Ashraf Osman

PhD candidate in History of Art as part of the LAWHA project, with an international position between Università Cà Foscari (Venice) and Orient-Institut Beirut (OIB). Recently programs coordinator at Beirut Art Center (BAC); partner – general manager of AVE Group, a cosmetics import & distribution agency; and founder–director of Scent Art Net & News, a platform for smell in art and culture. Ashraf Osman is an (olfactory) art curator, consultant, writer and researcher. He has lectured on the cultural history of smell at a number of European universities, and curated several scent art projects, notably a year-long Olfactory Exhibition series at Kunstmuseum Thun and an Urban Scent Walk for Biennale Bern. Ashraf is on the scientific committee of experts for the upcoming exhibition “Parfums d’Orient” at the Institut du monde arabe in Paris, and served as a judge for the Institute for Art and Olfaction in Los Angeles. Most recently, he conducted Smelling Workshops for Google and an olfactory intervention at the Ad-Diriyah Biennale, Saudi Arabia’s first contemporary art Biennale.