Saba Zavarei
Goldsmiths, University of London, Theatre and Performance, Department Member
- Public Space, Public Sphere, Tehran, Site Specificity, Site-Specific Art and Performance, Site Specific Public Art, and 9 morePublic Art, Feminism, Middle East, Iranian Studies, Gender, Space and Feminist Geography, Public and private spaces, Gender and Performance, Performance Studies, and Performance Artedit
- Writer, Researcher, Educator and Artist PhD. Performance Studies/Human Geography (2022) www.sabazavarei.com Co-found... moreWriter, Researcher, Educator and Artist
PhD. Performance Studies/Human Geography (2022)
www.sabazavarei.com
Co-founder and Editor @ www.konesh.space
Founder and Podcaster @ www.radiokhiaban.comedit
Everyday Revolution: Socially Engaged Art in Contemporary Iran We are seeking contributions for an anthology devoted to activist artistic and cultural practices developed in Iran from the post-revolutionary period to the present. While... more
Everyday Revolution: Socially Engaged Art in Contemporary Iran
We are seeking contributions for an anthology devoted to activist artistic and cultural practices developed in Iran from the post-revolutionary period to the present. While Iran today stands as a pillar of authoritarian rule, its history over the past four decades has also been defined by remarkable new forms of creative resistance, often unfolding in the vernacular spaces of everyday life. We have much to learn from Iran as a laboratory of dissent in terms of both the ideological protocols employed by totalitarian regimes, and the modes of cultural production necessary to challenge them. We seek essays which explore the myriad ways in which Iranians have sought to contest fundamentalist domination through new forms of embodied and symbolic action, from turban tossing (Ammāmeparāni), to public singing and dancing by women, to the flouting of compulsory hijab regulations, to the creative disobedience of Iranian youth. We are also interested in essays that examine the complex points of interconnection and reciprocal influence between artistic and cultural production and key moments of political resistance, from the pro-democracy protests of the 1990s to the Green Movement of 2009-10 to the Women Life Freedom movement today. Essays and proposals can address projects operating both within, and beyond, conventional art institutions (the gallery, museum and theater) and which unfold in cities and villages, on rooftops and city walls, in public, private and virtual space, and in Iran itself as well as the broader Iranian diaspora. We are especially interested in projects that operate in the interstitial space between art and activism and which foreground the generative and creative dimension of resistance itself. Submissions can include essays, interviews, case studies or project descriptions, translations of key texts, and theoretical analyses that reveal the complexities, tensions and potentials of engaged art. Areas of practice can include performative, participatory or collaborative projects, demonstration-based interventions, covert or surreptitious gestures, media-based practices, and more conventional forms of visual art, music and performance. We will consider completed, previously unpublished essays as well as essay proposals that could be finalized within six months (September 2024
We are seeking contributions for an anthology devoted to activist artistic and cultural practices developed in Iran from the post-revolutionary period to the present. While Iran today stands as a pillar of authoritarian rule, its history over the past four decades has also been defined by remarkable new forms of creative resistance, often unfolding in the vernacular spaces of everyday life. We have much to learn from Iran as a laboratory of dissent in terms of both the ideological protocols employed by totalitarian regimes, and the modes of cultural production necessary to challenge them. We seek essays which explore the myriad ways in which Iranians have sought to contest fundamentalist domination through new forms of embodied and symbolic action, from turban tossing (Ammāmeparāni), to public singing and dancing by women, to the flouting of compulsory hijab regulations, to the creative disobedience of Iranian youth. We are also interested in essays that examine the complex points of interconnection and reciprocal influence between artistic and cultural production and key moments of political resistance, from the pro-democracy protests of the 1990s to the Green Movement of 2009-10 to the Women Life Freedom movement today. Essays and proposals can address projects operating both within, and beyond, conventional art institutions (the gallery, museum and theater) and which unfold in cities and villages, on rooftops and city walls, in public, private and virtual space, and in Iran itself as well as the broader Iranian diaspora. We are especially interested in projects that operate in the interstitial space between art and activism and which foreground the generative and creative dimension of resistance itself. Submissions can include essays, interviews, case studies or project descriptions, translations of key texts, and theoretical analyses that reveal the complexities, tensions and potentials of engaged art. Areas of practice can include performative, participatory or collaborative projects, demonstration-based interventions, covert or surreptitious gestures, media-based practices, and more conventional forms of visual art, music and performance. We will consider completed, previously unpublished essays as well as essay proposals that could be finalized within six months (September 2024
