Mariam Elnozahy Appointed As Curator Of The 2027 Ulaanbaatar Biennale

By providing your information, you agree to our Terms of Use and our Privacy Policy. We use vendors that may also process your information to help provide our services. Researcher, writer, and curator Mariam Elnozahy has been announced as chief curator of the second edition of the Ulaanbaatar Biennale. The event, which serves as a nexus for the Mongolian arts and culture sector to engage with audiences and artists from all over the world, is set to take place from June 4–30, 2027, at sites across Ulaanbaatar. Following an open call for applications for the post of chief curator, the selection committee unanimously selected Elnozahy to spearhead the biennale’s next edition. The committee included Mongolian artists and arts leaders, alongside curators from across the world, including Tian Zhang, who was chief curator of the inaugural Ulaanbaatar Biennale in 2025. Elnozahy is currently artistic director of Konsthall C in Stockholm, Sweden. She holds a master’s degree from the Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and her work often examines questions of globalization, development, and resource extraction. Her writing has appeared in CURA Magazine, Frieze Magazine, Markaz Review, and Hyperallergic. Elnozahy has previously worked at Townhouse Gallery for Contemporary Art in Cairo and Ma3azef Magazine. She also participated in a residency at the Jan van Eyck Academie in Maastricht, Netherlands, from 2022 to 2023. In a statement following her appointment, Elnozahy said she was “inspired by the contemporary artists working in Ulaanbaatar across mediums—painting, sound, installation, and more—and look[s] forward to learning from them and others working in this context.” She added that she was “eager to bring these practices into dialogue with artists from different regions as well.” The second Ulaanbaatar Biennale is titled “Love Songs for Mountains,” inspired by the artwork Noorani Metal Sound (2026) by artist Zahra Malkani, whose work will also be shown at the event.