untitled 2026: Contributors

Contributing Artists, Curators and Practitioners

Tom Eccles

Curator

Tom Eccles is Executive Director of the Centre for Curatorial Studies and the Hessel Museum of Art at Bard College, a position he has held since 2005. At CCS Bard, Eccles built the Hessel Museum of Art, expanded the research facilities and built the Keith Haring Wing, which includes a greater teaching, library, archive, and art-storage space. He has worked closely with the founder, Marieluise Hessel, to build the art collection of more than 3,000 works held at CCS Bard. With the CCS Bard Board, he has also created a substantial endowment to support the museum and its graduate programme. As a curator at CCS Bard, Eccles has collaborated with artists Anne Collier, Rachel Harrison, VALIE EXPORT, Amy Sillman, Haim Steinbach, Leigh Ledare, Ho Tzu Nyen, and Walead Beshty, among many others. The campus also has public works by Cosima von Bonin, Franz West, Martin Creed, Mark Handforth, and Olafur Eliasson. A new work by Rirkrit Tiravanija will be added this spring.

Prior to CCS Bard, Eccles was the Director of New York's Public Art Fund for ten years, during which time he realised over one hundred projects across the city, from site-specific projects by Ilya Kabakov and Rachel Whiteread, to historical surveys with artists such as Keith Haring, Tony Smith, and Roy Lichtenstein, monumental sculptures by Louise Bourgeois, Jeff Koons, Nam June Paik, and Takashi Murakami at Rockefeller Centre, community gardens by Alison and Betye Saar and Vito Acconci, and performance/film projects with Pierre Huyghe and Tony Oursler. Since 2006, Eccles has been an adviser to the Luma Foundation in Arles, working closely with the philanthropist Maja Hoffmann to curate numerous exhibitions, and as an adviser to Her Excellency Sheikha Al Mayassa bint Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani in Qatar since 2018, where he has organised more than thirty installations of public art, including works by Ugo Rondinone, Isa Genzken, Olafur Eliasson, and others.

Ruba Katrib

Curator

Ruba Katrib is the Chief Curator and Director of Curatorial Affairs at MoMA PS1, New York, where she oversees the museum’s curatorial programme and serves on the leadership team. At PS1, she has organised exhibitions including Ayoung Kim: Delivery Dancer Codex (2025), The Gatherers (2025), Rirkrit Tiravanija: A LOT OF PEOPLE (2023), Jumana Manna: Break, Take, Erase, Tally (2022), Frieda Toranzo Jaeger: Autonomous Drive (2022), Greater New York (2021), Niki de Saint Phalle: Structures for Life (2021), Simone Fattal’s retrospective (2019), as well as solo exhibitions by Edgar Heap of Birds (2019), Karrabing Collective (2019), Fernando Palma Rodríguez, and Julia Phillips (2018). From 2012 to 2018, Katrib was Curator at Sculpture Centre, New York, where she organised over twenty exhibitions, including 74 million tons (2018, co-organised with artist Lawrence Abu Hamdan) and solo shows by Carissa Rodriguez, Kelly Akashi, Sam Anderson, Teresa Burga, Nicola L., Charlotte Prodger, Rochelle Goldberg, Aki Sasamoto, Cosima von Bonin, Anthea Hamilton, Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook, Magali Reus, Gabriel Sierra, Erika Verzutti, and David Douard. In 2018, Katrib co-curated SITE Santa Fe’s biennial, Casa Tomada, with José Luis Blondet and Candice Hopkins. She regularly writes for periodicals and museum catalogues.

Rirkrit Tiravanija

Artist

Born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Thai artist Rirkrit Tiravanija is known for a practice that overturns traditional exhibition formats in favour of social interactions through the sharing of everyday activities such as cooking, eating, and reading. Creating environments that reject the primacy of the art object and instead focus on use value and bringing people together through simple acts and environments of communal care, Tiravanija’s work challenges expectations around labour and virtuosity. Tiravanija is on the faculty of the School of the Arts at Columbia University and is a founding member and curator of Utopia Station, a collective project of artists, art historians, and curators. He also helped establish an educational-ecological project known as The Land Foundation, located near Chiang Mai, Thailand. Tiravanija studied at the Ontario College of Art, Toronto, the Banff Centre School of Fine Arts, Canada, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Whitney Independent Study Programme, New York.

