Rasha Salti (born 1969,

Toronto Toronto ( , locally pronounced or ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, most populous city in Canada. It is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario. With a p ...

) is a researcher, writer, producer, and curator of art and film. She lives and works between

Beirut Beirut ( ; ) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Lebanon. , Greater Beirut has a population of 2.5 million, just under half of Lebanon's population, which makes it the List of largest cities in the Levant region by populatio ...

and

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

. Salti co-curated many film programs at public institutions, including ArteEast,

Lincoln Center Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts (also simply known as Lincoln Center) is a complex of buildings in the Lincoln Square neighborhood on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. It has thirty indoor and outdoor facilities and is host to 5 ...

and

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street (Manhattan), 53rd Street between Fifth Avenue, Fifth and Sixth Avenues. MoMA's collection spans the late 19th century to the present, a ...

in New York, and collaborated with film festivals as a programmer, such as the Abu Dhabi International Film Festival and

Toronto International Film Festival The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF, often stylized as tiff) is one of the most prestigious and largest publicly attended film festivals in the world. Founded in 1976, the festival takes place every year in early September. The organi ...

. Since 2017, she is the commissioning editor for
La Lucarne
' at ArteFrance, a program dedicated to Auteur documentaries. Her curatorial projects were exhibited at numerous international public institutions, including

Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art The Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art (, , MACBA, ) is a contemporary art museum situated in the Plaça dels Àngels, in El Raval neighborhood, Ciutat Vella district, in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. The museum opened to the public on 28 Novem ...

Haus der Kulturen der Welt The Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW), in English House of World Cultures, in Berlin is Germany's national center for the presentation and discussion of international contemporary arts, with a special focus on non-European cultures and societi ...

in Berlin, Museo de la Solidaridad Salvador Allende in

Santiago de Chile Santiago (, ; ), also known as Santiago de Chile (), is the capital city, capital and largest city of Chile and one of the largest cities in the Americas. It is located in the country's Chilean Central Valley, central valley and is the center ...

, the

Sursock Museum The Sursock Museum (), officially known as the Nicolas Ibrahim Sursock Museum, is a modern and contemporary art museum in Beirut, Lebanon. History In 1912, the Lebanese aristocrat Nicolas Ibrahim Sursock built the private villa that now house ...

in Beirut.

Education

Salti grew up in Beirut. She holds an M.A. in Liberal Studies from the Graduate Faculty at the

New School for Social Research The New School for Social Research (NSSR), previously known as The University in Exile and The New School University, is a graduate-level educational division of The New School in New York City, United States. NSSR enrolls more than 1,000 stud ...

, New York (2000) and a B.A. in Fine Arts from

Georgetown University Georgetown University is a private university, private Jesuit research university in Washington, D.C., United States. Founded by Bishop John Carroll (archbishop of Baltimore), John Carroll in 1789, it is the oldest Catholic higher education, Ca ...

(1992).

Programming and curating

Salti's involvement with film programming started at the Théâtre de Beyrouth, an independent cultural space in the post-war Beirut. She organized several cultural events, such as "Image Quest," the first film and video festival in postwar Lebanon (with Moukhtar Kocache) (1995), "For a Critical Culture," a tribute to

Edward Said Edward Wadie Said (1 November 1935 – 24 September 2003) was a Palestinian-American academic, literary critic, and political activist. As a professor of literature at Columbia University, he was among the founders of Postcolonialism, post-co ...

(1997), "50, Nakba and Resistance," a series of events that commemorated

Nakba The Nakba () is the ethnic cleansing; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; of Palestinian Arabs through their violent displacement and dispossession of land, property, and belongings, along with the destruction of their s ...

in Palestine (1998), and two editions of Home Works at

Ashkal Alwan Ashkal Alwan (), The Lebanese Association for Plastic Arts is an association promoting and producing contemporary art practices in Lebanon. History Ashkal Alwan was founded in 1994 by Christine Tohmé (Curator), Marwan Rechmaoui (Artist), Rania ...

. Between 2004–10, Salti worked as the film programmer and creative director of ArteEast in New York. In 2005, she became the director of CinemaEast Film Festival in New York, focusing on the Middle East, North Africa, and their diasporas. Her projects include 10th

Sharjah Biennial The Sharjah Biennial is a large-scale contemporary art exhibition that takes place once every two years in the city of Sharjah, United Arab Emirates. The first Sharjah Biennial took place in 1993, and was organized by the Sharjah Department of Cu ...

