We are Ava Ansari and Molly Kleiman of The Back Room — a curatorial and pedagogical project to facilitate exchanges between artists and writers in the United States and Iran. We’ve been collaborating with Sohrab Kashani of Sazmanab, as well as other artists and art spaces, to organise workshops, exhibitions, and public talks between New York and Tehran. We’re interested in developing a sustained conversation between our two cities by creating opportunities to discuss contemporary art, performance, new media, and social engagement.

So far, the workshops we’ve organized have been one or two-day isolated events. We’d like to plan our next workshop as a series that is developed in collaboration with the participants. Would you like to be involved? What would you like to discuss? We can think of resources to share from New York — opportunities for collaboration with other groups of artists, translation of materials between Farsi and English, classes led by established artists, etc. But we’d like to organise something based on your interests and concerns. Let’s start a conversation!

Venue: Sazmanab (Sazman-e Ab St.)
February 10, 2012 – 7-7:30 PM