Rima Abdul Malak

Clark Fellow

10/07/2024–11/01/2024

Rima Abdul Malak is the former French Minister of Culture (2022–2024) and served as President Macron’s Culture and Media Advisor (2019–2022). During her tenure, she managed France's cultural policy and her work emphasized heritage preservation, increasing youth access to the arts, supporting media pluralism, and fostering the development of French creative industries. Previously, she served as Cultural Advisor to the Mayor of Paris, where she led significant reforms in museums, libraries, movie theaters, and arts education. She later became the Cultural Attaché at the French Embassy in New York, strengthening cultural exchanges between France and the United States. Earlier in her career, she headed the Music Department at the French Institute in Paris, where she organized international tours for French artists. She began her professional journey with Clowns Without Borders, an artistic NGO providing psychological support to communities affected by war, poverty, and exclusion. At the Clark, Rima Abdul Malak will be working on a research project about the far right’s cultural war in Europe.