Salma Tuqan’s trajectory traces an influential rethinking of what curating can do. At the V&A, where she served as the inaugural Contemporary Middle East Curator, she built  a permanent collection while initiating new conversations through commissions and programmes such as the Jameel Prize and Culture in Crisis. At Delfina Foundation, she shaped residencies and long-term partnerships across the Middle East, South Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean. Alongside this, her independent projects – from Venice to Lyon – have consistently foregrounded practices that span disciplines, geographies and political realities.

What emerges is an approach concerned with complexity without dilution and for dialogue without resolution. In Nottingham, that sensibility now unfolds at an institutional scale – through exhibitions that bring artists such as Hamid Zénati, Julian Abraham “Togar”, Allan Weber, and Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Rahme into conversation with the city’s own histories and communities. The question is no longer simply what an exhibition shows, but how it listens – and who it makes space for.

Caroline Issa You’ve worked across institutions with very different publics and geographies. How does your sense of who an exhibition is for shift depending on where you are?

Salma Tuqan I’ve been fortunate to work across very different forms and scales of institutions: from the V&A with its expansive public to the Delfina Foundation, which is smaller, more agile and places artists at the centre of its orbit. Now, at Nottingham Contemporary (NC), we sit somewhere in between: large enough to have reach, but at a scale which remains responsive. What shifts, more than anything, is how closely you’re able to listen. Each place asks something different of you. There isn’t a fixed idea of who an exhibition is for; that understanding develops through attention. We have a duty of care to the artists and the communities we collaborate with and serve. That means responding to the specificities of a place without flattening them – being imaginative with how we work, but also being open and direct about the difficult conversations shaping our society.

CI There’s often a tension between the global circulation of artists and ideas and the specificity of local histories. Where do you think meaningful friction still exists between those two poles?  How has this shaped your programming?

ST Local and global are often framed as opposites, when in practice they can exist in productive harmony and meaningful friction. We’ve been looking at how to hold this tension and experiment with it, bringing together ideas and debates that are locally and globally resonant. Rooting artists more deeply in the city, through residencies and collaborations with partners like Primary [an artist-led visual arts organisation] or local businesses, has also allowed organic connections to emerge, in dialogue with local histories, communities and ways of working.

Our previous solo exhibition REꓘONCILIATION (2024) of the Indonesian artist, musician and social researcher Julian Abraham “Togar”, is a good example of this. Co-devised across our Curatorial, Live and Learning departments, it brought together young people from across Nottingham, tapping into the city’s legacy of music and radio cultures.
A meaningful collaboration emerged between the artist and the Robin Hood Youth Orchestra, a public orchestra in Nottingham, who were a former group of residents rehearsing every Saturday morning at NC. The gallery became a working music studio and gathering space, where improvisation and collective listening were central. The exhibition unfolded through performances, listening sessions and informal encounters, where strangers could find rhythm with one another and local and global references met through sound.

Likewise, our recent exhibition and major commission of Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Rahme, which centres the Palestinian political prisoners’ movement, resonates broadly despite emerging from a specific context. It explores imprisonment as a condition of the mind and body, and the power of holding onto one’s freedom through imagining and dreaming, singing and storytelling. The work was a poignant articulation of a refusal to be broken – an acute message for today’s world.

In 2027, we will be working with artist and architect Joar Nango, whose practice draws on Sámi knowledge systems rooted in movement, resourcefulness and kinship to land. His process embraces collaboration and hospitality. His project Girjegumpi is evolving: a nomadic library and social space that brings together books, tools and materials. As it travels, it absorbs new contexts, contributions and meanings. The iteration in Nottingham will adapt and grow with its host, functioning as a living environment for reading, gathering and exchange.

Local and global are often framed as opposites, when in practice they can exist in productive harmony and meaningful friction

CI Your work has engaged with Palestinian voices, histories and cultural production at a time when so many institutions have cowered or not been “brave” enough to do so. How do you navigate the expectations placed on you as a “bridge” or interpreter of those contexts within Western institutions?

ST There are complex and very real pressures. Today, institutions navigate heightened scrutiny – from public debate, funding structures, legal frameworks and external lobby groups – and this inevitably shapes the conditions we work within. Presenting the work of artists like Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Rahme, or Samia Halaby, is a privilege and a part of our mandate, not an act of exceptional courage.

I’m also cautious of the idea of being a “bridge” or interpreter. These are not voices that need translation in that sense – they are already clear and rigorous. What we can do, within a Western institutional context, is to ensure that those voices are presented with care and on their own terms, without dilution or censorship and without being instrumentalised.

It comes back to clarity of purpose: being accountable to artists and to the audiences we serve, rather than to shifting external pressures. That clarity helps guide difficult decisions and allows us to remain open, without becoming reactive or self-censoring.

CI What gets lost – and what can be gained – when translating artworks and ideas across cultures and audiences?

ST Curating is a form of translation, but never a perfect one. With any act of communication, there are cultural, linguistic and emotional nuances that are misplaced. Something is inevitably altered in the process.

