Never Been to Tehran - Participants

Dean Baldwin, Orangeville, Ontario, Canada: www.katharinemulherin.com; Dean Baldwin attended York University in Toronto and the University of Concordia in Montreal. He has exhibited internationally since 1998. Recent projects include: the MiNiBAR, an installation in the exhibit Seducing Down the Door; a commissioned signature cocktail for YYZ called The Why?Why? Cocktail; and the publication Attempt at an Inventory (MIT Press). He likes a nice Brandy Alexander on a cool winter’s night and is represented by Katharine Mulherin Contemporary Art
Aideen Barry, County Galway, Ireland: www.aideenbarry.com; Aideen Barry is a visual artist, curator, and writer, working in the mediums of performance, film, drawing, and animation. She recently completed an MA in Visual Art Practices at Dun Laoighre Institute of Art and Design Technology. She was awarded the Tyrone Guthrie award in 2007. Barry represented Ireland at the Fix Biennial and she exhibits at the Mermaid Arts Centre, Temple Bar Gallery, Omagh Strule Centre for the Arts, and Walter Phillips Gallery.
Cedric Bomford, Canada: Cedric Bomford was born in 1975. He received an MFA from Malmö Konsthögskolan in Sweden and a BFA from the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design in Vancouver, Canada. His work has been exhibited internationally in such spaces as Hannover Kunstverein in Hannover, Germany, Or Gallery in Vancouver, Bonniers Konsthall in Sweden, Azad Art Gallery in Tehran, parkinggallery also in Tehran, and the aedc project space in Berlin, Germany.
Otto von Busch, Malmö, Sweden and Istanbul, Turkey: Otto von Busch is an artist and fashion renegade. After studies in art, craft, theory, and fashion he is now doing his PhD in critical fashion design at the Factulty of Arts, Göteborg University, Sweden. He teaches at various universities, mainly at Malmö University (Fashion and Technology) and Istanbul Technical University (Industrial product design), and lives in Malmö, Sweden and Istanbul, Turkey.
James Charlton, Auckland, New Zealand: Having immigrated to New Zealand from the UK in 1973, James Charlton gained his BFA from Elam School of Fine Arts in 1982. As a Fulbright recipient he completed his MFA at the State University of New York at Albany in 1986. He is currently a Senior Lecturer in sculpture and interactive media at Auckland University of Technology. Solo exhibitions include Constructing Purgatory, Saunders, Why So Quite Child, Whiteware Ecstasy, and Snow Ball Fantasy.
Sara Graham, Canada: Sara Graham studied at University of Guelph, Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, and the Banff Centre of the Arts. Her interest is in the philosophical, practical and political aspects of the design and depiction of cities through urban and suburban cartographies and topologies. Graham's practice involves the blurring of representation within and between the disciplines of art, architecture, urban design and geography exploring concepts of authenticity and inauthenticity, materiality and intangibility, fact and fiction.
Andrea Grover, Houston, USA: Andrea Grover was born in Long Island, NY in 1970, but converted to Texan in 1995. She is the founder of Aurora Picture Show, a non-profit center for film, video, new media, and other offerings, housed in a former church building/Grover's residence in Houston, Texas. She recently curated Phantom Captain: Art & Crowdsourcing, apexart, New York (2006); and Txt Me L8r, a camera phone photography exhibition in which photo instructions were sent via text message to geographically-dispersed participants, Houston Center for Photography (2007).
Deniz Gul, Istanbul, Turkey: www.denizgul.com; Deniz Gul was born in Ízmir in 1982. She has a BA in Visual Arts and Communication Design from Sabanci University, Ístanbul. She has participated in various exhibitions, workshops, projects, and artist talks. She is currently an editor for the icon magazine (TR). She is interested in designing interactive environments and installations that engage with the space and behavior. Lately she has been focusing on interaction and participation by utilizing sound, visuals, objects, and new material.
Levin Haegele, London, England: Levin Haegele was born in Berlin in 1978. He graduated from the University of Guelph in Canada and went on to complete his postgraduate studies at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design in England. While his work is often simple in its methods it appears to apply a kind of pseudo-logic that manages to find a temporary sense of order in the chaotic. He currently lives and works in London, England.
