Defne Ayas is the Director of Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art since 2012. Before moving to Rotterdam, Ayas worked between New York and Shanghai, where she initiated a partnership with Prince Claus Fund – co-founded Arthub Asia in 2007, an Asia-wide active research and production initiative. The curator at large at Performa – the biennial of visual art performance of New York City– she has been organizing acclaimed projects and programs with an international roster of artists, architects, curators, critics, and writers from across the world since 2005. Ayas also acts as a Curator-at-Large to Spring in Hong Kong and as an advisor to Blind Dates Project – an artistic platform that is dedicated to tackling what remains of the peoples, places and cultures of the Ottoman Empire (1299-1923), which she co-founded in 2006. In 2012, Ayas co-curated the 11th Baltic Triennale to great acclaim. Ayas completed De Appel Curatorial Programme in Amsterdam and received her BA in Foreign Affairs at the University of Virginia.