He has exhibited at museums and galleries worldwide. Major solo shows include: Pirelli HangarBicocca, Milan (2026), Gropius Bau, Berlin (2024); Luma Arles, Arles (2024); MoMA PS1, New York (2023); Cultuurcentrum Strombeek, Grimbergen (2022); ICA, London (2019); Hirshhorn Museum, Washington (2019); National Gallery Singapore (2018); Museumplein, Amsterdam (2016); YBCA, San Francisco (2015); Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Fort Worth, Texas (2014); Park Avenue Armory, New York (2013); Bonniers Konsthall, Stockholm (2011); Kunsthalle Bielefeld (2010); Museé de la Ville de Paris (2005); Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen (2004); Chiang Mai University Art Museum (2004); Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art in Oslo (2002); Los Angeles County Museum of Art (1999); and The Museum of Modern Art, New York (1997). Tiravanija’s work has been recognised with numerous prestigious awards, including the Benesse by the Naoshima Contemporary Art Museum in Japan, the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s Lucelia Artist Award, the Hugo Boss Prize from the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York (2004), and the 2010 Absolut Art Award.

Tarek Atoui

Artist and Composer

Born in Beirut, Tarek Atoui is an artist and electroacoustic composer living in Paris whose practice explores sound through dynamic installations, experimental acoustic environments, and collaborative performances. Working with composers and craftsmen across cultures, he invents sculptural instruments that test the acoustic properties of materials such as bronze, water, glass, and stone. Using custom-built electronic instruments, Atoui references social and political realities, engaging local communities and inviting audiences into multi-sensory environments. He has recently exhibited at IMMA Dublin (2026), Pirelli HangarBicocca, Milan (2025), and Kunsthaus Bregenz (2024). His works are held in major public collections, including the Pinault Collection, the Guggenheim, and Tate.

Fadi Kattan

Chef and Author

Fadi Kattan, Palestinian and French chef, author, and hotelier, has become the voice of modern Palestinian cuisine. Fadi’s approach, working in respect of the terroir, has been acclaimed by the press and industry peers. After completing his hotel management studies at the Institut Vatel and working in Paris and London, Fadi came back to Palestine to join his family’s business. However, his love for the kitchen never went away and 15 years later, despite the challenging political and economic situation, he decided to pursue his dream, opening his own restaurant, Fawda. Fadi is a partner and the executive chef in the first Modern Palestinian restaurant, Akub, which opened in January 2023 in Notting Hill, London, bringing a taste of Palestinian cuisine to the vibrant neighbourhood. In 2024, he co-founded Kassa Boutique Hotel in Bethlehem with Palestinian-Chilean businesswoman Elizabeth Kassis. In May 2024, he released his book Bethlehem, which was received with heartwarming praise. In November of 2024, Fadi co-founded Louf in Toronto, bringing his take on Palestinian flavours to Canada.

Alia Farid

Artist

Alia Farid lives and works in Kuwait and Puerto Rico. Her work, mostly moving image and sculpture, is interested in the ways modernity reconfigures collectivity and ritual. She has a BFA from La Escuela de Artes Plásticas (San Juan), an MS in Visual Studies from the Visual Arts Program at MIT (Cambridge), and an MA in Museum Studies and Critical Theory from the Programa d’Estudis Independents MACBA (Barcelona). In 2023, she received the Lise Wilhelmsen Art Award, and in 2023–24, she was the David and Roberta Logie Fellow at Harvard Radcliffe Institute.

Related Events

Throughout the exhibition, the pavilion will host a programme of live performances and culinary events to activate the space.