Nisa Ari

Nisa Ari is a PhD candidate in the History, Theory, and Criticism of Architecture and Art program at MIT. She studies late-nineteenth and twentieth century visual practices and the relationship between cultural politics and the development of art institutions, specifically in Palestine and Turkey. Provisionally titled "Cultural Mandates: Art and Political Parity in Early Twentieth Century Palestine,” her dissertation explores the development of the visual arts in Palestine from the final decades of the Ottoman Empire to the declaration of the State of Israel (1876-1948). She received a B.A. from Stanford University and was Associate Director of the Studio Program at the Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts before starting her doctoral degree. Nisa is a Fellow with Palestinian American Research Center (PARC) for the 2016-2017 academic year.