DEAVANAH/دیـــــــــــــــوانـــه remembers an event that occurred in the past, in one language, as it unfolds in the present, in another. The two are only ever consolidated in the state of lunacy, while the deav (demon) in deavanah (lunatic) attests to the right of the alien to bestiality.

Gelare Khoshgozaran is an interdisciplinary artist and writer working across video-installation, performance and writing. Born and raised in Tehran and living in Los Angeles, she envisions the city as an imaginary space between asylum as 'the protection granted to a political refugee' and 'a mental institution.' Her work has been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions at the Queens Museum of Art, Museo Ex-Teresa Arte Actual, Malmö Konsthall, LAXART, Human Resources, and Interstate Projects, among others. Gelare was the recipient of a 2017 Art Matters Fellowship, and the 2015 Creative Capital | Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant as co-founding editor of contemptorary.org. Her work is featured in the Hammer Museum Made in L.A. Biennial 2018.

This public programming initiative is organized by Nasrin Himada as part of For Many Returns, a writing and curatorial series focused on poetics, performance, sound and new media.

Nasrin Himada is a Palestinian writer, editor, and curator based in Tio'tia:ke (Montréal), in Kanien'kehá:ka territory. Her writing on contemporary art has appeared in Canadian Art, C Magazine, Critical Signals, The Funambulist, Fuse Magazine, and MICE Magazine, among others. She is the co-editor of contemptorary.org.

This event is generously supported by articule and The SenseLab at Concordia University.