Karina El Helou, director of the Sursock Museum in Beirut, Lebanon, is a contemporary art curator. She has an MA in art history from the Sorbonne and an MA in art business from Sotheby’s Institute of Art. Previously, she has worked at the Cartier Foundation of Contemporary Art in Paris as a collection manager, and at Sotheby’s Institute of Art as a teaching assistant. In 2015, she founded Studiocur/art, a non-profit curatorial platform specialising in contemporary art.
Beirut’s Sursock Museum is the city’s leading museum of modern and contemporary art. Once one of the city’s grandest townhouses, the Sursock Palace and Museum was left to the city of Beirut in 1952 and underwent a significant refurbishment and extension project, which was completed in 2015. However, it suffered significant damage in the 2020 Beirut port explosion.
“In the wake of the devastating Lebanon blast, El Helou emerged as a beacon of resilience and leadership at the Sursock Museum,” said one person who nominated her. “Amidst immense challenges, she steered the institution towards recovery. With limited resources, El Helou orchestrated the museum’s reopening, rekindling a sense of cultural normalcy for the community. Her unwavering determination transformed adversity into opportunity, allowing the museum to foster a profound impact on the community.”
“It has been a collective healing process to see the museum rising from its ashes,” El Helou told The National earlier this year. “I feel it is a privilege to be here during this moment of revival.”
“The museum has always shown resilience throughout the years,” El Helou added. “The museum’s history is deeply intertwined with that of Beirut, this makes it a depository of Lebanese culture. Reopening the museum does not mean we can forget what happened.”