Nada Shalaby is a visual artist currently based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her research-based practice is concerned with the interrogation of uncontested spaces, often involving constructs of language and cultural associations that exist in the public sphere.
Recently this has involved collaborations including This Stays Between Us (2015-) on memory and the psychogeography of Cairo, and projects such as You and I and Time is Long (2013), an archive relating to the archaeological site Tel el Yahudiya in the Egyptian delta, and Whose Despair (2016), a body of work that interrogates the symbolic association of the flower to the body in the Arabic language.
While in Chicago between 2009-2011, Nada established a lived practice in West Roger’s Park, where she also founded a social practice residency program for emerging artists and co-founded the art space Doukan7002.
Nada taught at the Department of the Arts at the American University in Cairo from 2011-2015. She holds a Masters degree in Middle East Studies from the American University in Cairo and an MFA in Art Theory and Practice from Northwestern University. She was awarded the Edes Foundation Prize in 2015.
Workshops and Presentations
Alia Farid in conversation with Nada Shalaby, Decolonizing Art Narratives: Arab Women Artists Today, Virginia Commonwealth University School of the Arts in Qatar (online)
February 16, 2022
Panelist, Social Practice in Foundations, FATE Foundations in Art Theory and Education Conference, Kansas City Art Institute (Kansas City, MO)
April 7, 2017
Panelist, Rerouted: Arab American Creative Practices in Cairo, DIWAN: A Forum for the Arts, Arab American National Museum (Dearborn, MI)
May 8, 2015
Presenter, Teaching Social Engagement in Revolutionary Cairo, Open Engagement conference, Carnegie Mellon University (Pittsburgh, PA)
April 19, 2015
Presenter, The Creative Process: An Introduction to Visual Research, workshop led with Aissa Deebi and Amr Assaad, Darb 1718 Contemporary Art and Culture Center (Cairo, Egypt)
April 7-8, 2015
Artist talk, You and I and Time is Long, at References: Artists Activating the Archive exhibition, Contemporary Image Collective
(Cairo, Egypt)
Jan. 12, 2014
Panelist, Arts Careers, Northwestern Art Review, Northwestern University
(Evanston, IL)
March 31, 2011
Panelist, Art of Dissent: Transforming Trauma and a Culture of War, National Veterans Art Museum (Chicago, IL)
February 26, 2011
Grants and Awards
New Works Grant
Queens Council on the Arts,
New York City Department of Cultural Affairs (New York, NY)
2018
Edes Foundation Prize
Claire Rosen and Samuel Edes Foundation (Chicago, IL)
2015
Project Research Grant
Pro Helvetia Swiss Arts Council
(Cairo, Egypt)
2012
Social Entrepreneurship Fund Grant
One Chicago, One Nation
(Chicago, IL)
2011
Artist Grant
Puffin Foundation (Teaneck, NJ)
2011
Graduate Research Grant
The Graduate School,
Northwestern University
(Evanston, IL)
2010
University Fellowship
Department of Art Theory
and Practice, Northwestern University (Evanston, IL)
2007
Education Grant
Institute of International Education/Ford Foundation (Cairo, Egypt)
2000
First Prize in Plastic Arts
National Student Art Competition, Ministry of Culture (Cairo, Egypt)
1997