Curated By Meenakshi Thirukode

Amir H Fallah
Amir H. Fallah’s signature aesthetic and creative intuition manifests itself in a broad cross-section of projects. He is the publisher of Beautiful/Decay, an internationally distributed contemporary arts magazine. In less than ten years, Fallah has transformed Beautiful/Decay into a first-exposure sourcebook that reveals innovative talents from the creative world. Fallah employs a unique blend of distinctive covers, attention to detail and design, and provocative content.

Fallah’s insider’s perspective into trends from the creative community comes directly from his experience within the art world as a practicing artist. Fallah has exhibited his work on both a national and international level, including gallery, museum and biennial exhibitions. His understanding comes from invaluable working knowledge of the field. His own works range from painting, drawing and sculpture, evoking a similarly fresh, brightly colored aesthetic that addresses a nexus of idiosyncratic topics.

Fallah has also leveraged this direct connection with the art world and his recognizable aesthetic to launch Something In The Universe, a creative think tank/design agency that opens the doors to Fallah’s network of creatives, strategists and consultants. Something In The Universe provides media, marketing and content development that both focuses on the client’s needs and provides a custom vision in line with Fallah’s highly successful vision.

His innovative approach as an artist, publisher and creative director is internationally recognized and his CV includes illustration for numerous publications, event orchestration, revitalization of brand identities, and speaking on panels at colleges and universities.

Amir received his B.F.A. from The Maryland Institute College of Art and his M.F.A from UCLA in 2005. Exhibits include shows at Cherry And Martin, 31 Grand, Overtones, The Third Line, Weatherspoon Art Museum, The Sharjah Biennial, Nathan Larramendy Gallery, Mary Goldman Gallery, Rhys gallery, and at LA Louver Gallery.

He has given talks at a range of respected institutions, including Columbia College, USC, UCLA, Cleveland Institute of Art, California State University Northridge and Maryland Institute College of Art. He has also participated in a number of creative panels and conferences, including “UNBOUND: How L.A.’s Art Magazines are Changing the Face of Popular Culture” and the Congreso Creactivo design conference in Mexico.

Pooneh Maghazehe

Pooneh Maghazehe can be best described as a participant in social sculpture, collapsing sculpture and performance, with the aim to investigate the use of cultural adaptation on a societal level, and the psychosocial constructs on which it is enshrined. 
  Maghazehe earned a B.S. in Biobehavioral Health from Penn State University in 2001 and subsequently, an M.S. in Interior Architecture from Pratt Institute in 2005. She has shown both nationally and internationally, including but not limited to the Beijing 798 Biennale in, the Chelsea Art Museum, DePaul University in Chicago, Arario Gallery and at Leila Taghinia Milani Heller Gallery in New York, and Sego Arts Center in Utah. Pooneh’s first solo show has been secured with Kreft Gallery for Fall 2009.  In May 2009, Pooneh executed her first ten-person performance piece, titled “Primordial Ablution”, at the Chelsea Art Museum for Asian Contemporary Art Week.  She has lectured on her work, served on various panel discussions, and is the recipient of awards such as the Schreyer’s Honors Medal, Best of Show for the national juried exhibition, “Reconciliation” from Kreft Gallery, and Best in Show and Honorable Mention for the international juried exhibition “Virtual Realities Real Space” from the Sego Arts Center.

Select publications include The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Flavorpill, Bloomberg News, The Chicago Tribune, The Washington Post,1 Magazine, Adbusters, The Bob Edward’s Show and Radio Fardah.  This September, Pooneh will begin working on an M.F.A, with a concentration in sculpture, at Columbia University in New York.

Parlour
Parlour is a nomadic curatorial project, founded in 2008, that presents weekend-long exhibitions in different homes throughout New York City.  Parlour’s impetus is to showcase the work of contemporary artists in a unique and dynamic setting.  Beginning in 2010, Parlour will expand is programming to include shows in different cities around the world.
Parlour was conceived by Ciara Gilmartin and Leslie Rosa-Stumpf. Both are graduates of Sarah Lawrence College. Leslie additionally received her MA in Curatorial Studies from Goldsmiths College.
Raqs Media Collective
Raqs Media Collective
(Monica Narula, Jeebesh Bagchi, Shuddhabrata Sengupta)
<< 1992
Raqs Media Collective is based in Delhi, India
Raqs, Sarai-CSDS, 29 Rajpur Road, Delhi 110054, India
raqs@sarai.net

Raqs is a word in Persian, Arabic and Urdu and
means the state that “whirling dervishes” enter into when they whirl.
It is also a word used for dance.

At the same time, Raqs could be an acronym, standing for ‘rarely asked questions’...!

