Adila Laïdi-Hanieh (Arabic: عادلة العايْدي-هَنِيَّة) is an Algerian-Palestinian art historian and museum director, who formerly led the Khalil Sakakini Cultural Centre and The Palestinian Museum. She has been awarded the French National Order of Merit.

Born in Algiers,^[1] Laïdi-Hanieh is the daughter of Ahmed Laïdi [fr], a senior Algerian civil servant and former ambassador to Spain, Jordan, the United Kingdom, and Mexico.^[2] Her mother is Algerian novelist Aïcha Lemsine.^[3]

As a teenager in Jordan, she took drawing and painting lessons with artist Fahrelnissa Zeid, and participated in the 1981 "Fahrelnissa and her Institute" exhibition held at Qasr al Thaqafa - Amman, showcasing works by Fahrelnissa Zeid, and the students of her Institute. She subsequently wrote a biography on the painter, which was published in 2017.^[4][5]

Laïdi-Hanieh studied at Georgetown University for her MA and George Mason University for her PhD.^[6][7] She also studied at the Institut d'Etudes Politiques of Paris where she was awarded a Certificat d'Etudes Politiques.^[8]

Appointed in 1996, Laïdi-Hanieh was the first director of the Khalil Sakakini Cultural Centre, which she left in 2005.^[6] In 1997, she initiated and led its transformation from a governmental center, created by the Palestinian Ministry of Culture in a renovated 1930s vernacular architecture mansion, into a non-governmental organization with a Board and a General assembly.^{[citation needed]} Laïdi-Hanieh focused on the development of the local visual arts scene and transition into conceptual and Contemporary Art by organizing tens of annual individual exhibitions for young artists, including from Gaza, organizing summer academies for young artists, and promoting their work via publishing regular exhibition catalogues.^{[citation needed]} As such, the Sakakini Centre led the first of its kind program of youth outreach.^{[citation needed]} During her tenure, the Sakakini was the main public cultural venue in the West Bank, hosting a regular program of concerts, public talks, publications, film screenings and debates, and launching websites on Palestinian culture.^[9][10] Palestine’s national poet Mahmoud Darwish had an office at the Sakakini during the same period, and gave frequent public events there.^[11]

She was also active on the Arab art scene, becoming chairperson of the Artistic Board of the non-governmental pan Arab cultural organization Cultural Resource (Al-Mawred) in 2003,^[12] a founding member of the board of the Arab Fund for Arts and Culture (AFAC) in 2007, and a member of the Advisory Board of Darat Al Funun Art Foundation [ar].^[13][14]

From 2006 to 2008 she taught contemporary and art history at Birzeit University.^[6] Described in 2009 as a cultural critic in the Jerusalem Quarterly,^[15] she has also written on cultural history in Palestine. She appeared at numerous conferences and published numerous essays on Arab culture and Palestinian visual arts, in French, Arabic and English.^{[16][7][17][18]}

In 2006–2008, as a member of the steering Committee of the Palestinian cultural season in the Belgian region of Wallonia "Masarat".^[19][20] She conceptualized and edited the book Palestine. Rien ne nous manque ici,^[21][22] the first multidisciplinary contemporary cultural anthology on Palestine.^{[citation needed]} The book featured original essays by Palestinian, European, Arab, and Japanese novelists, poets, and scholars, as well as art works and photography by Palestinian and European artists such as Mahmoud Darwish, Satoshi Ukai [ja], Francis Mertens, Mona Hatoum, Marc Trivier [fr], Jumana Emil Abboud, Mahmoud Shqeir, Mourid Barghouti, Hany Abu Assad, Jacques Sojcher [fr], Ahlam Shibli, John Berger, Faysal Darraj, and others.^{[citation needed]}

She completed her PhD at George Mason University in 2015, focusing her dissertation and her subsequent postdoctoral fellowship from the Arab Council for the Social Sciences on contemporary Palestinian cultural practices: literature, visual arts, and cinema.^{[citation needed]} Her theoretical approach analyzed the mode of articulation of the political with the aesthetic, within a critical and cross-disciplinary cultural studies approach encompassing Third Cinema, aesthetic regimes, etc.^[23][7] As a historian of Palestinian art, she publishes essays of reference.^[18][24]

• Knight in the National Order of Merit (France)^[36][44]

• Laïdi-Hanieh, Adila (2008). Palestine : Rien ne nous manque ici. Paris : Éditions Cercle d’Art & Bruxelles : Revue Ah ! /Université Libre de Belgique. ISBN 978-2-7022-0885-4
• A. Laïdi-Hanieh. (2008). Inventer un Geste : L’Art Palestinien entre Modernité et Contemporanéité. L’Art-Même. 3(40), 4-7
• Laïdi-Hanieh, Adila. (2017). Fahrelnissa Zeid, Painter of Inner Worlds. Art/Books ISBN 978-1-908970-31-2
• Laïdi-Hanieh, Adila. (2018). Fahrelnissa Zeid: İç Dünyaların Ressamı Istanbul: Dirimart & RES.) ISBN 978-605-5815-49-3