Manan Shah is a museologist, curator and writer, born and brought up in Kasheer (Kashmir). He has published in magazines and journals such as TAKE on Art, STIRworld.com, Inverse Journal, History is Now Magazine, World History Encyclopedia, amongst others. His writings and curatorial practices are attentive to the knowledge systems of antiquity that have informed the current-day cultural and political identity of South Asia. Shah is a recipient of the Kochi Biennale Curatorial Fellowship and has been part of India Art Fair's Young Collectors Programme as an assistant curator.
His curatorial ventures include Lament Traces, APRE Art House, Mumbai (2024), Scripted Selves: Sutures of Signs and Symbol (2024), Which Sky do Birds Fly (2023), LATITUDE 28, New Delhi. Shah also curated a research-based photo project A Home in the Constant Flux: A Call to the Verb Memory at Simurgh Centre, Goethe Institute, New Delhi (2023), Arthshila, Santiniketan (2024), Bangalore International Center, Bangalore (2024) and Rajiv Gandhi Foundation, Jawahar Bhawan, New Delhi (2024).
He was the programme assistant to the curatorial symposium Horizon and Perspective: Curatorial Gaze to Gauge Promise of Art, part of TAKE on Writing series (2023). Shah has also edited an Indo-Swiss art residency catalogue, Of Barriers and Distances, DAAR (2024) and The Will to Live, Galley Dotwalk (2024). Currently, travels between Mumbai and New Delhi, he is a co-founder of Dastāvez Collective. Shah has worked as an assistant editor at TAKE on Art Magazine and curatorial and programme consultant for Dotwalk Ajitara Art Residency (2023-24), before joining NewArtX, Mumbai as the lead curator.