Research Associate; Coordinator “LAWHA”
Phone: +961 1 359423-427
Email: maltzahn@orient-institut.org
Nadia von Maltzahn is the Principal Investigator of the ERC-funded project "Lebanon's Art World at Home and Abroad: Trajectories of artists and artworks in/from Lebanon since 1943 (LAWHA)".
Nadia von Maltzahn is the Principal Investigator of the ERC-funded project "Lebanon's Art World at Home and Abroad: Trajectories of artists and artworks in/from Lebanon since 1943 (LAWHA)", which has started in October 2020. She joined the OIB in 2013, first as a research associate (2013-2018) before being appointed deputy director (2018-2020, partly on parental leave).
Nadia’s publications include editing the special issue “Defying the Violence: Lebanon’s Visual Arts in the 1980s”, Manazir Journal 7 (2025), The Art Salon in the Arab Region: Politics of Taste Making, co-edited with Monique Bellan (Beiruter Texte und Studien 132, 2018), The Syria-Iran Axis: Cultural Diplomacy and International Relations in the Middle East (I.B. Tauris, 2013/2015), and other publications revolving around cultural practices in Lebanon and the Middle East. She holds a DPhil and an MSt in Modern Middle Eastern Studies from St Antony's College, University of Oxford. She received her BA Honours in Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies from King’s College, Cambridge.
Nadia’s research interests include cultural policies, artistic practices and the circulation of knowledge. Her current research project, LAWHA, is about the forces that have shaped the emergence of a professional field of art in Lebanon within its local, regional and global context, against the background that Lebanon is regularly portrayed as a country with weak public institutions but vibrant cultural sector. It follows up from her previous research project at the OIB, which has dealt with cultural policies in Lebanon, looking in particular at cultural institutions and their role in the public sphere.
LAWHA takes an ambitious approach to investigating the trajectories of artists and their works in and from Lebanon since its independence in 1943. In the absence of an institutionalised local art history, artists are often stereotyped according to the agendas of labelling institutions. The project proposes a shift of perspective in approaching Lebanon’s art world by placing emphasis on the multi-dimensionality of artists’ individual trajectories. It investigates (1) the forces that have shaped the emergence of a professional field of art in their local, regional and global contexts, (2) how to rethink the impact of the political, social and economic environment on the art world and its protagonists, Lebanon often being defined by its experience of violence and conflict, (3) how artists are represented in relation to the nation, and (4) how the trajectories of individuals shape the field. The focus will be on artists in and from Lebanon using the forms of painting, sculpture and new media art. The specificity of Lebanon’s history after gaining independence from France in 1943 makes it particularly worthwhile to study the power-relations between artists and institutions at home and abroad. The project’s objectives are to (1) develop a new approach to rethink artistic production from a cultural-political perspective while placing the trajectory of artists and their works at the centre, (2) re-evaluate the impact of war and migration on a country’s artistic production, (3) build a collaborative digital platform and database (DDP) to create a central and open-access repository and innovative tool for future research and preserving Lebanon's cultural heritage, and (4) to connect the scientific cultures of academic research and museums/art institutions. The project will identify new methods on how to interrelate context and artistic production, serving as a model for revisiting art histories in post-colonial contexts.
This project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No 850760).
Read more about this project on the LAWHA Blog: https://lawha.hypotheses.org
Principal Investigator: Dr. Nadia von Maltzahn
maltzahn@orient-institut.org
(2013, 2015) The Syria-Iran Axis. Cultural Diplomacy and International Relations in the Middle East. London: I.B. Tauris.
Manazir Journal vol. 7 (2025): “Defying the Violence: Lebanon’s Visual Arts in the 1980s”, edited by Nadia von Maltzahn.
OIS 6 (2021) Insights into Cultural Policies in Lebanon. Hanane Hajj Ali and Nadia von Maltzahn (eds.).
دراسات المعاهد الشرقية 6. نظرة حول السياسات الثقافية في لبنان. إعداد وتحرير حنان الحاج علي وناديا فون مالتسان
BTS 132 (2018) The Art Salon in the Arab Region: Politics of Taste Making. Nadia von Maltzahn and Monique Bellan (eds.). Beirut: Orient-Institut Beirut. View PDF (open access).
