The opening ceremony of the three-day symposium will take place at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco on November 3rd with a live-stream from Tomorrow, a traditional coffeehouse in Tehran, Iran’s Darvaze Ghar district.

The lecture-performance looks at two key modern moments – the Iranian Revolution of 1979 and Poland’s Solidarność movement in the 1980s – as bookends to the two major geopolitical narratives of the 20th and 21st century, respectively – Communism and political Islam. Via a range of issues as disparate as the monobrow, modernity, and the Beach Boys, the lecture-performance…

Zār refers to a type of spirit/wind (ruh/rih/bād), the affliction it causes, and the ritual by which the malady is assuaged. It is local to the Southern coastal regions of Iran but has its origins in Africa. The healing rituals are led by MamaZārs and BabaZārs who sing in a mixture of Persian, Arabic, and…

GhalamDAR will be the 2016 artist-in-residence and will produce three new works on campus at Stanford’s McMurtry Art Building, San Francisco’s Mission District, and Oakland’s Jack London Square.

Art, Social Space and Public Discourse in Iran