Founder

Mojgan Endjavi-Barbé, founder of the association ILLA, was born in Iran in 1959 where she completed her high school studies. She left Iran before the 1979 Revolution to study political science and sociology at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, U.S.A.

Marrying a Frenchman, they lived 4 years in Paris, followed by 3 years in Tokyo and 10 years in London. She has been living in Geneva since August 2000 with her husband and their three children.

Her Background in the Arts  

In Tokyo :

Curated an exhibition for Takeo Adachi in the Higashi-Gaoka space in 1989.

In London :

Curated an exhibition for Hervé Desaché (France) in Cork Street in 1996; for Arturo de Narvaez (Colombia) an exhibition was organized at the “Bolivar Hall” in the cultural section of the Embassy of Venezuela, London in 1998; for Hiroko Nakano – student (Japan) at the London Chelsea School of Arts in 1999 (now one of the Victoria Miro Gallery’s artists in London).

In Geneva :

Curated a show for Jane Lebesque (England) at the Red House Gallery. This was followed by assisting Kashya Hildebrand to establish her first art gallery in Geneva. Mojgan was responsible for introducing many of the artists now represented by the Gallery: Thierry Feuz (Switzerland), TianBing Li (China) and Farhad Moshiri (Iran) among others.