Greg Halpern and Ahndraya Parlato, Ithaca, USA: Greg Halpern was born in Buffalo, NY. He has an MFA from California College of the Arts, and a BA in History & Literature from Harvard University. He is currently working on a set of photographs about the city of Buffalo, NY. He currently teaches Photography at Cornell University, in Ithaca, NY.; Ahndraya Parlato was born in Kailua, Hawaii in 1979. She holds a B.A. from Bard College, and an M.F.A from California College of the Arts. Her work consists of large-format, color photographs that explore the distinctions between banality and normalcy, and the ways people impose structures and ideals on the world. Ahndraya has taught at California College of the Arts, in San Francisco, and is currently teaching at Ithaca College in Ithaca, New York.
Rumana Husain, Karachi, Pakistan: Trained as a graphic designer, Husain has designed fabric murals; co-founded a publishing company for children's Urdu language books; written and illustrated over forty children's books; writes on visual and performing arts for local the English daily, Dawn; is co-founder and Senior Editor of Pakistan's only magazine primarily devoted to the visual arts: NuktaArt, an English language biannual that interfaces with other cultures. She is Head, Activism and Outreach, Children's Museum for Peace and Human Rights, Karachi.
Jun'ichiro Ishii, Paris, France: Jun'ichiro Ishii was born in Fukuoka, Japan in 1975. He studied interior design and fine art in Japan. In 2004 he was invited to complete an artist residency program in Seoul, South Korea. He moved to Paris in 2006. His work has been exhibited in Japan, South Korea, Turkey, and France. He has also participated in video festivals in Italy, Greece, Iran, Estonia, South Africa, and Brazil. He is extremely interested in observing cultural localities.
Martin Krusche, Gleisdorf, Austria: Martin Krusche was born in 1956 and started writing in 1977. His work is understood as an “art under net conditions”, combining different genres and techniques, partly online, partly in real life. Krusche has created a kind of “interspace” where he develops a drama and work-in-progress as an ongoing narration. His current project next code: love can be found at www.van.at/next/code/love. A follow-up project, next code: flow can be found at www.van.at/next/code/flow.
Rosie Lynch, Berlin, Germany: Rosie Lynch (1979) grew up in rural Ireland and is currently based in Berlin. She graduated from the National College of Art, Dublin in 2005. Her practice incorporates photography, drawing and installation. Playfully exploring the mysterious she produces subtle investigations into identity and its relationship to nature and cultural mythologies. Involved in numerous interdisciplinary collaborative projects, she recently coordinated Convoy, a co-op residency that took place in Skaftfell Cultural Centre, Iceland in May 2007.

Francesco Nonino, Bologna, Italy: Francesco Nonino (1960) received a scientific education in medicine. He is a self-taught photographer. His work deals with the expressive and evocative potential of places, objects, and nature, often combining elements that recall scientific research (symmetry, taxonomic order, sequential seriality, etc.). Such an apparently aloof approach is coupled with narrative and poetic contents. A recent project, Atmospheres is a book featuring pictures of clouds arranged as a narrative tableau, partially similar to a scientific atlas.
Elena Perlino, Saluzzo, Italy: Elena Perlino was born in Italy in 1972 and lives in Genoa. After completing her degree in History and Cinema at the University of Turin she started her work as a free-lance photographer. Her editorial clients include international magazines such as Max, D di Repubblica, Specchio, Io Donna, Anna, Corriere dell`Arte, Rockstar, Prinz, Tauchsport. She was a finalist of Photo Espana 2005, Descubrimientos, and was awarded the Septembre de la Photographie 2006 Grant in Lyon, France.
Heidi Hove Pedersen, Copenhagen, Denmark: Heidi Hove Pedersen was born in Denmark in 1976. She graduated at Funen Art Academy and spent one year at the MFA program at California College of the Arts in San Francisco. She is a member of the exhibition site, Koh-i-noor in Copenhagen and The Berlin Office in Kreutzberg, Berlin. Her work is based on simple ideas and actions. The medium is primarily sculpture, photography, and video and her starting point is the nearby environment.
