7:00 - 8:00
United States
San Francisco-based Iranian-American author Niloufar Talebi discusses her search for HOME, a subject she began exploring in her 2019 hybrid memoir, Self-Portrait in Bloom, and continuing to address in her new fiction and nonfiction projects. This presentation is a peek into historical research from afar, shifting notions of self, nationhood, and authorship as Talebi turns the tables on those who interrogate immigrants about their home and identity. Talebi will be in conversation with Kija Lucas, whose photo exhibit, The Taxonomy of Belonging that traces her ancestry is currently on exhibit at SF CAMERAWORK.
The work of British-born, Iranian-American artist Niloufar Talebi appears in a variety of media, often inspired by Iranian culture while taking great leaps into Western art forms. The vision driving her work is to address the invisibility and erasure of non-dominant voices through projects of cultural translation. Foundational to her projects are literary texts that she authors, translates, curates and remixes.
Talebi is the author of Self-Portrait in Bloom (l’Aleph, March 28, 2019), called “A hybrid wonder” by The Rumpus and “A brutally honest memoir of a life built by words, destroyed by words, rebuilt by words” by New York Times bestselling author Firoozeh Dumas. It breaks with the memoir form and presents a portrait of the Iranian poet Ahmad Shamlou and his poetry in her award-winning translation.
Lucas is an artist based in the San Francisco Bay Area. She uses photography to explore ideas of home, heritage and inheritance. She is interested in how ideas are passed down and seemingly inconsequential moments create changes that last generations.
Her work has been exhibited at Oakland Museum of California, Anglim Gilbert Gallery, Headlands Center for the Arts, San Francico Arts Commission Galleries, California Institute of Integral Studies, Palo Alto Arts Center, Intersection for the Arts, Mission Cultural Center and Root Division, as well as Venice Arts in Los Angeles, CA, La Sala d’Ercole/Hercules Hall in Bologna Italy, and Casa Escorsa in Guadalajara, Mexico. Lucas has been an Artist in Residence at Montalvo Center for the Arts, Grin City Collective and The Wassaic Artist Residency. She is a member of 3.9 Art Collective and the Curatorial Council at Southern Exposure. Lucas received her BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute and her MFA from Mills College.
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