Public Program
and Curatorial Theme
Under the evocative title “Grow”, this year’s Curatorial theme invites audiences to witness how perceptions take root and transform our understanding of the world.
Under the evocative title GROW, the 2025 edition of ASIA NOW articulates a vision of art as a fertile ground for transformation, dialogue, and collective flourishing. More than a theme, GROW becomes a framework through which we engage with the shifting landscapes of identity, culture, and belonging, urging us to move beyond the constraints of geographical, historical, and cultural binaries. Growth here is not a singular trajectory but a multiplicity of roots, extending across borders and traditions, entangling the local and the global, the ancestral and the contemporary.
At the heart of this edition lies an invitation to reflect on how perceptions take shape, expand, and alter the way we encounter each other in an increasingly fluid world. GROW calls attention to the transformative potential of art—its capacity to plant seeds of empathy, to germinate connections across difference, and to cultivate the imagination required for new modes of living together.
Aligned with Leela Gandhi’s evocative concept of “affective communities,” ASIA NOW 2025 foregrounds the fragile, often understated gestures through which bonds of solidarity and friendship emerge. Gandhi reminds us that communities are not forged solely through shared origins or histories, but through unexpected affinities and ethical attachments that cross cultural divides. An artist working with material from their ancestral soil, for instance, may encounter a viewer from another geography who recognizes in that gesture the light of their own memory—whether tied to earth, craft, or ritual. In this moment, an affective community takes root: not grounded in sameness, but in a resonance that links distinct origins through shared sensibility. These affective threads—woven through acts of sharing, listening, and remembering—become essential sites of ethical and aesthetic engagement.
Curatorial text by Anissa Touati
West & South Asia
For this edition, Asia NOW brings to the fore a plethora of voices, embracing the richness that emerges when diverse perspectives take root together. A chorus of curators and institutions will shape the public program across La Monnaie de Paris.
Unfolding across La Monnaie de Paris during the fair, Asia NOW’s curated program of installations, performances, screenings, and conversations brings West Asia and South Asia to the forefront, featuring major contributions from international institutions, foundations, art centers, and gallery-supported artists.
Among them: John Tain, Curator of the Lahore Biennale; Natasha Ginwala, Artistic Director of COLOMBOSCOPE, Curator of Sharjah Biennial 16: to carry; Hajra Haider Karrar, Guest Curator of COLOMBOSCOPE Festival 2026; Anissa Touati, Researcher at Brown University, USA, Curator of the Biennale BCK in Greece; Arnaud Morand, Independent Curator, Head of Arts at Afalula; Eunice Tsang, Founder of Current Plans and Associate Curator at M+ museum; Sahil Arora, Founder of Method Art Space, India; Zohreh Deldadeh, Researcher and Curator, Poush resident 2024; Victoire de Pourtales, Curator, Co-Founder 91530 Le Marais, Art & Farming.
Focus on West Asia
As the art world’s compass continues to tilt, “Asia” is no longer a one-size-fits-all concept stretching neatly from Tokyo to Tehran. This year, Asia NOW invites us to rethink our directional assumptions with the theme My East is Your West—a playful and poignant nod to the cultural relativity of geography. West Asia—more commonly referred to as the Middle East—has stepped into a new discursive and curatorial spotlight. From Beirut to Riyadh, Dubai to Ramallah, the region’s cultural ecosystems are asserting engagement on their own terms. What was once considered a periphery is actively reconfiguring the map, reminding us that cultural gravity rarely respects cartographic conventions.
In this spirit, Asia NOW 2025 extends an open invitation to engage with adjacent geographies—bringing West Asia into sharper focus as an integral and generative part of the conversation. This curatorial gesture resists rigid regionalism, instead treating Asia as a mutable paradigm: philosophical rather than purely geographic, plural rather than monolithic. In this post-Western moment, where contemporary art’s traditional centers are increasingly decentered—the fair turns its attention toward more agile, hybrid, and often grassroots-led initiatives across the Middle East. Rather than echoing the familiar narrative of mega-infrastructure and state-driven spectacle, the spotlight here is on the porous, the emergent, and the in-between.
Under the Aegis of the Moon - Han Mengyun
Under the Aegis of the Moon is a commissioned project by Chinese artist Han Mengyun and curated by Arnaud Morand, proposed by the French Agency for AlUla Development (AFALULA) — a performative installation that weaves together poetry and video to evoke the quiet majesty of the moon.
Structured around a sequence of poems that unfold in tandem with the lunar rise, the work pays homage to the night as a space of reflection, intuition, and revelation. It foregrounds the sincerity of poetic expression as something that demands presence, vulnerability, and aliveness. This poetic proposition is deeply rooted in the artist’s experience during a research residency in AlUla, where landscape, silence, and time coalesced as sources of creative clarity.
