Arts management and curation,

Elham Khattab

Founder and Director of Out Of The Circle Organization

Founder and Director of Out Of The Circle Organization

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Elham Khattab is the founder and director of Out Of The Circle, with years of experience in arts management and curation, that build on her background in fine arts.

Searching for ways to support the art scene and the young talents she encountered, Khattab came across arts management in 2007 which set her on track to fill an apparent gap in professional support for artists in Egypt. The pieces all came together between her involvement in organizing exhibitions, co-curating, and completing an internship in business excellence, and she has since 2005 been continually participating in numerous arts management, curation, and exchange programs in Egypt, the Middle East, and abroad.

She is currently a summer fellow at The Devos Institute for Arts Management at the University of Maryland, ongoing since 2018.

Khattab graduated with a major in graphic design from Helwan University in 2004. Her first steps in arts management were at the Cairo International Film Festival as Program Coordinator. She then organized several exhibitions while working as Executive Exhibition Coordinator for El-Sawy Culture wheel between 2006 and 2008. She then took part in the 2008 International Visitor Leadership Program, organized by the US Department of State and the International Meridian Centre.

In 2012 Khattab participated in the British Council’s cultural leadership international program, where she completed curating and art criticism short courses from the University of Arts in London. As part of the CrossCulture Programme (CCP) of the Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen (IFA), she completed a curating internship in the art mediation department at Galerie für Zeitgenössische Kunst in Leipzig, Germany in October/November 2012. She also completed a research residency with Prohelvetia, focusing on digital arts in Geneva, Zurich, and Basel in 2015.

Khattab founded Out of the Circle to uphold her aim to amplify the work of Egyptian artists working with new media and digital art, and has since collaborated with numerous individuals and entities that support this objective.