Sadya Mizan

Born in 1987.

Sadya Mizan is an independent curator and researcher currently based in Bangladesh.

After completing her post-graduate degree at the Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Dhaka in Bangladesh, she enjoyed a diverse career as a creative director, coordinator, researcher, and arts manager until deciding to focus on her independent curatorial practice. Her curatorial expertise lies in initiating decentralized platforms to identify, reconnect, and archive cultural heritage and community narratives. She investigates contemporary social art practices, explores architectural history through collective memories, and redefines museums through youth engagement and community participatory interventions to inspire new generations of audiences, practitioners, and creators.

The Uronto Artist Community has been a pioneering initiative by her since 2012. Mizan is also the founding trustee of the Art Initiative Bangladesh (2018). She was the Artist facilitator (2020-2023) to the Rohingya Cultural Memory Centre, run by the UN International Organization for Migration (IOM), and has been a curatorial partner with the Our Shared Cultural Heritage Project of the British Council to connect youth with cultural heritage and museums, also facilitated the Rickshaw art project for the permanent collection of Manchester Museum’s South Asian Gallery.
Past appointments include her work as a contributing researcher for the Asia Art Archive Delhi/India, as a fellow at the ARThinkSouthAsia program, New Delhi/India and the Autumn School of Curating, Cluj-Napoca/Romania (2020), and as holder of the EDI (Education Integration) Global Forum fellowship in Naples/Italy (2022).

In addition to mentoring diverse academic courses, she is engaged in significant research on art infrastructure and socially engaged creative practices. The Uronto Residential Art Exchange program, Womyn at Work, Shilpokotha, and the Kalik Studio Residency represent some of her significant curatorial endeavors in the form of exchange programs, talks, and digital interventions resulting in unique archives around creative practice and praxis. Her recently curated exhibition was titled» Recollected« which showcased twelve multidisciplinary artists’ work and story-telling on narratives from two heritage buildings in northeast districts of Bangladesh called Sunamganj.