Mirjam Shatanawi

Curator Middle East and North Africa

Background information / expertise

Mirjam Shatanawi (1973) studied Arabic at the University of Amsterdam and the History of Africa and Asia in London (SOAS). She has been associated with the Tropenmuseum as a curator since 2001. Her research focuses on the place of the image in Islamic culture. She analyses visual culture as a religious phenomenon in the context of the image as research field for Western art historians.

She is furthermore interested in visual culture as a theme in contemporary art and in popular art and culture, such as Egyptian film posters and Iranian coffee house art. Through travel and research she became well acquainted with the Middle East and North Africa. During her studies she lived for two years in Cairo, Egypt. After she graduated she worked for some time as an anthropologist for the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs for which she did research into the position of Muslim women. She lived in Senegal and Sudan during this time.

Her areas of expertise are: history and contemporary art and culture of the Middle East and North Africa, modern Islam, perceptions of Islam, museum anthropology and Islamic art history.

Staff