Please register to attend on Zoom: https://myumi.ch/9gp2g

Event Description:

From 3D-printed replicas of sculptures destroyed by ISIS, to interactive installations that infuse medieval fable with contemporary gender politics, to purpose-built generative AI aimed at recovering lost queer traditions in Persian art, Morehshin Allahyari’s work leverages storytelling, archival research, and new technology as tools to push back against Western colonialism. Join us on Thursday, May 16th for a conversation with Morehshin led by Pedram Baldari, an interdisciplinary artist and scholar in UM’s Stamps School of Art & Design, and Oğuz Kayır, doctoral student in Film, Television, and Media and Graduate Curator of Search Engines.


Artist Bio:

Morehshin Allahyari (Persian: موره شین اللهیاری‎), is a NY based Iranian-Kurdish artist using 3D simulation, video, sculpture, and digital fabrication as tools to re-figure myth and history. Through archival practices and storytelling, her work weaves together complex counternarratives in opposition to the lasting influence of Western technological colonialism in the context of SWANA (Southwest Asia and Nort Africa). Her work has been part of numerous exhibitions, festivals, and workshops at venues throughout the world, including the New Museum, MoMa, Centre Pompidou, Venice Biennale di Archittectura, and Museum für Angewandte Kunst among many others. She is the recipient of The United States Artist Fellowship (2021), The Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters & Sculptors Grant (2019), The Sundance Institute New Frontier International Fellowship (2019), and the Leading Global Thinkers of 2016 award by Foreign Policy magazine. Her artworks are in the collection of the Whitney Museum of American Art, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the Current Museum. She has been featured in The New York Times, BBC, Huffington Post, Wired, National Public Radio, Parkett Art Magazine, Frieze, Rhizome, Hyperallergic, and Al Jazeera, among others.

This event is the fourth lecture of 2023 - 2025 DISCO Network programming, titled "Search Engines," funded by the U-M Arts Initiative with support from the DISCO Network and Digital Studies Institute.

We would like to thank the following co-sponsors:

Department of History
Department of History of Art
Department of American Culture
Department of Film, Television, and Media
Digital Islamic Studies Curriculum (DISC)