My piece about the Singapore art week was published by Observer. The consolidation highlights the tension between scale and specificity of the fairs Art SG and SEA Focus, prompting questions about how regional narratives can retain clarity and resonance in an increasingly globalized marketplace.
Here is the link to the article
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First, you smell it. Then you see it. The encounter with Afghan artist Malina Suliman’s work at Riga’s annual contemporary art exhibition, Survival Kit 16, is first and foremost olfactory — therefore primal. It enters the body before it enters the intellect.
Malina, who began her practice with street murals and clandestine painting, now constructs environments that behave like living organisms: smelling, staining, ageing, and transforming.
I have interview the artist for The New Arab
Here is the link to the interview
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The relationship between Korea and the Gulf countries is longer and more complex than it may seem. These ties have shifted from oil and construction to culture, and the exhibition “Proximities” at Sema, the contemporary art museum of Seoul testifies that.
I saw the exhibition and reviewed it (in Italian) for il Manifesto.
Here is the link to the article
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In recent years, a new generation of Uzbek artists has begun to reshape how culture, history, and identity are visually narrated.
Among them is Oyjon Khayrullaeva, whose practice moves fluidly between photography, digital collage, and large-scale public installations.
I have interviewed the artist for Times of Central Asia.
Here is the link to the interview
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Gigantic rulers and compasses appear throughout Ala Younis’s practice—as literal objects in some works, and as symbolic motifs in others. With these tools, the multimedia artist draws unexpected connections between competing imaginaries.
In her midcareer retrospective “Past of a Temporal Universe,” which traced nearly two decades of her career, little was immediately evident as Younis’s artistic language draws from academia, architecture, and archives. Instead, the show was conceived for slow and attentive engagement.
I have reviewed Ala Younis’ exhibition at the NYU Abu Dhabi Art Gallery for ArtAsiaPacific.
Here is the link to the review
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I have written the curatorial text for the exhibition, Hidden in the Jungle, from 6 January to 6 February 2026, by artist Inessa Kalabekova at Fullerton Hotel.
I had the pleasure of following the evolution of Kalabekova’s work for many years now, visiting her studio in Singapore and contributing curatorial texts to her shows
Below is my curatorial text called “Restoring the Ancestral“
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Naima Morelli is an arts writer and journalist specialized in contemporary art from Asia-Pacific and the MENA region.
She has written for the Financial Times, Al-Jazeera, The Art Newspaper, ArtAsiaPacific, Internazionale and Il Manifesto, among others, and she is a regular contributor to Plural Art Mag, Middle East Monitor and Middle East Eye as well as writing curatorial texts for galleries.
She is the author of three books on Southeast Asian contemporary art.
Reach out: contact [at] naimamorelli.com
