In Conversation: Negar Ahkami and Donna Honarpisheh
Join artist Negar Ahkami and ICA Miami Curator Donna Honarpisheh as they discuss the works in Ahkami’s solo exhibition “Le Caftan, Le Turban”, currently on view through March 19 at Arlington Arts Center. Together Ahkami and Honarpisheh will discuss Ahkami’s interest in Orientalism in art history and popular culture, as well as the inspiration behind Ahkami’s paintings of iconic European actresses and models clad in caftans and turbans. The talk will be conducted online via Zoom on Thursday, February 24 at 6 pm EST. Registration required.
Donna Honarpisheh is a curator for the Knight Art + Research Center at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami, where she develops pedagogical and digital initiatives at the intersection of critical theory, the Global South, and contemporary art. In addition to her curatorial practice, Donna is a PhD candidate in the department of Comparative Literature and the program in Critical Theory at UC-Berkeley. She is writing a dissertation entitled, “Disordering Modernism: Aesthetics of Affliction in 20th century Iran”, which discusses a modernist occupation with psychic affliction across Iranian literature, film, and painting in the wake of the US and British imposed Coup d’état of 1953. She has experience teaching undergraduate courses at UC-Berkeley in film, literature, and critical theory. Her writing can be found in Symploke, Qui Parle, Critical Times, IranNamag Journal of Iranian Studies, Jadaliyya, and the University of London’s Journal of Islamic Shi’a Studies.