Defne Ayas is a curator and educator specialising in new media and performance and cross-cultural projects. Based in Shanghai since 2006, Ayas works as a director of programs to Arthub Asia, and as an art history instructor at New York University in Shanghai. Ayas is also curator of PERFORMA since 2004, the biennial of visual art performance with base in New York City, where she spends part of the year. Prior to joining PERFORMA, Ayas was a coordinator of New Museum of Contemporary Art’s public- and new media-programming.