Mirjam Shatanawi is the curator of Middle Eastern and North African collections at the Tropenmuseum (Amsterdam), for which she has curated exhibitions such as Urban Islam (2003), Inside Iran (2006) and Palestine 1948 (2008). She studied Arabic at the University of Amsterdam and the History of Africa and Asia in London (SOAS). She has been associated with the Tropenmuseum as a curator since 2001. Her research focuses on the place of the image in Islamic culture. She analyses visual culture as a religious phenomenon in the context of the image as research field for Western art historians.

Shatanawi has recently written the book Islam in beeld (Islam in the Picture), in which she takes a critical look at the history of the Tropenmuseum’s islamic collections.