Founding President
Paul G. Chandler
Paul G. Chandler is the Founding President of CARAVAN, an international arts non-profit/NGO that uses the arts for transformational purposes. He is an author, curator, non-profit executive, interfaith peacemaker, intercultural bridgebuilder, and authority on the Middle East, Africa and the Abrahamic spiritual traditions. He is also a sought-after guide on the all-embracing spirituality of the early 20th century Lebanese born poet-artist Kahlil Gibran, the best-selling author of The Prophet.
Paul, a US citizen, spent the first eighteen years of his life in Senegal, West Africa, which he considers his heart's home. He has lived and worked extensively around the world in senior leadership roles within the arts, publishing, relief & development agencies, and with the Anglican Communion. A true globalist, Paul has worked in over 140 countries, and has resided in Tunisia, United Kingdom, Senegal, Egypt, USA, France, and Qatar.
In 2020 he was awarded by the Archbishop of Canterbury the Hubert Walter Award for Reconciliation and Interfaith Cooperation, the highest international award for outstanding service in the work of reconciliation and interfaith dialogue within the Anglican Communion. He is a Canon of All Saints' Cathedral in Cairo, Egypt.
Paul is recognized as a global leader in using the arts to further our quest for a more harmonious future, both with each other and with the earth. He has curated major art exhibitions internationally - in sacred spaces such as St. Paul’s Cathedral in London and National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. and at notable art venues like the National Gallery of Fine Arts in Amman, Jordan, the American University Museum in Washington, D.C., Vanderbilt University Fine Arts Gallery, Sotheby's in London, Museum of Modern Art in Cairo, Egypt, as well as at reverential memorial sites like Ground Zero in New York. Paul see's the role of a curator as a profoundly spiritual vocation, as the origin of the word "curator" is tied back to the Medieval Latin word "curatus," which meant "one responsible for the care of souls" Therefore, Paul sees being a curator, by its very nature, as implying a relationship between spirituality and the transcendent, and the arts.
Paul has authored four non-fiction books in the fields of spirituality, interreligious peacebuilding and the Middle East. His most recent book is titled IN SEARCH OF A PROPHET: A Spiritual Journey with Kahlil Gibran (Bloomsbury/Rowman & Littlefield).
He studied at Wheaton College in the USA, at Chichester Theological College (an Anglican institution) in West Sussex, England, and at the Alliance Française in Paris, France. Two of his hobbies, outside of reading and travel, are exotic pigeon fancying and playing the French game known as Boules de Pétanque. He writes about the arts on his blog at: paulgchandler.com