Grow
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.
This year’s theme encourages us to move beyond the boundaries that have long defined East and West, and to consider how geography, culture, and history nurture the ways we see ourselves and others. The fair resonates with Leela Gandhi’s research on “affective communities,” revealing the subtle collaborations and shared stories that allow new forms of connection and understanding to emerge.
Alongside the gallery presentations, Asia NOW has built a strong public program shaped by invited curators and international institutions. Encompassing performances, talks, and special projects, the program brings together diverse voices and practices that reflect the richness and dynamism of the regions represented.
This year, Asia NOW places West Asia and South Asia at the heart of its programming, highlighting artists, galleries, and curators from across these regions.
West & South Asia
For this edition, Asia NOW foregrounds multiple 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: Anissa Touati, Researcher at Brown University, USA, Curator of the Biennale BCK in Greece; Arnaud Morand, Independent Curator; Head of Arts Afalula; John Tain, curator of the Lahore Biennale 2024; Natasha Ginwala, Artistic Director of Colomboscope, Curator of Sharjah Biennial 16: to carry and Hajra Haider, Guest Curator of Colomboscope Festival 2026.
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 moments, 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.
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 and artist Saadia Mirza, 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 Patel and artist-curator Nikhil Chopra, reflects on the forthcoming edition For the Time Being, while also sharing a curated film program from the Jaipur Centre for Artists’ Cinema, celebrating cinema as an artistic and collective form.
Photo © Mohammad Al Faraj
