ArteEast Journal C+ Issue Launch and Panel Discussion with Barrak Alzaid, Media Farzin, Brian Kuan Wood, Negar Mottahedeh,  and Sandra Skurvida

May 1, 2012
7:00 – 9:00 p.m.
The Curatorial Hub at ICI 401 Broadway, Suite 1620 New York, NY 10013

The removal of work at the 2011 Sharjah Biennial was met with outrage and indignation amongst the arts community in the Middle East and beyond but these critiques ignored the sensitive cultural context in which the work was placed. One year after these events, the Spring 2012 issue of ArteZine considers censorship in Iran as a signal of change rather than simply a method of suppressing art. In the context of potential transformation in the Middle East and beyond, C+ (guest edited by Sandra Skurvida) invites readers to view censorship in terms of the transformative possibilities for art in restricted environments and includes contributions by Media Farzin, Barbad Golshiri, Sohrab Kashani, Sohrab Mahdavi, Negar Mottahedeh, Anahita Razmi, Slavs and Tatars, Katayoun Vaziri, and Kaelen Wilson-Goldie (for the full issue click here).

In conjunction with the launch of the Spring 2012 ArteZine, we deepen our discussion of the conditions of censorship in transnational contexts and feature issue contributors speaking on value and power within censorship and reveals the transformative possibilities for art in restricted environments. The panel features writer and curator Media Farzin; a professor and author of Displaced Allegories: Post-revolutionary Iranian Cinema Negar Mottahedeh; with a response by co-editor of e-flux journal Brian Kuan Wood; moderated by ArteEast Artistic Director Barrak Alzaid and curator and guest-editor Sandra Skurvida.

This program is presented by ArteEast in collaboration with Independent Curators International.

Poster image: Bahman Ali Irawani, Urban Jealousy, 2008. Courtesy of Parkingallery and Roaming Biennial of Tehran