IRANIAN GIRLFRIEND

In process. “I am an Iranian-American interdisciplinary artist, writer & director… my work changes radically project-to-project, with consistent focus on alternative structures guided by image & sound. Form is open; the container of expression may be live performance, short film, photo essay, pop-political collage, video art, or AI experiment.

A balance between the personal & political unites my work. Born in California, I moved to Iran at age 6 & grew close to my grandfather, brother to Sadegh Ghotbzadeh: Khomeini’s translator & Iran’s Foreign Minister during the hostage crisis, executed in 1980 by the same government he helped bring to power. This family history has profoundly shaped my worldview: geopolitical concepts like mortality, power, and loss found their way into my work just as naturally as pleasure, humor, and joy. In more than one language!

When I sit down to map out an artistic expression, there is no telling where it will lead me formally: I’ll film myself making jam & writing an essay about the nature of processing. Or stage highly athletic aerobics routines while a woman smashes brand new plates against a wall & scenes from The Women play in the background. Shirin Neshat says that every Iranian artist is political in one form or another. I would add that we are uniquely positioned to electrify culture & galvanize communities. I create imaginative wild experiences in a variety of mediums intended to transform, enchant, and provoke viewers.

IRANIAN GIRLFRIEND (alternate title: your mother wants you dead but can you blame her) grew out of autobiographical essays I wrote about my mother, brain injury, and the notion of truth. It has shifted into an installation performance piece through development along several lines, including residencies, readings & funding from New Georges, NYTW, The Bushwick Starr, Prelude/CUNY, Brick Aux, MENA Festival, SWANA Co-op Writers group, Mercury Store, The Brick SALON, and others. [Its] nonlinear narrative flows emotionally much like the fractal broken energy of recovery–taped back together but things have shifted. The audience enters the gallery/performance space to find interlocking film shorts & sculptures born from found & recreated objects from my mother’s storage unit. The installation highlights moments real & fabricated that have found their way into the filmic landscape as the story flits between present reality, dream, and memory.

I approach this project through different mediums as a response to an internal struggle to convey my prismatic & multilingual perspective. What guides me are questions: curiosities that stem from reading articles or books, rather than statements of what I believe, since what I believe is constantly evolving. I think that’s partly to do with my upbringing on two continents, in two countries deeply at odds with each other (or maybe it’s because my parents are divorced & hate each other) but the point is: parts of my world have always been at odds & shifting. While this informs my work, it’s the questions that lead me places & center my practice. IRANIAN GIRLFRIEND’s form has evolved over the past 5 years as I’ve generated material, expanded my toolkit, and taken time to trace my process. What I know now is that it will be a cross between solo lecture, film installation, runway fashion show, and object exhibit–the form of the story, following its content, demands engagement with these different mediums & styles at once.”