At the same time, artists rarely make work in isolation. Meanings will evolve as the work is encountered by different audiences and contexts. While some things may be lost, others are gained: new readings, resonances and ways of seeing that weren’t available at the point of origin.

I’m particularly interested in working with artists whose perspectives can open up new ways of understanding the local. One example of this was last year’s collaboration with the Brazilian artist Allan Weber. Coming from the 5 Bocas community in Rio de Janeiro, renowned for its excellent food, his commission paid homage and reflected on the often overlooked labour of delivery riders in Nottingham, many of whom are migrants. The work drew on his experience of working as a rider in Rio during the pandemic and delved into ideas around commerce, service, social class and the precarity of the gig economy.

The exhibition sparked connections between places that might otherwise have felt disparate, charging something familiar with a different lens. For me, that’s where translation becomes generative: not in perfectly carrying meaning across, but in creating the conditions for something new to be understood.

With any act of communication, there are cultural, linguistic and emotional nuances that are misplaced. Something is inevitably altered in the process

CI How do you think about pacing: what a viewer understands immediately versus what unfolds more slowly over time? And how important has programming other points of contact, such as late nights, become for the local community?

ST A strong exhibition is a generous one, something that reaches someone, whether it’s their first time visiting a gallery or they’ve been looking at art for years. It should offer an immediate aspect, but also layers that reward time and attention, and invite return. As with a musical composition, it should consider pace as well as the environment in which the work is seen, creating moments of pause and considering access needs to enable those moments of rest and reflection.

As a visitor, I’m drawn to exhibitions that leave an opening; something unresolved that stays with you, that you return to. It’s difficult, but it often comes down to a sense of honesty in the work: when an artist’s concerns and process feel genuine, there’s an emotional charge that carries through to the viewer.

At NC, programming extends that experience. Exhibition making is treated as a live act, where the gallery itself is discursive and charged, a space that convenes talks, performances and more informal moments of gathering, creating additional points of entry or ways for people to spend time with the work and each other. These contact points matter. They allow an exhibition to unfold gradually, rather than in a single visit, and create an ongoing relationship with audiences.

CI Nottingham has a strong history of industry, migration and political organising. Are there particular local narratives or communities that have reshaped how you think about programming?

ST One of the things that first drew me to Nottingham was its long history of activism, non-conformity and political organising. This spirit runs deep within the city’s veins, from the myth of Robin Hood through to the lace workers’ protests, the miners’ strikes of the 1960s and 1970s, and more recent movements for racial justice. It’s a city shaped by migration and collective action, and a strong belief in the necessity of a more equitable society. That spirit provides the backbone for the work we do. It informs our learning, exhibitions and live programme, but also the quieter, ongoing work: our partnerships, and how we share the building with communities.

CI What responsibilities do you think a contemporary art institution can realistically hold, and what are its limits?

ST As we experience the true cost of years of austerity, the crippling of social services and public space, attacks on our civil liberties and a resulting climate of censorship, our institutions’ purpose and impact have become even more expansive and profound. The need for connection in an increasingly polarised world feels urgent. At their best, cultural institutions act as spaces for people to share, discuss, dissent, learn and celebrate. They can carry the energy and life of a public square, a communal kitchen or a skate park. As public services and civic spaces continue to be hollowed out, expectations placed on cultural institutions have expanded – often without the resources to sustain them. Institutions are now positioned as proxies for broader social provision, which risks obscuring the structural conditions and realities at play. It is therefore essential to be precise about where and how they can act meaningfully.

CI Institutions often carry inherited structures and assumptions. How do you decide what to preserve, what to challenge and what to dismantle?

ST A large chasm often exists between the visible and invisible faces of institutions. All too often, the focus is on what is visible – the exhibitions and public programming – while overlooking the invisible processes of how decisions are made, how people communicate and work together, and the conditions under which culture is produced. For me, those two faces need to be aligned. The question of what to preserve and what to challenge doesn’t sit only at the level of programming but also within the organisation itself. It is important to look closely at inherited structures and ask whether they are relevant or whether they still serve the people working within them. I’m interested in how a plurality of perspectives can shape the institution holistically, and building longer-term relationships with artists and communities, in ways that encourage institutional learning and structural change. Not everything needs to be dismantled visibly. Some shifts happen quietly, through changes in culture and how people are supported and heard. Over time, those changes can be just as, or perhaps more, significant and lasting.

CI Which artists do you think are currently reframing how we understand authorship, collaboration or collective memory?

ST Chico da Silva is an important historical reference for me. His practice opens up questions around collective making, attribution and the blurred boundaries between individual and shared creation. I’m also interested in artists who are actively reshaping the systems they operate within. Edgar Calel is a powerful example. Through his work, he has challenged institutions such as Tate to reconsider dominant ideas of acquisition and ownership, drawing instead on Indigenous perspectives that emphasise custodianship, reciprocity and responsibility. In both cases, the work does more than just sit within the institution. It asks the institution itself to change, in doing so opening up expansive ways of thinking about how art is made and remembered..