Zainab Syed

Zainab Syed is the Director of International at Creative Australia, leading the organizations’ international engagement strategy for the arts.

Originally from Pakistan, Zainab has lived, studied and worked across Romania, Yemen, England, Wales, US and Australia. Her practice sits at the intersection of social justice and live performance. After graduating from Brown University, USA, she toured across the world as a performance poet working with incarcerated women, trauma victims and refugees in prisons and detention centres.

From 2014-2017 Zainab worked as a researcher with the Centre for Muslim States and Societies in Perth, WA and New York University, USA. Between 2017-2023 Zainab worked at Performing Lines WA in Perth and Belvoir St Theatre in Sydney as a Senior Producer spearheading ambitious works of scale with artists across dance and theatre. Her work has focused on facilitating intercultural collaborations, developing inclusive frameworks for creating new work and pathways for culturally diverse artists; as well touring Australian works regionally, nationally and internationally alongside advocacy work enabling systemic change within small to medium and mainstage institutions in Australia.

Zainab has served on the board of the Blue Room Theatre board and Theatre Network Australia board. She is also a founder of Pakistan Poetry Slam, co-founder of HME-WRK: a diverse arts collective, a Humanitarian Observer with the Australian Red Cross Immigration Detention Program and a 2020 Churchill Fellow.