IHRAF 25: Conjuring Mythologies

Curated Event by ArteEast

Friday, December 12th @ 8.30 pm

Ginou Choueiri - (ArteEast) Executive Director

Zeina Abedrabo - (ArteEast) Curator and Communications Coordinator

Lila Nazemian (ArteEast) - Programs Director

Niki Afsar - Performance Artist

Shiraz Fazli - Performance Artist

Levon Kafafian - Performance Artist

Hind Shoufani - Performance Artist

Timothy Cleary -  Performance Artist

Amy Rose Khoshbin - Performance Artist

Conjuring Mythologies is the third program of performances within ArteEast’s HIKAYAT series, presented in collaboration with IHRAF. The show brings together artists Niki Afsar, Shiraz Fazli, Levon Kafafian, Amy Rose Khoshbin, Hind Shoufany and Timothy Cleary with performances rooted in conjuring mythologies of historical, contemporary, and speculative figures from the SWANA region. In times of uncertainty and struggle, humanity has often sought recourse from spiritual and moral beings, ultimately immortalizing them for future generations. Similarly, in these performances, the artists channel the spirit of myth, folklore and social justice to find purpose and solace within the current state of the world. Afsar’s baraye nika, is a sound piece dedicated to Nika Shakarami, in solidarity with the people of Iran and revolutionaries around the globe. Fazli’s Zindabad Kharistan is an ode to the wisdom and humor of Mullah Nasruddin, a beloved character in Muslim folklore. In Ծովէնի Մայր [mother of the sea], Kafafian will embody a spirit being from their ongoing speculative world building project, Azadistan. Anahita’s Lump, by Khoshbin is a work-in-progress performance invoking the ancient Persian goddess of fertility and healing. Through shared acts of release with the audience, the swollen heaviness she/we carry transmutes into something softer, stranger, and liberating. Shoufani and Cleary’s hybrid performance, Like Wind With An H, is a reflection on the horrific story of Hind Rajab and commemorates the lives of all Palestinian children lost to the violence imposed upon them.