A native of Lebanon, Myrna Ayad has resided in the UAE since the 1980s. A respected and independent figure of Dubai's culture scene, Ayad was an editor at Canvas Magazine, as well as the director of the city's home fair, Art Dubai. She has also published sophisticated book titles for Assouline and Rizzoli, and has contributed articles about art from the Arab world for The New York Times, Artnet, The Art Newspaper, among other publications. From an early age, she was exposed to culture, from attending musicals to exploring heritage sites, as a result of traveling with her parents. But, the first museum that truly impacted her came a bit later in adulthood, and it all began in Doha.

“The museum that truly shook me was Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art,” she says. “By then, I was already a few years into my career as a writer and editor focused on visual art from the Arab world and Iran—learning on the job, fuelled by a deep passion for the field. Mathaf was astounding. It was inspiring, provocative, and transformative. Beyond the brilliance of its holdings was the revelation of how rich and layered the region’s artistic history truly is. More powerful still was the understanding that there exists an alternative history—one that lives beyond the textbooks. And that’s why museums are important.”