Habda Rashid

Appointed in 2021, Habda Rashid is the first senior curator of Modern and Contemporary art at the Fitzwilliam Museum. Central to her role is to develop new perspectives within the collection within a global context and to therefore identify new acquisitions to better represent the diversity of art in the 20th and 21st centuries. Habda was also the lead curator of the major exhibition: Glenn Ligon: All Over The Place, the first by Black artists at the Museum. Habda’s role previously stretched across Kettle’s Yard, where she was responsible for the House and its collection, and curated the exhibition, Paint Like The Swallow Sings Calypso. It was the first exhibition that brought together the collections of Kettle’s yard and the Fitzwilliam. 

Habda was appointed Senior Curator at Create London in 2019 and stepped up to interim Artistic Director in 2021. At Create London, Habda was part of the team working on the Turner Prize-winning Hackney Windrush Art Commission by Veronica Ryan; the first public artwork to win the prestigious prize. She was formerly part of the curatorial department at the Whitechapel Gallery.

 Her extensive experience in contemporary art has seen her commission new works and curate exhibitions with a wide range of artists including Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, Shezad Dawood, Michael Rakowitz, Eva Rothschild, and Veronica Ryan. She has supported emerging British artists to produce new works including Larry Achiampong, Appau Jnr Boakye-Yiadom and Joy Labinjo. She has also written for and edited numerous publications, writing texts on artists such as Leonor Antunes, Elmgreen & Dragset and Michael Rakowitz, and has had writing published on her own diaspora experience.