OIS 3 (2015) Divercities: Competing Narratives and Urban Practices in Beirut, Cairo and Tehran. Nadia von Maltzahn and Monique Bellan (eds.).
OIS 2 (2013) Inverted Worlds: Cultural Motion in the Arab Region. Syrinx von Hees, Nadia von Maltzahn and Ines Weinrich (eds.).
“Introduction: Lebanon’s Visual Arts in the 1980s Defying the Violence.” Manazir Journal 7 (2025): 2–19. https://doi.org/10.36950/manazir.2025.7.1.
“Fadi Barrage, an Artist’s Diary: ‘To Think Things Out in Painting.’” Manazir Journal 7 (2025): 160–89. https://doi.org/10.36950/manazir.2025.7.7.
von Maltzahn, Nadia. 2023. “Dear Tutu: A letter by Palestinian artist Vladimir Tamari on Exile, Friendship and Globalisation.” Static: Thoughts and Research from Global dis:Connect 2 (1). Munich, 59-67. https://doi.org/10.5282/static/39.
Krieger, Peter, Kuban, Zeynep, von Maltzahn, Nadia and Dogramaci, Burcu. “Kunstgeschichtliche Forschungspraxis in globalen Kontexten” Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte, vol. 85, no. 1, 2022, pp. 3-12. https://doi.org/10.1515/ZKG-2022-1002
Débats sur les politiques culturelles au Liban. Incertain regards. Cahiers dramaturgiques.HS3 (2021), 13-18.
Heritage, tourism, and the politics of national pride. The Baalbeck International Festival in Lebanon. Quaderni storici 2 (2019), 371-389. https://www.rivisteweb.it/doi/10.1408/96904.
The Museum as an Egalitarian Space? Women artists in Beirut's Sursock Museum in the 1960s and 1970s. Manazir 1 (2019), The Arab Apocalypse. Art, Abstraction & Activism in the Middle East, ed. Silvia Naef & Nadia Radwan: 70-82. https://www.manazir.art/files/8015/7228/3067/von_Maltzahn.pdf
Guiding the Artist and the Public? The Salon d'Automne at Beirut's Sursock Museum. In The Art Salon in the Arab Region: Politics of Taste Making. Edited by Nadia von Maltzahn and Monique Bellan. Beirut: Orient-Institut Beirut, 2018, 253-280.
Ministry of Culture or No Ministry of Culture? Lebanese cultural players and authority. Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East (2018) 38 (2): 330-343. https://doi.org/10.1215/1089201x-6982101
"What Cultural Policies?" Explicit and Implicit Cultural Policies in Lebanon. Middle East - Topics & Arguments, 7 (2017), 75-84. http://meta-journal.net/article/view/5088
with Monique Bellan, Introduction. In Divercities: Competing Narratives and Urban Identities in Beirut, Cairo and Tehran (Orient-Institut Studies 3, 2015)
Cultural Exchange Within and Across the Eastern Mediterranean. In Dialogue in the Med: Exploring Identity through Networks. Valletta: Fondation de Malte, 2015, 145-162.
with Rana Yazaji. Syrian Culture in Turbulent Times. In Another Europe. Amsterdam: European Cultural Foundation, 2015, 440-463.
Governance of Culture in the Wake of the Arab Revolutions: Preliminary Observations on the Case of Egypt. In N. Belakhdar, I. Eickhof, A. el Khawaga, O. el Khawaga, A. Hamada, C. Harders and S. Sandri (eds.), Arab Revolutions and Beyond: Change and Persistence. (Working Paper No.11, August 2014), 225-240.
One Side of the Coin: The Official Sphere of Syrian-Iranian Cultural Relations. Orient II (2014), 12-15.
with Rana Yazaji. Syrian Culture in Turbulent Times. In Cultural policy and management Yearbook 2012-2013. Istanbul: Istanbul Bilgi University Press, 2014, 35-46.
Kulturforschung: Die arabische Gruppe für Kulturpolitik. In itb infoservice, 6. Schwerpunktausgabe 05/13, 36-37.
Iran’s Cultural Diplomacy. In H.E. Chehabi, C. Therme and F. Khosrokhavar (eds.), Iran and the Challenges of the Twenty-First Century. (Costa Mesa, CA: Mazda, 2013).