Raqs Media Collective has been variously described as artists, media practitioners, curators, researchers, editors and catalysts of cultural processes. Their work, which has been exhibited widely in major international spaces and events, locates them at the intersections of contemporary art, historical enquiry, philosophical speculation, research and theory - often taking the form of installations, online and offline media objects, performances and encounters. They live and work in Delhi, based at Sarai, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, an initiative they co-founded in 2000. They are members of the editorial collective of the Sarai Reader series. They were co-curators, in 2008, of the Manifesta 7 biennale.
Lucky Dragons
"lucky dragons" means any recorded or performed or installed or packaged or shared or suggested or imagined pieces made by Luke Fischbeck, Sarah Rara, and/or any sometimes collaborators who claim the name.
the name "lucky dragons" is borrowed from a japanese fishing boat caught in the fallout of hydrogen bomb test at bikini atoll in the 1950's. the crew stricken ill, and the boat itself contaminated, the "lucky dragon" became a crystalizing symbol for the previously diffuse worldwide anti-nuclear sentiment. eventually the boat was painted black, renamed the "dark falcon", and put into reuse as a fishing vessel, until it was retired and disposed of on the man-made trash island "dream island", where it remains today.
lucky dragons are about the birthing of new and temporary creatures--equal-power situations in which audience members cooperate amongst themselves, building up fragile networks held together by such light things as skin contact, unfamiliar language, temporary logic, the spirit of celebration, and things that work but you don't know why. There have been hundreds of these simple yet shifting and unpredictable instances--with audiences ranging from the intense intimacy of one person to the public spectacle of thousands of people. At the heart of it all is playing together--building up social collectivities, re-engaging the wonder and impossibility of technological presence. It sounds--and looks--like simple and ancient patterns coming together and falling apart in a sincere attempt to let wires and screens and words become clear and crystal.
they keep a busy schedule of performances and visits and festivals and workshops and things, in the present, and in the past: The Institute for Contemporary Arts London, the 2008 Whitney Biennial, NY's PS1, the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, the Philadelphia Institute for Contemporary Art, the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, Frankfurt's Schirn Kunsthalle, Los Angeles' The Smell, NY's The Kitchen, The Smithsonian Institute's Hirshorn Museum, Cooper Union, the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, etc. Lucky dragons live in Los Angeles California and have recorded 19 albums which are all available for downloading.
lucky dragons' sister projects include "sumi ink club"--a weekly collaborative drawing society, and "glaciers of nice"--a small press and internet community.
today's influences: nikki de st phalle, joan didion, CoBrA group, crass, hieronymous bosch, thomas jefferson, tina turner, allan kaprow, joan jonas, bruce nauman, mayan codices, ivor cutler, jacques ranciere, helio oiticica, lygia clark, giorgio agamben, pauline oliveros, terry riley, plastic people of the universe, eliane radigue, bruno munari.
Colleen Asper and Ad Hoc Vox

Colleen Asper is an artist based in Brooklyn, New York. Organized by Colleen Asper and Jennifer Dudley, Ad Hoc Vox is an ongoing series of discussions and events without a fixed location that address a wide range of issues in contemporary art.

Kiran Subbaiah

Kiran Subbaiah was born in 1971 in Sidapur, Kamataka. He studied at Kala Bhavan, Santiniketan and the Faculty of Fine Arts, M.S. University, Baroda. In 1997, he received a scholarship from the INLAKS Foundation to study at the Royal College of Art, London. Trained as a sculptor, over the years he has worked with several other mediums. He is firm in the belief that art does not have to serve any purpose. His irreverence is apparent in the objects, sculptural assemblages and installations he creates, loaded with humor, irony or enigma or rejoicing in their obvious and self-contained contradictions. It is also evident in his experimental videos and recent internet projects, some of which are collected under the name Pseudo Virus Archive. He is presently a participant in the Rijksacademie voor Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam. Kiran Subbaiah lives and works in Bangalore and Amsterdam.

Jaishri Abichandani

I produce material and ephemeral works that examine, subvert and generate power by exploring the relationships between individual and collective selves and their effect on society. My dual practices of art and cultural production manifest as installations, objects, videos, and performances. Primarily a political artist, my work integrates multiple aesthetics reflecting my identities as a feminist South Asian American artist to examine the implications of personal, political and spiritual choices, creating psychologically charged works with a strong narrative element. I create a cultural context for my work by activating democratic feminist networks (www.sawcc.org) and curating exhibitions.

Aakash Nihalani
Aakash Nihaliani’s street work consists mostly of isometric rectangles and squares. He selectively places these graphics around New York to highlight the unexpected contours and elegant geometry of the city itself. All execution of a piece is done on site with little or no planning. For however briefly, he tries to offer people a chance to step into a different New York than they are used to seeing, and in turn, momentarily escape from routine schedules and lives. Nihaliani tries to create a new space within the existing space of our everyday world for people to enter freely and unexpectedly ‘disconnect’ from their reality. Nihaliani does not tyr to push a certain highbrow logic or philosophy or purposefully communicate through the esoteric medium of art. He works instinctively, trying to follow his gut about the sensation of color and space, and have fun doing it. He states, “People need to understand that how it is isn’t how it has to be. My work is created in reaction to what we readily encounter in our lives, sidewalks and doorways, buildings and bricks. I’m just connecting the dots differently to make my own picture. Others need to see that they can create too, connecting their own dots, in their own places.”