© Han Mengyun 2025
Ghost of Today and Tomorrow - Ahaad Alamoudi
Ghost of Today and Tomorrow by Ahaad Alamoudi, a project presented by Arts & Ideas – an initiative by the Saudi Visual Arts Commission.
© Ahaad Alamoudi, VAC
Mohammed Al Faraj
Mohammed Al Faraj will transform the entrance of the Monnaie enveloping each column in prints of palm trees echoing the landscape of his native Al Hasa.
© Mohammed Al Faraj
Threaded Whole - Pascal Hachem
Pascal Hachem (Lebanon) presents Threaded Whole, a performance centered on the idea of “growing memory,” revisiting the notion of community and exploring how memory is shaped through absence, rupture, and everyday objects.
With special thanks to Alserkal.
© Pascal Hachem
Topographies of Belonging, Homeskins I to VI - Muhannad Shono
Muhannad Shono presents Homeskins I–VI, sculptural forms of burnt foundry sand reimagining land and self as one surface. Within Asia NOW’s GROW programme, the work reflects on migration, belonging, and re-rooting—turning displacement into an act of renewal and care.
© Muhannad Shono
I like never, I also like ever - Sarah Brahim
Sarah Brahim presents I like never, I also like ever, a video installation where two levitating bodies in slow, cyclical motion explore transformation and resilience through suspended time, turning movement into meditation and the body into a site of renewal.
This artwork was originally commissioned by Vittoria Matarrese and Villa Heleneum (Bally Foundation) for the artist’s solo exhibition “Sometimes We Are Eternal” in 2024.
© Sarah Brahim
Emanet - Vuslat
Vuslat’s diptych embodies “emanet”, the ancient practice of entrusting care without expectation, revealing renewal through two phoenixes rising from ashes. The sparrow’s flight symbolizes hopeful transformation and reciprocal growth, echoing a shared ethic of trust and responsibility. This work channels interconnectedness and collective flourishing, reflecting how art cultivates new communities and multiplies bonds across time and place. In essence, it is a powerful meditation on growth as a dynamic, living exchange rooted in memory and care.
Curated by Anissa Touati
© Vuslat
Focus on South Asia
The Focus on South Asia Public Program brings together major voices and platforms shaping the region’s contemporary cultural landscape. The Lahore Biennale Foundation (Pakistan), under the curatorial direction of John Tain, convenes intergenerational perspectives from Pakistan. Colomboscope (Sri Lanka), the leading interdisciplinary arts festival in Colombo, presents a performance by Chathuri Nissansala and a conversation between curator Hajra Haider Kaddar and artist Basir Mahmood, alongside a screening of works by Nepalese artist Subas Tamang, whose practice examines caste, Indigenous identity, and memory. From India, the Kochi-Muziris Biennale, represented by Shwetal Ashvin Patel, founding member of the Biennale, Anissa Touati, Researcher at Brown University, USA, Curator of the Biennale BCK in Greece and artist-curator Nikhil Chopra, reflects on the forthcoming edition For the Time Being, while also sharing a curated film from the Jaipur Centre for Art’s programme Artists’ Cinema / Artist’s Cinema, celebrating cinema as an artistic and collective form.
Of Mountains and Seas - The Lahore Biennale Foundation
Curated by John Tain (curator of the Lahore Biennale), the exhibition brings together intergenerational Pakistani voices.
Artists on view:
Hamra Abbas, Feroza Hakeem, Imran Qureshi, Fazal Rizvi, Mella Jaarsma
With the support of Ambassade de France au Pakistan and Pakistan International Airlines
© Fazal Rizvi, How to Become a Rock – a fall, a poem, a wish, a score, a manifesto, 2024
Reenactments of Lost Rhythms - Colomboscope
Reenactments of Lost Rhythms
Deeply resonant with thematic directions that shape the ninth edition of Colomboscope, this program brings together artistic positions that have previously been hosted and nurtured by its framework, alongside new ones that will be anchored in the upcoming edition.
© Basir Mahmood
Art & Farming
Coin of the Earth, Weave of Memory - 91530 Le Marais
Coin of the Earth, Weave of Memory.
Desire Moheb-Zandi & Marion Flament
Curated by 91530 Le Marais
Powered by Soilonic
Presentation of Desire Moheb-Zandi’s new textile-based project, developed during a summer residency in Turkey. The work draws on Kilim weaving techniques and natural pigments, blending regenerative agriculture with ancestral Anatolian crafts from her native land. Curated by Victoire de Pourtalès.