The Case of Iranian Cultural Diplomacy in Syria. Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication 2 (2009), 1-18.
“‘I Have a Friend Named Time’: Interview with Greta Naufal.” Manazir Journal 7 (2025): 222–47. doi.org/10.36950/manazir.2025.7.9.
“Roundtable Discussion with Rose Issa and Mohammad El Rawas on the Exhibition Contemporary Lebanese Artists at London’s Kufa Gallery in Early 1988.” Manazir Journal 7 (2025): 248–65. doi.org/10.36950/manazir.2025.7.10.
“Yvette Achkar”, AWARE Archives of Women Artists, Research and Exhibitions, 2025, awarewomenartists.com/en/artiste/yvette-achkar/.
“Nadia Saikali”, AWARE Archives of Women Artists, Research and Exhibitions, 2023, awarewomenartists.com/en/artiste/nadia-saikali/.
Producer of the The Moving Biographies Podcast in collaboration with Afikra, 2023, available on YouTube (link).
“All is not Glitter.” Review of “Beirut and the Golden Sixties: A Manifesto of Fragility” Berlin, Gropius-Bau, 25 March – 12 June 2022 Lyon, 14 September – 31 December 2022. Regards – Revue Des Arts Du Spectacle, (28), 177-190. Consulté à l’adresse journals.usj.edu.lb/regards/article/view/789.
Rezension zu Maasri, Zeina: Cosmopolitan Radicalism. The Visual Politics of Beirut’s Global Sixties. Cambridge 2020, ISBN 978-1-108-48771-9, In: H-Soz-Kult, 12.07.2022, www.hsozkult.de/publicationreview/id/reb-96509.
“Reviews.” Iranian Studies, 42:2 (2009), 347-352. Book review of Syria and Iran. Diplomatic Alliance and Power Politics in the Middle East by J. Goodarzi.
Co-applicant with Peggy Levitt (Wellesley College), Sonja Mejcher-Atassi, and Kirsten Scheid (both AUB): Summer School “Moving Biography”, Volkswagen Foundation, 47960 EUR, 1–8 June 2022.
Principle Investigator: “LAWHA – Lebanon’s Art World at Home and Abroad: Trajectories of artists and artworks in/from Lebanon since 1943”, European Research Council (ERC) Starting Grant, 1498813 EUR, 2020–25.
Co-applicant with Hanane Hajj Ali: Publication of short research studies “Insights into Cultural Policies in Lebanon”, Al Mawred Al Thaqafy, 10000 USD, 2015–20.
Symposium: “Contextualising the Art Salon in the Arab Region”, Volkswagen Foundation, Programme “Research in Museums”, 13600 EUR, 2017–18.
Co-organiser, Workshop: Dis:connected Artistic Belonging and Recognition in Global Modernity, Käte Hamburger research centre, Munich, 2025.
Organiser, International Conference: Artistic Hubs in and of the Arab Region, OIB, Beirut, 2024.
Organiser, Panel: Artist Associations and Professionalising the Arts, CAA, Chicago, 2024.
Organiser, Panel: Revisiting Art Histories in the Absence of Institutionalization: Lebanon as a Case Study, Decentering art and design history conference, University of Nicosia, 2023.
Organiser, Panel: Lebanon’s Art World at Home and Abroad in the 1980s: Artistic production and reception in times of war, AMCA conference “1980s: Representational Pressures, Departures, and Beginnings”, University of North Texas, Denton, 2022.
Organiser, Panel: Cultural Infrastructures in Lebanon’s Art World, Deutscher Orientalistentag DOT 2022, Freie Universität Berlin, 2022.
Co-organiser, International Summer School “Moving Biography”, Beirut, Lebanon (in cooperation with the American University of Beirut and the Global (De)Centre and funded by the Volkswagen Foundation), 2022.
Co-organiser, Symposium “Contextualising the Art Salon in the Arab Region”, Beirut, Lebanon (in cooperation with the Sursock Museum and funded by the Volkswagen Foundation), 2017.
Co-organiser, Panel “Circulations of Exhibition Practices between Asia and Europe and Mechanisms of Canon Building” at 33. Deutscher Orientalistentag, Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena, 2017.
Co-organiser, Panel “The Art Salon in the Arab Region – Migration of institutional patronage and its challenges” at the annual conference of the Italian Society for Middle Eastern Studies (Part I) and Annual conference of the Middle East Studies Association of North America (Part II), 2016.
