Hadeer Belal

Biography

Hadeer is a curator at the Coptic Museum in Cairo, specialising in Ostraca. Her primary aim at the Museum is to produce a comprehensive and wide-ranging database that collects information on all the objects within the museum, in order to make them more accessible to international researchers. Hadeer is also interested in photography, conservation and storage of objects.

In recent years Hadeer has organised temporary exhibitions including Sweetness in the past and Tones of Civilisation at the Coptic Museum. She has given presentations within Egypt such as Motherhood in Ancient Egypt between Art and Literature, Coptic Museum and Exhibitions and Display, Islamic Art Museum. Hadeer has also participated in international conferences including a seminar on Coptic Papyrology at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona and ICOM conferences at the Bibliotheca Alexandria.

In 2019 Hadeer completed her masters degree in Archaeology and Egyptology at Cairo University. Her thesis was a comparative linguistic study of Coptic legal documents.

At the British Museum
During her time on the International Training Programme in 2013, Hadeer was based in the Department of Egypt and Sudan and her partner placement was spent at Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology, Oxford.

Hadeer’s exhibition project proposal was entitled Egyptian water jars: Quenching the thirst across eras.

Her place on the programme was generously supported by the John S. Cohen Foundation.

Legacy Projects
In November 2015 Hadeer attended the ITP Mumbai Workshop Creating Museums of World Stories. The workshop was held at CSMVS and was attended by many ITP fellows from different years and countries, UK partners and British Museum Colleagues.

In 2016 Hadeer attended the Leicester University Museum Studies Conference with the ITP team and fellows from China, Turkey and Uganda. The group gave a workshop at the conference on Shared Histories and Global Voices.

In 2017 Nelson Abiti (Uganda, ITP 2013) successfully applied for an ITP collaborative award entitled The Road to Reconciliation. As a project partner Hadeer will contribute to the final products of educational resources, a touring exhibition and an updated permanent display.

In October 2018 Hadeer attended the ITP+ Course on Museum Interpretation in Aswan. Fellows and colleagues from Egypt, Sudan and around the world listened to interpretation case studies, participated in project work, sessions on label & panel writing and panel discussions on audience surveys and evaluations. The course was hosted by the Nubia Museum.

In May 2019 Hadeer visited Uganda as part of the ITP collaborative award project. She took part in a panel discussion on cultural heritage in Uganda.