Roya Khadjavi is an independent curator and cultural producer based in New York. She has largely focused on the work of young Iranian
Artists working both in Iran and beyond its borders, seeking not only to support their artistic endeavors but also to facilitate awareness and cultural dialogue between artistic communities. In 2014, Khadjavi co-curated Portraits: Reflections by Emerging Iranian Artists, featuring emerging artists born, raised and educated in Iran, followed by Between Invitation and Intrusion: A Conversation in Form in 2015.
In 2016 she curated the warmly received exhibition Strappa: Dialogue and Performance followed by the groundbreaking exhibition IRAN X CUBA: Beyond the Headline which for the first time in New York brought together works of 18 Cuban and Iranian Artist.
Since 2008, she has actively led exhibition committee efforts around the art of the Middle East for institutions including the Guggenheim Museum and the Asia Society, where she sat on the steering committee of the critically acclaimed
Exhibit Iran Modern (2013). Khadjavi co-founded the Institute of International Education’s Iran Opportunities Fund, and currently serves
as president of the board of New York-based non-profit Art in General.
For her pioneering efforts to advance, support, and promote international education she has been honored with the Women’s
Global Leadership Award by the Institute of International Education, and an Order of Academic Palms (Chevalier dans LOrdre des Palmes Acadmiques), by the French Minister of Education.