Moukhtar Kocache
A curator and arts manager, Moukhtar is Program Officer for Media, Arts and Culture for the Ford Foundation MENA region. From 1998 to 2004, he was Director of Programs at the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, the leading arts council in New York City, which provides services and opportunities to thousands of individual artists and emerging organizations. Some of his projects there included the creation of artist-in-residence programs, exhibitions, lectures, workshops, conferences and projects of art in the public realm. Raised in Lebanon and in France, he relocated to New York in 1995 and to Cairo in 2004. He studied International Relations (with a focus on Diplomacy in the Eastern Mediterranean), and Art History as an undergraduate at the American University in Washington DC, and Art Management and Art History as a graduate student at Columbia University in New York. He has curated, managed and organized exhibitions, and has consulted for and worked with art galleries, museums, not-for-profit organizations and foundations in the U.S., Europe and the Middle East. Moukhtar has taught seminars at university level and has published critical texts in catalogues and periodicals. He has been a keynote speaker at various specialized events and has received awards for his professional standing in the field.
Ford Foundation
Cairo, Egypt
The Ford Foundation is a resource for innovative people and institutions around the world. We were founded to advance human welfare, and all of our work flows from this fundamental commitment. A fundamental challenge facing every society is to create political, economic and social systems that promote peace, human welfare and the sustainability of the environment on which life depends. We believe that finding solutions to the world's most complex problems requires engaging the people and the communities closest to them, including men and women from diverse backgrounds and all levels of society.
We work mainly by making grants or loans that build knowledge and strengthen organizations and networks. These methods of problem-solving reflect our mission and the diverse ways we support grantees. They also describe a model of philanthropy that the foundation has pursued for more than 70 years: To be a long-term and flexible partner with innovative leaders of thought and action.
We make grants from our New York headquarters and our regional offices in Africa, the Middle East, Asia, Latin America and Russia.