Art direction & curation

Consulting

Art direction and curation

Art rarely fails because the work was weak. It fails because it arrived last — chosen after the space was built, the campaign was written and the budget was spent, and asked to decorate a decision it had no part in.

I work the other way around. I come in while the idea is still moving, and I stay until the last label is on the wall.

I am a multidisciplinary artist working across painting, moving image, sound and writing, based in Dubai and exhibiting internationally. I consult in the two areas where that range is the point: art direction for brands and cultural partners, and curation for galleries, artists and organisers.

One

Art direction

For brands, cultural partners, and organisations commissioning or programming art.

A campaign, a launch, a space or a cultural programme has a feeling before it has a form. My work is to find that feeling, give it a form the audience can enter, and hold it consistent across every surface it touches — the image, the room, the sound, the words.

What this covers

Creative direction — for a launch, campaign, cultural programme, space or event — concept, visual language, and the through-line that keeps it coherent as it grows
Artwork commissioning — writing the brief, selecting the artist, negotiating scope and terms, and directing the work to delivery
Art for spaces — selection, sequence, scale, placement and lighting, so the work reads as intended in the room it actually lives in rather than the one it was chosen in
Sound and moving image — original score, video works, and the sonic identity of an environment, treated as part of the concept rather than atmosphere added afterwards
Visual identity for cultural projects — title treatment, print, invitation, environment, and the way a project is described in its own words
Digital and on-chain work — editions, registration and ownership structures for digital pieces, and the relationship between a physical work and its digital state
Cultural partnership advisory — what a sponsorship or a commission should actually buy, what it should never buy, and how to be present in a cultural project without flattening it

Who this is for

Brands commissioning original work rather than licensing stock. Companies sponsoring or hosting cultural projects and wanting the association to be credible. Organisations with a space, a season, or an audience, and a sense that the art should be doing more than filling the wall.

Two

Curation

For galleries, artists, and exhibition organisers.

Curation is not selection. Selection is one hour of it. The rest is argument, sequence and language: deciding what the exhibition is claiming, which works make that claim, in what order a visitor meets them, and what they are told at the moment they are looking.

Done properly, the exhibition can carry its own meaning — which matters more each year, as artists are increasingly not in the room, not in the country, and not available to explain themselves.

What this covers

Curatorial concept and narrative — the thesis of the exhibition, written so that everyone working on it can repeat it
Selection and contextualisation — which works, why these, and what each one is doing where it stands
Spatial intent and the visitor journey — mapped entrance to exit: sequence, thresholds, dwell points, and where understanding is meant to arrive
The information layer — wall text, labels, context, artist statements edited to length, and the digital extension behind a code
Catalogue — structure, sequence, curatorial essay, editing and the voice it is written in
Hybrid physical and digital exhibitions — screen-based and generative work given the same standing as the physical, and the pairing of an original with its digital state
Sound and music within the exhibition — original score, sonic transitions between sections, and music treated as a work rather than a background
Artist mentoring — series direction, portfolio structure, artist statement, and how a body of work is presented so that it is read as a body of work

The visitor journey

The information layer

Who this is for

Galleries and organisers planning a group exhibition that needs an argument rather than a theme. Artists preparing a solo presentation, or a body of work that has outgrown the way it is currently shown. Event and festival organisers with a cultural component that deserves better than a rented wall.

Process

How I work

One — the first conversation.
What you are trying to do, who it is for, what is fixed and what is still open. By the end of it we both know whether I am the right person for this project. I will say so if I am not.
Two — brief and scope.
A written scope: what I deliver, on what dates, what I need from you and by when, and where the decision points sit. Agreed before any work begins. Projects rarely go wrong in the making; they go wrong in the assuming.
Three — direction.
The concept, the selection, the language, the space, the sound. This is the part where I am useful, and it is also the part where I will ask you questions you would rather postpone.
Four — delivery and handover.
Everything documented and signed off: final selection, texts, layouts, sequence, specifications, and the reasoning behind each, so the project can be run — or repeated — without me in the room.

Formats

Engagement formats

Single consultation — one focused session on a specific question: a concept that will not resolve, a selection you are unsure of, a space that is not working.
Review — an outside reading of a project already in motion, delivered as a written response. Most useful before commitments are signed rather than after.
Project engagement — full art direction or curation, from concept through to delivery, scoped to the project.
Retainer — ongoing creative direction across a season, a programme, or a series of commissions.

Fees depend on scope, duration and rights, and are agreed in writing before work begins. Tell me what you are planning and I will tell you what it would take.

Background

Multidisciplinary artist, designer, writer and musician based in Dubai. My practice spans painting, motion-based visual work and sound, with over 300 physical artworks and more than 260 video-based pieces.

Work shown internationally in Dubai, Beijing, Paris, Istanbul and the United States, including presentations in New York at Times Square and the Oculus at the World Trade Center.

Author of the Persian novel The Lake Monster, Chopin, and Grilled Eggplant (2023), and of the bilingual serialised novel Coppice Blue. Working in interior design and project management since 2011 — which is where I learned that a beautiful idea and a buildable one are two different documents, and that the second is the one that gets made.

I work in English and Persian.

Selection

How I choose projects

I take on work where the art is part of the thinking rather than applied to the end of it, and where there is still something left to decide when I arrive.

I am careful with cultural projects that use artists as decoration, and with briefs that ask an artist to represent a country rather than make a work. I would rather say this at the beginning than discover it in month four.

Enquire

info@faavidel.art

If you are writing about a project, it helps to include: what it is, roughly when, where, and which part you would like help with. If you are not yet sure which part — that is often the useful conversation.

Based in Dubai. Working internationally, remotely and on site.