Current Residents Noor Bhangu
-
Photo: Christina Hajjar
Noor Bhangu is a curator and scholar whose practice is rooted in relational curatorial aesthetics and practices. Her past curatorial projects include Homorientalism (2023) at Smack Mellon, Has My Place Forgotten Me? (2024) at Kistefos, and Deviant Ornaments (2025-26) at Nasjonalmuseet. In 2026, she completed her PhD in Communication and Culture at Toronto Metropolitan University and York University in Tkaronto, Toronto. Her dissertation investigates cultures of sexuality within Islamic visual culture to develop a queer genealogy, linking the past to the contemporary.
During my HIAP residency, I plan to conduct studio visits with artists and meet with independent curators, writers, and arts institutions across Helsinki and Finland to trace how queer diasporic art has been studied and disseminated in the region. I want to broaden my existing research on queer Islamic art histories, which has developed primarily through a Norwegian lens, to consider shifts in nationalist and diasporic discourse across the wider Nordics. This curatorial research feels urgent, as conversations around migration, belonging, and cultural memory intensify across Northern Europe, and as queer diasporic artists continue to work beyond national frameworks.
Noor Bhangu’s residency is realised in the context of HICP – Helsinki International Curatorial Programme, a collaboration between Frame Contemporary Art Finland and HIAP.