Shared Studios is launching the first public installation of Amar Bakshi’s Shared Studio project “A Portal BetweenTehran & NYC: Open for Conversation” by conversing through a live audio-visual connection with an individual in Tehran.

Portals are shipping containers equipped with specialized communications technology. Individuals enter one at a time and converse with a person in the other location as if they were in the same room. Simultaneous text translation is available. This first pairing unites the Lu Magnus Gallery in NYC and the M-40 Studio in Tehran.

OPEN FOR CONVERSATION
DECEMBER 5 – 19, 2014
Special Open Hours: 7:30A – 1:30P, Mon – Sun
LU MAGNUS GALLERY and M-40 STUDIO TEHRAN

Each individual is invited to enter a Portal and converse with whoever happens to be in the Tehran location, or with someone in particular upon advance request. To schedule your visit, please visit SHAREDSTUDIOS.SCHEDULISTA.COM

Powerful new technologies allow us to connect across boundaries as never before; yet we too often use them to cocoon ourselves in our own cultural, political, or ideological communities. Portals puncture hardened stereotypes of the other by facilitating one-on-one encounters. They serve as a catalyst for conversation between communities that would not typically engage with one another due to language barriers, technological limitations and hardened stereotypes of the other meeting people whom they only hear about unidirectionally in the news.

Visit the gallery for special Q&A sessions with the artist and the following New York guests:

Amy Chua and Jed Rubenfeld (Fri Dec 5, 1:00pm-2:00pm)
Yale Law professors and bestselling authors Amy Chua and Jed Rubenfeld. Chua’s books include Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother and World on Fire. Rubenfeld’s books include The Death Instinct and Freedom and Time.

Jonah Bokaer & James Koroni (Sat Dec 6, 1:30pm-2:30pm)
Jonah & James perform a curated dance live in the New York space, streamed live to Tehran.

Fareed Zakaria (Mon Dec 8, 10:30am-11:30am)
CNN host, Atlantic Monthly writer and bestselling author of The Post-American World and The Future of Freedom

Morgan Spurlock (Wed Dec 10, 10:00am-11:00am)
Documentary filmmaker whose titles include Supersize Me and The Greatest Movie Ever Sold.

Tania Bruguera (Thu Dec 11, 1:30pm-2:30pm)
Tania Bruguera is a Cuban installation and performance artist.

Rob Storr (Fri Dec 12, 9:00am-10:30am)
Robert Storr is the Dean of the Yale School of Art. Formerly, he was Senior Curator at the Museum of Modern Art.

Mohsen Namjoo (Sat Dec 13, 1:30pm-2:30pm)
Mohsen Namjoo is an Iranian artist, songwriter, singer, music scholar and setar (traditional Persian lute) player based in California.

Nicky Nodjoumi (Sun Dec 14 – Dec 15, 11:30pm)
Nicky Nodjoumi’s works are conceived of as theatrical stages, where compositions of figures both serious and ridiculous, in the words of Phong Bui, “house meanings without irony, narratives without stories, humor without morality, above all creating a space that heightens the awareness of old and new history.”

Keller Easterling (Wed Dec 17, 9:00am-10:15am)
Architect, professor and author of books including Extrastatecraft: the Power of Infrastructure Space and Enduring Innocence: Global Architecture and Its Political Masquerades.

Sources: Shared Studios, Lu Magnus Gallery, Spacesmith