About me:

Ashraf Osman is a PhD candidate in History of Art as part of the LAWHA project, with an international position between Università Cà Foscari (Venice) and OIB Orient-Institut Beirut (Beirut). His project investigates the representation of women and minority (sectarian, ethnic, and sexual) artists mainly at the Sursock Museum during the pre-War and War eras. 
He holds a Master of Advanced Studies in Curating from the Zurich University of the Arts (Switzerland) and a Master of Architecture from Syracuse University (New York). His diverse background and practice encompasses olfactory art, socially-engaged art, and the architectural and urbanistic memory of the Lebanese War.

Project:
Life Otherwise: The History of Art in (Spite of) Lebanon - Artists from Lebanon that told an-Other tale

My research examines the representation of women and minorities (ethnic, sectarian, sexual, etc.) in the Sursock Museum mainly during the pre-War and War era (1950s - 1980s). It is guided by two main questions: What was the dominant identitarian narrative of the pre-War Lebanese state? And, viewed through the lens of canon-formation, was the Sursock Museum a significant institutional departure from that narrative? Answering these questions would inform the growing literature on consociational politics at a point in Lebanon's history where this very prism is getting challenged in the post-2019 Uprising context.