Chandra Cerrito Contemporary is pleased to announce Seven Valleys, presented by Lauren MarieTaylor and Keyvan Shovir,the spring 2018 PeripheralVisions artists-in-residents,from March 17th to April 21st, 2018.
Seven Valleys, a residency and exhibition by Keyvan Shovir and Lauren Marie Taylor, opens March 17, 2018. Throughout the month, Shovir and Taylor will be building an installation in the galler y that will culminate with an opening on First Friday, April 6, from 5-8pm. Seven Valleys is part of Peripheral Visions, an artist/curator-in-residence program at Chandra Cerrito Contemporary in Oakland’s art and maker district. In this time of political, economic, and cultural polarization on a national and regional scale, art can prompt genuine communication, empathy, and insight required for a harmonious future. Artists and curators chosen for the PeripheralVisions residency enable collaboration and a sense of shared experience between people despite our perceived differences.
The Conference of the Birds is a masterpiece of Sufi poetry describing an inner journey to become one with god.Written in 1177, the poem tells the story of a community of birds who travel through seven valleys in order to reach transcendence and ultimately, death. While the birds undergo a metaphoric journey through seven stages, in the Catholic tradition, the faithful receive seven sacraments- a physical manifestation of the stages one must undergo to reach god, likewise ending in death. In this collaboration by Shovir and Taylor, a community of birds is represented by ships- jets, missiles, rockets and shuttles, traveling through seven stages in order to become one with the universe. In the gallery, the spacecrafts traverse Shia and Catholic communities represented by traditional architecture, both standing in for and referencing a history of war.The exhibition uses painting, sculpture, and video to tell the stories of Shia and Catholic communities and their experiences with colonization and imperialism.
The gallery will host an open house on Saturday, March 24, to introduce the artists and their project. The public is invited to stop by and see the work in progress. On First Friday, April 6th, the public is invited back to view the full installation and a silkscreen demonstration at which the artists will be giving away posters. On Saturday, April 7th from 2-4pm, Middle East scholars Kathy Zarur and Dena Al- Adeeb will host an event with Shovir and Taylor, focusing on the element of architecture within the exhibition, considering architecture as a metaphor and architecture as a form. Zarur and Al-Adeeb will walk audiences through the architectural spaces represented, exploring architecture as forms of enclosure and exposure.
About the Artists in Residence
Keyvan Shovir is a San Francisco-based interdisciplinary artist. He was born in 1985 in Tehran, Iran and moved to San Francisco in 2011. He has widely exhibited and presented his work in the United States, Iran,Turkey, England, Italy, Sweden and Dubai. Shovir was a pioneer of street art in Tehran, focusing on social issues and Persian calligraphy. He is primarily known for his work in installation and public art which explores history and Persian myth, language and today’s pop culture. Shovir is a 2018 MFA Candidate at California College of the Arts.
Lauren Marie Taylor is a Bay Area artist and educator. Recent work includes residencies at the Arecibo Observatory and the Vatican Observatory, projects at the California Academy of Sciences and the Walt Disney Family Museum, and solo presentations at Southern Exposure and YBCA.Taylor has presented at the Octavia Butler Conference, Science in the Studio Symposium for AICAD, the Bay Area Science Festival, Nerd Nite, Stairwells and more. She was a 2016-17 Equity Fellow at YBCA. She holds a BFA from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, an MEd from Portland State and an MFA from the California College of the Arts.
About Peripheral Visions
Peripheral Visions is an artist- or curator-in-residence program at Chandra Cerrito Contemporary, a contemporary art gallery. Its mission is to provide an Oakland-based platform for artists and curators of wide-ranging backgrounds and outlooks to present projects that: 1) create bridges–encourage connection and communication among diverse groups, or 2) expand the view–broaden perspectives on art and the human experience.PeripheralVisions aims to present meaningful and compelling creative works incorporating visual art that utilize the gallery’s physical space and engage its community.
In this time of political, economic, and cultural polarization on a national and regional scale, art can prompt genuine communication,empathy,and insight required for a harmonious future.Art can enable collaboration and a sense of shared experience between people despite our perceived differences. It may offer new means of problem solving that bypass traditional approaches.While art may be an important key to the health of our society, the Bay Area’s current real estate climate poses significant challenges to the sustainability of art venues.PeripheralVisions provides a place in Oakland for creative voices to be heard at this critical time.
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