Talking Texts with Maya Allison

Talking Texts is a thinking/feeling space for research on the Gulf. A select group of academics and researchers reflect on their positionality, research process, and the politics of knowledge production. In this interview, Maya Allison, the chief curator of the NYUAD art gallery, shares her past exhibitions and current work. In her talk, Maya reflected on her experience establishing the NYUAD art gallery from scratch and engaging in a slow and intentional sense-making process with academics, students, and members of the art community in the UAE. Maya’s talk helped us understand what is meant by dialogical practice: How do we learn about ourselves by engaging with people who are differently situated from us? Maya’s examples highlighted a methodology we tried out in our class “Self Tracing” which requires self reflexive practice, articulation of provisional positionalities, and exchanges with others in both visual and written form.