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
FIELD: A Journal of Socially Engaged Art Criticism is pleased to announce the launch of issue #21 (Spring 2022), with a special focus on socially engaged art practice in Iran. This issue has been guest edited by Saba Zavarei, who’s... more
FIELD: A Journal of Socially Engaged Art Criticism is pleased to announce the launch of issue #21 (Spring 2022), with a special focus on socially engaged art practice in Iran. This issue has been guest edited by Saba Zavarei, who’s research was featured in FIELD #17 (Winter 2021).[1] For this issue Saba has assembled a remarkable collection of contributors writing on a range of creative, curatorial and critical practices in contemporary Iran. Saba herself has contributed an important analysis of the choreographic politics of public dance and performance. Helia Darabi examines the emergence of new forms of critical, site-specific art within the increasingly complex institutional structures of the Tehran artworld during the 1990s and 2000s. Azadeh Ganjeh describes her work in public performance in Tehran, drawing on the traditions of Boalian theater to involve spectators in ongoing dialogues about pressing cultural issues. Pouria Jahanashad discusses the complex meaning of “political art” in contemporary criticism, grounding her analysis in a reading of “informal” art practices in Iran operating in urban space. Shahram Khosravi explores the persecution of the nomadic Bakhtiari people, through an analysis of efforts to appropriate their cultural history in contemporary Iran. Elham Puriya Mehr examines the political potential of activist curatorial practice, using the example of Club 29 in Tehran to analyze the tension between intervention and institutional appropriation. Khosravi Noori provides an illuminating meditation on the relationship between liberation in Palestine and the often-opportunistic appropriation of the First Intifada by the Iranian government. Finally, Narciss Sohrabi expands on this analysis with her discussion of the transformative power of street art and graffiti in Iran during and after the 2009 uprising. We are extremely grateful to Saba for her tireless work in developing this special issue, and to her contributors for their invaluable insights, and the risks that they have taken, and continue to take, in registering their dissent. FIELD is available at: field-journal.com.
[1] See Bria Dinkins, “Interview with Saba Zavarei,” FIELD #17 (Winter 2021). http://field-journal.com/editorial/interview-with-saba-zavarie
[1] See Bria Dinkins, “Interview with Saba Zavarei,” FIELD #17 (Winter 2021). http://field-journal.com/editorial/interview-with-saba-zavarie
Research Interests:
During my decade of research on transgressive and out-of-place performances by women in Iran, I have come across other artists who take their dance practice to where it is banned, the street. In this article I explore the return of women... more
During my decade of research on transgressive and out-of-place performances by women in Iran, I have come across other artists who take their dance practice to where it is banned, the street. In this article I explore the return of women to public space in Iran and how, in the absence of the possibility to be part of the formal art scene and in order to challenge normative geographies, artists, as well as non-artists, have taken to the streets to redefine and rediscover female bodies in urban geography. The disobedient body, I argue, creates heterotopian spaces where the hegemonic order is interrupted and replaced by an alternative aesthetics.
By analyzing the works of four practitioners, I explore the dancing body on the streets, demonstrating how the random dancing of anonymous individuals found on the internet can become a tactic of resistance for both the performer, and the viewer. Turning away from formal art spaces, I look to the streets for practices of resistance. I interpret these brief manifestations of dancing bodies on the internet as a form of socially-engaged art that questions the restrictive codes and rules of public space regarding female bodies. My objective is to explore the relationship between space, body and gender, by examining dance performances in public spaces in Iran. By refusing the categories of ethnic, folk, Western and other dance types, or the dichotomy of high art vs. non-art, I focus on what all these dancing bodies share: mutual exclusion and oppression by the state, as well as their resistance through evasive occupation of public spaces.