(co-curated with Suzanne Cotter and Haig Aivazian), Sharjah (2011), ''Mapping Subjectivity: Experimentation in Arab Cinema from the 1960s until Now'' (co-curated with Jytte Jensen) at MoMA, New York (2010–12), and ''The Road to Damascus'' (co-curated with Richard Peña) at the Film Society at Lincoln Center and other venues in Africa and the Middle East (2006–08). Salti's research-driven practice investigates canons in cultural histories. She is the co-founder (with Kristine Khouri) of the History of Arab Modernities in the Visual Arts Study Group, a research platform focused on the social history of art in the Arab world. Salti is the co-curator of the exhibition ''Past Disquiet: Narratives and Ghosts from the Exhibition of International Art for Palestine (Beirut, 1978)'' (with Kristine Khouri), which was hosted at the

(MACBA) (2015), the

in Berlin (2016), the Museo de la Solidaridad Salvador Allende (MSSA) in Santiago de Chile (2018), the Sursock Museum (2018) an
Framer Framed
(2025) in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. This project is the result of a decade-long research that explores the artistic networks of international solidarity from

Palestine Palestine, officially the State of Palestine, is a country in West Asia. Recognized by International recognition of Palestine, 147 of the UN's 193 member states, it encompasses the Israeli-occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and th ...

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in western South America. It is the southernmost country in the world and the closest to Antarctica, stretching along a narrow strip of land between the Andes, Andes Mountains and the Paci ...

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

in the 1960 to the 1980s. Salti is also the co-curator of the exhibition ''Saving Bruce Lee: African and Arab Cinema in the Era of Soviet Cultural Diplomacy'' (with

Koyo Kouoh Koyo Kouoh (24December 196710May 2025) was a Cameroonian-Swiss art curator who served as Executive Director and Chief Curator of the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa in Cape Town, South Africa, from 2019 onwards. In 2015, ''The New York T ...

), organized at

in Berlin and at

Garage Museum of Contemporary Art The Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, also referred to simply as ''The Garage Museum'', is a privately funded art gallery in Moscow, Russia. It was founded by Dasha Zhukova and Roman Abramovich as the ''Garage Center for Contemporary Culture'' ...

in Moscow in 2015. This research-driven exhibition focuses on three generations of African and Arab filmmakers who studied in the

USSR The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

Writing

Salti’s articles and essays have appeared in ''The Jerusalem Quarterly Report'', ''Naqd'', ''MERIP'', ''The London Review of Books'', ''

Afterall Afterall is a nonprofit contemporary art research and publishing organisation. It is based in London, at Central Saint Martins. It publishes the journal ''Afterall;'' the book series ''Readers,'' ''One Works'' and ''Exhibition Histories.'' His ...

,'' and ''

Third Text ''Third Text'' is a leading peer-reviewed academic journal covering art in a global context. After founder and editor Rasheed Araeen's earlier art magazine ''Black Phoenix'', which started in 1978 and published only three issues, ''Third Text' ...

'', as well as several

anthologies In book publishing, an anthology is a collection of literary works chosen by the compiler; it may be a collection of plays, poems, short stories, songs, or related fiction/non-fiction excerpts by different authors. There are also thematic and ge ...

dedicated to film, art and culture. In 2018, she co-edited with Kristine Khouri, ''Past Disquiet: Artists, International Solidarity and Museums in Exile'', published by the

Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw The Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw (, MSN), also known as MSN Warsaw, is a modern and contemporary art museum in Warsaw, Poland. The museum was founded in 2005 and the director of the museum since June 6, 2007 has been Joanna Mytkowska. MSN was ...

. In 2011 and 2012, she acted as the guest-editor of the ''

Manifesta Manifesta, also known as the European Nomadic Biennial, is a European pan-regional contemporary cultural biennale. History Manifesta was founded in 1994 by Dutch art historian Hedwig Fijen. The first edition took place in Rotterdam. One of t ...

Journal'' for issues number 14, 15, and 16. In 2010, she co-edited ''I Would Have Smiled: A Tribute to Myrtle Winter-Chaumeny'' with

Issam Nassar Issam Nassar (), is a Palestinian historian of photography in Palestine and the Middle East.UNRWA The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA, pronounced ) is a UN agency that supports the relief and human development of Palestinian refugees. UNRWA's mandate encompasses Palestinians who fl ...

. In 2009, she collaborated with photographer

Ziad Antar Ziad Antar (born 1978 in Saida, Lebanon) is a Lebanese filmmaker and photographer. He studied Agricultural Engineering at the American University of Beirut before turning to video and arts with a residency at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris and a po ...

on an exhibition and book titled ''Beirut Bereft, The Architecture of the Forsaken and Map of the Derelict''. In 2006, she edited ''Insights into Syrian Cinema: Essays and Conversations with Filmmakers'' (ArteEast and Rattapallax Press).

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Salti, Rasha 1969 births Living people Film curators Film producers from Toronto The New School alumni Georgetown University alumni