Co-organiser, Panel “Pushing the Status Quo – Liberation in art and cultural practices in the modern Middle East”, at the annual conference of the British Society for Middle Eastern Studies, London, UK, 2015.
Co-organiser, Conference “DiverCities: Contested Space and Urban Identities in Beirut, Cairo and Tehran”, OIB in cooperation with the Goethe Institut Lebanon, 2013.
Organiser, “Inverted Worlds: Congress on Cultural Motion in the Arab Region”, OIB, 2012.
Exhibiting Lebanon in London and Paris in 1989: The role of bilateral friendship associations in artistic infrastructures, (Un)mapping Infrastructures of Modern Art, IV Conference, 8-10 October 2025, Poznan.
What do the archives of the ENSBA (not) tell us about Lebanon’s art world in Paris?, Entangled Modernisms Workshop, 28-29 April 2025, Paris.
Documenting Lebanon’s Art World at Home and Abroad: Challenges, approaches and tools, Archive Poetics: Working with Artists’ Archives and Estates Workshop, 16 March 2025, Celadon Center for the Arts, Cyprus.
Validation and Labeling in an Entangled Art World: The case of Lebanon, Harmful Entanglements Conference, Orient-Institut Istanbul, 15 May 2024, Istanbul.
Taṣwīr through Paint-Feeling in Fadi Barrage’s Work, “On Taṣwīr or the Inherently Incomplete, American University of Beirut, 11 May 2024, Beirut.
Rethinking Periodisation in Lebanon’s Post-Independence Art History, “Abiding Present: Challenging Time in Art History” Symposium, The Warburg Institute, 11-12 May 2023, London.
Journalism, Painting and Friendship: Etel Adnan in Lebanon’s Art World of the 1970s, Etel Adnan Symposium, American University of Beirut, 23-24 February 2023, Beirut.
“Beirut klebt an mir wie heißes Wachs“: Arbeits- und Sehnsuchtsorte im Werk der Künstlerin Etel Adnan, Gespräch mit Burcu Dogramaci, Lenbachhaus und Institut français, 10. Januar 2023, München.
„Ein Brief des Künstlers Vladimir Tamari. Exil, Freundschaft und die Rolle von Ephemera in der Kunstgeschichtsschreibung“, at the workshop “dis:connected objects“, Kaethe Hamburger Research Centre global dis:connect, 15 June 2022, Munich.
“Boycotting the Museum: Power relations and canon-building in Lebanon”, at the series of encounters “Visiting (In)Visible Museums, Session 2: The Construction of Art Canons in and around the Nicolas Sursock Museum”, Sursock Museum, 29 April 2022, Beirut.
“A Thoughtful Exaggeration: Lebanon’s Early Independence Period through the Eyes of Diran”, Templeton Colloquium in Art History, “Of Satire and Bigotry: Press Culture, Women’s Rights, and Liminal Modernity in West Asia”, UC Davis Manetti Shrem Museum of Art, 25 February 2022, Davis CA. (Watch here)
“Lebanese Cultural Players and Authority: Ministry of Culture or No Ministry of Culture?”, lecture at the Arab-German Young Researchers Exchange “Cultural Policy & Cultural Mediation in Transforming Societies”, 23 October 2018, Beirut.
“Researching Cultural Policies: Achievements and challenges in Lebanon”, workshop at the Arab-German Young Researchers Exchange “Cultural Policy & Cultural Mediation in Transforming Societies”, 18–24 October 2018, Beirut.
“The Museum as a Platform for Emancipation? Women artists in Beirut’s Sursock Museum”, at the Etel Adnan Symposium “‘The Arab Apocalypse’: Art, Abstraction and Activism in the Middle East”, Zentrum Paul Klee, 27-28 September 2018, Bern.
“Archivisme as a local disease or communicating the National Library project”, at the conference “Performing Human Rights: Contested Amnesia and Historical Justice in Latin America and the Middle East”, 28-29 June 2018, Zurich.
“Cultural Policies in Lebanon: Cultural institutions between state and society”, as part of the workshop “Area Knowledges and Disciplinary/Interdisciplinary Knowledge”, Max-Weber-Kolleg, 18-21 June 2018, Erfurt.