© Marion Flament
Contemporary Craft
Since its inception, Asia NOW has championed craft as a vital thread between tradition and contemporary expression. This year spotlights three artists who have been finalists in different editions of the LOEWE Craft Prize.
Artists selected:
Racso Jugarap (Philippines) – Textile works exploring mythology, diaspora, and queer identity.
Sumakshi Singh (India) – Embroidered installations tracing memory and spiritual space.
Wan Bing Huang (China) – Surreal landscapes across drawing, animation, and installation.
© Sumakshi Singh, “Pichls Darwaza”, 2023
RAK Art Foundation Prize
In collaboration with the Paris Asian Art Fair (ASIA NOW), the RAK Art Foundation has launched the RAK Art Foundation Prize, an award celebrating two artists whose practices connect cultural heritage with contemporary creation. The prize aims to foster dialogue between global contemporary art and the living traditions of craftsmanship, encouraging artists to explore new ways of thinking through making. Through this partnership, the RAK Art Foundation and ASIA NOW reaffirm their shared commitment to supporting artists who engage critically with identity, craft, and cultural exchange. The award grants each winner a one-month residency at The Art Station, a creative and cultural art space in the heart of Muharraq Souq, where they will collaborate with local artisans to create new works inspired by the Foundation’s values of heritage, continuity, and craft. The residency underscores the Foundation’s commitment to nurturing artistic practices that bridge tradition and innovation — inviting dialogue between contemporary artists and Bahraini craftsmanship.
The RAK Art Foundation Prize was awarded to Nomin Zezegmaa and Meher Afroz, whose art reflects cultural memory, material knowledge, and the links across artistic communities. Nomin Zezegmaa (b. 1992, Ulaanbaatar) — presented by NIKA Project Space — works across The Netherlands, Mongolia, and Germany. Her multidisciplinary practice draws on Mongol cosmogony, exploring history, materiality, and spirituality through ritual and gesture, connecting body, spirit, land, and renewal. During her Bahrain residency, she will engage with local artisans, weaving her Mongolian heritage into Bahraini craft traditions, celebrating kinship across differences. Meher Afroz (b. Lucknow, India; based in Karachi, Pakistan) — presented by O Art Space — is a master painter and printmaker with over fifty years exploring identity, time, and belonging. Her work emphasizes reflection, resilience, and repair, fostering contemplation and connection. In Bahrain, she aims to create shared spiritual and cultural experiences, inspiring new generations through her exploration of memory and creation. Zezegmaa and Afroz embody the prize’s spirit—honoring tradition as a living dialogue between heritage and imagination.
Commenting on the prize, Rashid Al Khalifa, Founder of the RAK Art Foundation, said: “This initiative reflects our belief that meaningful art emerges when artists engage deeply with the spirit of place — with its traditions, its makers, and its stories. By connecting international artists with Bahraini artisans, we hope to nurture a space of exchange that celebrates continuity while embracing experimentation. Both Nomin and Meher embody that vision beautifully — their practices remind us that heritage is not something we preserve in stillness, but something we keep alive through dialogue, imagination, and care.”
The inaugural RAK Art Foundation Prize was selected by a distinguished jury composed of voices deeply engaged in global contemporary art and cultural exchange: Benedicta Badia, advocate for emerging artists and cross-cultural dialogue; Emre Baykal, Director of Arter Foundation in Istanbul; Dr. Sara Raza, Artistic Director and Chief Curator at CCA Tashkent; Salma Tuqan, Director of Nottingham Contemporary; and Anissa Touati, researcher at Brown University and curator of the Biennale BCK in Greece.
Collectively, the jury brought together diverse curatorial perspectives spanning education, research, and institutional practice, united by a shared belief in art’s ability to connect traditions and communities across borders.
Matsutani Prize
The ceremony will take place during Asia NOW at the Monnaie de Paris for the second year in a row.
Awarded by the SHŌEN Fund, the Matsutani Prize grants €15,000 to an artist based in France, with 5 to 25 years of career, selected by a jury of artists, curators, and collectors.
For this 2025 édition, Liyu Yeo — curator and Asia NOW VIP Ambassador — will serve as guest rapporteur.
Jury:
Takesada Matsutani – Artist, Kate Van Houten – Artist, Nathanaëlle Herbelin – 2019 laureate, Jean- Philippe Bourgeno – Collector, Publisher, Tom Laurent – Art Critic
Finalists artists:
Liang Fu (Nicodim gallery), Daiga Grantina (Emalin gallery), Séquoia Scavullo (sans titre gallery), Natsuko Uchino (Sorry We’re Closed gallery)
