Born in Iran, Askari is best-known as the founder of The Mine, a Dubai-based gallery and roaming project space set up in 2013 that supports and promotes the work of emerging contemporary artists. She is also a collector in her own right, with a focus on artists from the Middle East and its diaspora such as the Iranian-American artist Hadieh Shafie, and has described collecting as an extension of her curatorial practice. In 2017, she was one of the facilitators of the exhibition ‘The Sea Suspended’, presenting works from the Barjeel Art Foundation at the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art. She continues to work as an independent curator; last year she curated an exhibition at The Third Line in Dubai, titled ‘Neither Here – Nor Elsewhere’ and featuring artists including Faissal El-Malak, Hayv Kahraman, Omar Mismar, Sophia Al-Maria and Soufiane Ababri.