Morehshin Allahyari is an Iranian media artist, activist, educator, and curator who uses computer modeling and digital fabrication techniques to explore the intersection of art and activism. “I want my work to respond, resist, and criticize the current political and cultural situation that we experience on a daily basis,” she explains. Allahyari’s Material Speculation: ISIS, a digital fabrication project that inspects petropolitical and poetic relationships between 3D printing, oil, techno-capitalism, and jihadism, has achieved wide acclaim for proposing 3D printing technology as a tool both for resistance and documentation. The many publications featuring the work include the New York Times, Huffington Post, Wired, NPR, Rhizome, Hyperallergic, Dazed Digital, and VICE. She has exhibited at numerous institutions and festivals throughout the world, including Centre Pompidou, Paris; Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences, Australia; Hartware MedienKunstVerein and Transmediale in Germany. Allahyari was recently awarded a 2016 Sculpture Award from the Institute of Digital Art. Allahyari relocated to the United States in 2007 and currently lives in New York.

Supported by the Ann Arbor Film Festival and the University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA).

All Penny Stamps Distinguished Speaker Series presentations are free and open to the public; visit http://stamps.umich.edu/stamps to view upcoming events.