Bita Pourvash

Adjunct Professor, Department of Art History, University of Toronto; Associate Curator, Aga Khan Museum
Aga Khan Museum-Curatorial Department

Campus

Biography

Bita Pourvash is Associate Curator at the Aga Khan Museum (AKM). She joined the AKM in 2012 and has been involved in the museum's exhibitions and curatorial projects from two years prior to its opening in Toronto.

Bita oversees the Museum Collection rotations, which refresh the gallery twice a year with themed installations. She was the co-curator of the 2018 exhibition "Transforming Traditions: The Arts of 19th-century Iran". Bita has contributed to various AKM exhibition catalogues and held lectures on AKM collection, such as "The last Addition, The First Impression: The Art of Bookbinding". Bita is also interested in researching early history of collecting and exhibiting Islamic Art in Canada. Her research on the collection of the Royal Ontario Museum, “Building the Islamic Art Collection at the Royal Ontario Museum: the first decades”, is included in the forthcoming volume: Canadian Contributions to the Study of Islamic Art and Archaeology, ed. Marcus Milwright.

Prior to joining the Museum, she worked with the Royal Ontario Museum as a researcher, and at York University, Semnan University, and the Higher Education Center for Iranian Heritage as a lecturer.

Education

MA (Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations; Islamic Art and Material Culture), University of Toronto
MA (Advanced Studies in Art; Islamic Art), University of Tehran
BA (Traditional Crafts), Tehran Art University