(from the text)
By analyzing the works of four practitioners, I explore the dancing body on the streets, demonstrating how the random dancing of anonymous individuals found on the internet can become a tactic of resistance for both the performer, and the viewer. Turning away from formal art spaces, I look to the streets for practices of resistance. I interpret these brief manifestations of dancing bodies on the internet as a form of socially-engaged art that questions the restrictive codes and rules of public space regarding female bodies. My objective is to explore the relationship between space, body and gender, by examining dance performances in public spaces in Iran. By refusing the categories of ethnic, folk, Western and other dance types, or the dichotomy of high art vs. non-art, I focus on what all these dancing bodies share: mutual exclusion and oppression by the state, as well as their resistance through evasive occupation of public spaces.
(from the text)
Research Interests:
In this interview, Saba Zavarei sheds light on her background and positionality, past and present projects and methodology, as well as the challenges of practicing activist-art in Iran. Expressing her viewpoint on a cluster of topics,... more
In this interview, Saba Zavarei sheds light on her background and positionality, past and present projects and methodology, as well as the challenges of practicing activist-art in Iran. Expressing her viewpoint on a cluster of topics, ranging from the meaning of bridge-building to the impact of the Iranian Revolution on her generation, she explores the possibilities of artistic practice in Iran now, and for the future. This interview took place virtually over email between herself and FIELD editor Bria Dinkins.
Research Interests:
پروژه هنر مشارکتی «رادیو خیابان » در مدت حدود دو سال، ۱۲ اپیزود پادکست منتشر کرد، که به موضوعات مختلف مربوط به ارتباط جنسیت، بدن و فضاهای عمومی پرداخت. بیش از ۵۰ زن در گفتگوهای این پروژه درباره تجربهشان از تبعیضهای جنسیتی در ارتباط با... more
پروژه هنر مشارکتی «رادیو خیابان » در مدت حدود دو سال، ۱۲ اپیزود پادکست منتشر کرد، که به موضوعات مختلف مربوط به ارتباط جنسیت، بدن و فضاهای عمومی پرداخت. بیش از ۵۰ زن در گفتگوهای این پروژه درباره تجربهشان از تبعیضهای جنسیتی در ارتباط با ساختار فضای روزمره شرکت کردند. این پروژه تاکنون به صورت نمایشگاه و سخنرانی در کشورهای مصر، ژاپن و انگلیس ارائه شده، و به صورت مقاله در جورنال آکادمیک به زبان انگلیسی منتشر شده است.
کتاب حاضر، صورت مکتوب شده ۱۲ اپیزود منتشر شده رادیو خیابان، و حاصل مشارکت همه کسانی است که در گفتگوها همراه این پروژه بودهاند.
کتاب حاضر، صورت مکتوب شده ۱۲ اپیزود منتشر شده رادیو خیابان، و حاصل مشارکت همه کسانی است که در گفتگوها همراه این پروژه بودهاند.
Research Interests:
دومین شماره گاهنامه اسپکتروم به بررسی ارتباط دوسویه فضاهای عمومی و جنسیت میپردازد. با دقت در تجربههای زندگی روزمره درمییابیم که فضا موجودیتی خنثی نیست و مولفههای گوناگونی بر نوع تجربه ما از آن موثر است. جنسیت، یکی از متغیرهایی است... more
دومین شماره گاهنامه اسپکتروم به بررسی ارتباط دوسویه فضاهای عمومی و جنسیت میپردازد. با دقت در تجربههای زندگی روزمره درمییابیم که فضا موجودیتی خنثی نیست و مولفههای گوناگونی بر نوع تجربه ما از آن موثر است. جنسیت، یکی از متغیرهایی است که تاثیر اساسی بر تولید فضای اجتماعی دارد. حجاب اجباری، تفکیک جنسیتی، پارکهای مخصوص زنان، آزار خیابانی و موارد آشنای دیگر، هر کدام سویهای از ارتباط پیچیده فضا، بدن و جنسیت را بر ما آشکار میکند: چه اندیشهای بر فضای عمومی سلطه دارد؟ کدام بدن در طراحی، ساخت و مدیریت، هنجار این فضا محسوب میشود؟ کدام بدن، به چه بهانه و با چه ابزاری از دسترسی برابر و حرکت آزادانه در فضاهای عمومی محروم میشود؟ مجموعه مقالات پیش رو قصد دارد تا حدی به این پرسشها بپردازد.