“Débats sur les politiques culturelles au Liban”, at the conference « Combats pour la culture, Combats de la culture », Lebanese University and Université Aix-Marseille, 8-9 December 2017, Beirut.
“Art Institutions and Canon-building in Lebanon: Beirut’s Sursock Museum”, at Oxford Middle East Studies at 60, St Antony’s College, University of Oxford, 15-16 September 2017, Oxford.
“Der Kunstsalon als egalitärer Raum? Der Salon d'Automne des Sursock Museums in Beirut”. Presentation at the research colloquium Gender Studies, University of Zurich, 3 May 2017, Zurich.
“Beirut’s Sursock Museum – Building a Canon of Lebanese Art?” Seminar at the working group “Imagining the Global: Ideas, people and culture on the move”, Studienstiftung Gesellschaftswissenschaftliches Kolleg Gesellschaftswissenschaftliches Kolleg der Studienstiftung, 28 March 2017, Ellwangen.
“Research in the Heart of Beirut: Researching cultural policies at the Orient-Institut Beirut”. Evening lecture at the Gesellschaftswissenschaftliches Kolleg der Studienstiftung, 27 March 2017, Ellwangen.
“The Salon d'Automne at the Sursock Museum”. Presentation at public talk on “The Art Salon in the Arab Region”, Sursock Museum, 26 January 2017, Beirut.
“Overview of the Cultural Policy Context in the Arab Region and State of the Arts”. Keynote lecture at 9th^ ENCATC Young Researchers' Forum, 16 December 2016, Brussels.
“Cultural Policies and Cultural Activism in Lebanon – An Exception?” Seminar at the Tri-National Research Atelier “The Role of Arts in Transitional Tunisia – Rethinking cultural policy & international cultural relations”, University of Hildesheim, University of Tunis and University Hassan II Casablanca, 22-28 November 2016, Tunis.
“Cultural Policy and International Cooperation in the Arab World: Lebanon.” Satellite Beirut 2016, International Network for Contemporary Performing Arts (IETM), 6-9 October 2016, Beirut.
“Ministry of Culture or No Ministry of Culture?‘ Lebanese Cultural Players and Authority.” Lecture at Université Saint-Joseph, 13 May 2016, Beirut.
“Cultural Diplomacy and Cultural Policies” (in Arabic). Tajamu'a al-Bahithat al-Lubnaniyat, 21 April 2016, Beirut.
“Saifi Village, Quartier des Arts ?” Rencontres ‘Espaces publics à Beyrouth: vie, mort, renaissance?’ (20-22 Mai 2015), Ifpo und Institut Français Liban, 16 Mai 2015, Beirut.
“Cultural Policies in Germany and the Arab Region”. Lecture at the Lebanese University, Master Professionnel en Médiation Culturelle, 16 Mai 2015, Beirut.
“Cultural Diplomacy: an introduction.” Lecture at Université Saint-Joseph, Faculty of Sociology, 15 April 2015, Beirut.
“The sociopolitical and cultural situation of Lebanon”. Lecture followed by a city tour as part of the programme “MENA/European Training in Culture and Creative Sector Management 2014/2015”, Institut Français Liban, 7 April 2015, Beirut.
“Cultural exchange within and across the Eastern Mediterranean”, International conference “Dialogue in the Med: exploring identity through networks. First Annual Valletta 2018 International Conference on Cultural Relations in Europe and the Mediterranean”, Valletta 2018 Foundation, 4-5 September 2014, Valletta.
“Bürger, Blogger, Botschafter: Diplomatie im 21. Jahrhundert”. Participation 1st^ Weber World Café of the Max Weber Stiftung and the Forum Transregionale Studien, 28 April 2014, Bonn.
“Understanding Social and Cultural Challenges for Arab Countries”, ENCATC Academy on Cultural Relations & Diplomacy, Focus: Middle East, North Africa & Arabian Peninsula, 22 November 2013, Brussels.
“Cultural Diplomacy and Regional Relations in the Contemporary Middle East”, German Science Day 2013, 16 November 2013, Cairo.
“Iran’s Cultural Diplomacy”, conference “Iran Confronting 21st^ Century Challenges”, Graduate Institute of International Studies Geneva, June 2010, Geneva.