Artist Talk: Simin Keramati

In this talk, Iranian-Canadian artist Simin Keramti will talk about the trajectory of her artistic career from the 1990s onward and introduce a number of her projects, with particular attention paid to her most recent projects.

Event recording

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About the speakers

Simin Keramati is an Iranian-Canadian multidisciplinary artist. Working with photography, film, mixed media and painting, Keramati references various elements from her personal life as well as news and social media. Her works often address themes such as identity, diasporic experience, women’s rights and gender equality.

In her recent works, Keramati has been working on literature-based themes, reclaiming the role of women in classical literature and stories. She received her master’s degree in Fine Art from the Art University of Tehran in 1997 and Post Graduate Degree from the George Brown College, Toronto in 2016. She was awarded the Grand Prize from the Dhaka International Biennale in 2003-04 for her video installation “Rising Up or Falling Down”.

She was also shortlisted for the MOP CAP (Magic of Persia Contemporary Art Prize) in 2009. Keramati’s works have been exhibited in art galleries and museums internationally, among the most recent ones are the Aga Khan Museum in Toronto, Canada; RedCat Museum in Los Angeles, USA; Saarland Museum in Saarbrücken, Saarland, Germany; and White Chapel Gallery in London, UK.

Dr Hamid Keshmirshekan (Chair) is an art historian, art critic and Senior Teaching Fellow at the School of Arts, SOAS and Research Scholar at the MESAAS Columbia University.

He was previously Senior Scholar at the Khalili Research Centre, Oxford University (2019-22), Senior Lecturer and head of History of Art department at the Advanced Research Institute of Art (ARIA), Iranian Academy of Arts (2013-17), and Associate Fellow at the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies and History of Art Department at Oxford University (2004-12).

Since 1994 he has taught art history and theory in British and Iranian universities, has organised several international conferences and events on aspects of modern and contemporary art of Iran and the MENA region, and has contributed widely to various publications. His latest publications include The Art of Iran in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries: Tracing the Modern and the Contemporary (2023), ‘Humorous Art Practices in the Contemporary Middle East: Reacting to Cultural Stereotyping’ (2023), and Contemporary Art from the Middle East: Regional Interactions with Global Art Discourses (ed.) (2015).

Organiser

This event has been organised by the Centre for Iranian Studies, SOAS.