Nadia Kurd (She/Her) is an interdisciplinary curator and art historian with a PhD from McGill University. She has special interests in the visual culture of diasporic Muslim communities in North America, as well as contemporary Islamic art and architecture.
Her doctoral work focused on mosque architecture in Canada and the US as well as built-forms inspired by Islamic architecture such as Shriner’s Temples and movie theatres. This research examined the transmission of Islamic architectural forms and the diverse communities they serve.
Nadia’s work has appeared in various catalogues and journals including, The Journal of Canadian Studies, The Journal of Curatorial Studies, Canadian Art, Peripheral Review, Esse Magazine, Femme Art Review, BlackFlash Magazine, Inuit Art Quarterly, The Journal of Canadian Art History, The Walleye and the International Journal of Islamic Architecture.
In addition to working at diverse arts organizations such as SAVAC, Galleries Ontario and the Prison Arts Foundation, Nadia was the Curator of the Thunder Bay Art Gallery from 2010-2018, where her focus was on community engagement and emerging artists in Northwestern Ontario.
In recognition of her work, she was awarded the Northwestern Ontario Visionary Award in 2014 and CCMW’s Women Who Inspire Award in 2016. She was the recipient of the 2017 Hamad bin Khalifa Symposium on Islamic Art Fellowship and the 2018 Arts-Writer in Residence at the Banff International Curatorial Institute. Since 2018, Nadia has worked as the Curator of the University of Alberta Museums Art Collection (on leave 2023-24) and serves on the Editorial Committee for BlackFlash Magazine. She currently lives in Treaty 6 Territory with her spouse and child.