Richard Davies
Richard has worked for the British Library for the last 10 years leading on digitization activities across a wide variety of projects and collection areas, including partnerships with Google, Gale Cengage and (currently) the Qatar Foundation.
As Head of the British Library Qatar Foundation Partnership, Richard manages the strategic delivery of the partnership, as well as managing the team of 50 staff. The partnership is making 1.5 million pages of the library’s archives and manuscripts available online for free for anyone to use on a bilingual English and Arabic website.
Prior to joining the Library, Richard worked for Brunel University, lecturing for the Business School in Information Technology and Management, as well as coordinating a number of e-learning projects. Richard has degrees in Economics and Multimedia Computing.
Reem Abdul Hadi
Reem Abdul-Hadi is the International Relations and Branches Manager at the Palestinian Museum. Co-founder and former Executive Director of Al-Mada Institution for Arts-Based Community Development, and the first Music Therapy Center in Palestine. Reem has more than 25 years of experience in social development, communication, human rights, and gender mainstreaming. She served for 15 years as a Program Analyst at the United Nations Development Programme – UNDP. A member of the Global Technical Network affiliated to WHO-Geneva, as an expert in Communication for Development – C4D, representing the MENA Region. Reem holds M.A. in International Cooperation and Development.
Rachel Tabet
Rachel Tabet is a photographer and archivist from Lebanon. She recently joined the Arab Image Foundation as an Archivist, after working as Collection Manager at the Solidere Photography and Video Archive for three years. Together with the Head of Collections, she implements priorities for the department and carries out archiving tasks including cleaning, archiving, storing photographs and digitization. She holds a BA in Photography from The Holy Spirit University of Kaslik.
Mohamed Wishahi
Medical Doctor, Professor, specialized in surgical urology.
Wishahi has been collecting old photographs and archives of studio photographers and family albums in Egypt dating back to the 19th and 20th century since 1996.
In 2002, he founded Visual Culture Heritage and in 2008, he published a book on the Egyptian-Greek photographer Zangaki (1860-1890).
Wishahi has been a member of the Middle East Photography Preservation Initiative (MEPPI) since 2009.
In 2014, he contributed to the establishment of the Egyptian Italian Center for Conservation of Antique Photographs and Paper Heritage (EICAP) and later in 2015, he contributed to the launching of a Master’s degree in conservation of antique photographs and paper heritage as an instructor for history courses and material of old photographs and paper course.
Since 2016, Wishahi has been involved in archiving and digitizing collections and preparing the manuscript of three books on photographic social history in the Middle East.