Sal Randolph, Brooklyn, USA: www.salrandolph.com; Sal Randolph produces independent art projects involving gift economies and social architectures. She is the founder of Opsound, an open sound exchange of copyleft music (opsound.org), and Free Words (freewords.org) in which 4000 copies of a free book have been infiltrated into bookstores and libraries worldwide by a network of volunteers. She is currently developing work in the areas of experiential and participatory art, including a series of works where she gives away money.
Alia Rayyan, Ramallah, Israel/Palestinian Territories: Alia Rayyan was born in 1974 in Bremen and is of Palestinian/German origin. She studied international politics with a focus on the Middle East and sociology and art history in Trier, Hamburg and London. Since 2001, she interweaves politics and art around the issue “image –perception-knowledge-power – beyond dialogue” as a consultant, creative producer, project manager, journalist and writer for different projects and events. She currently works for the Heinrich Boell Foundation Arab Middle East Office in Ramallah.
Jon Rubin, Pittsburgh, USA: http://www.jonrubin.net; Jon Rubin is a multi-disciplinary artist whose work explores the social dynamics of public spaces and the lives of ordinary individuals. His solo and collaborative projects include creating a game show for ideas, opening a fake store in an indoor shopping mall, and most recently developing his own nomadic autonomous art school. He has exhibited video, drawings, installations, and public projects internationally and has received numerous national public art commissions, fellowships, residencies, and awards.
Carli Hoffmann and Jakob Seibel, Frankfurt, Germany: Jakob Seibel and his wife Carli Hoffmann are independent curators. Curated exhibitions include, 2 Doerfer, 2007, Driever & Vnà and Eastern Expressway– Contemporary Arts from Iraq and Iran (2006, Frankfurt/Main). Jakob studied Philosophy and Film in Berlin and Frankfurt. He is a member of “twosize-productiondeck”, a collaboration with Marc Petzoldt to generate exhibitions for friends with talents.
Iyallola Tillieu, Brussels, Belgium: Iyallola Tillieu is trained in art and graphic design. She tries to combine the different interests and approaches she has developed into a greater language. Her work develops towards a hieroglyphical alphabet where an almost limitless amount of media, elements of culture, and materials are used. She draws, paints, glues, sculpts, photographs, writes, performs, and registers to change her own and viewer perceptions and to intervene with a space’s structure and her own (works’) boundaries.
Keiko Tsuji, Tokyo, Japan: www.tsujikeiko.com; Keiko Tsuji is a paper cutout artist and illustrator based in Tokyo. She was born in Tokyo and graduated from the literature department of Bunka Gakuin College in 1996. She has been exhibiting her artworks since 1998. She has had recent solo exhibitions at Banana Moon in Nagano, Hinagiku in Tokyo, Nuku Nuku in Saitama, and Omame in Osaka. She has also participated in more than 40 group exhibitions and events.
Lee Walton, Greensboro, USA: www.leewalton.com; Often regarded as an Experientialist, Lee Walton's primary concern is the creation of new experiences, either for himself or others. Walton's work takes many forms- drawings on paper, game/system based structures, video, web-based performances, public projects, theatrical orchestrations, and more. Walton has been involved in many museum-funded projects, public commissions, and national and international exhibitions. He is an Assistant Professor of Art at the University of North Carolina Greensboro.
Lindsey White, San Francisco, USA: Born and raised in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Lindsey White is an interdisciplinary artist whose work explores the simple magic of everyday life. Her video, photo, and sculpture work has been shown at venues such as Jack Hanley Gallery, Southern Exposure, Eleanor Harwood Gallery, New Langton Arts, and The Deadpan Exchange II Festival in Berlin Germany. She currently lives and works in San Francisco, CA, and recently received her MFA in Photography from the California College of the Arts.
Christian Sievers, Berlin, Germany: www.christiansievers.info; Born in Germany in 1974, Christian Sievers has studied performance and sculpture in its widest sense in Braunschweig, Germany and London, UK, and continues to straddle both. He has an MA in sculpture from the Royal College of Art in London. Recent solo exhibitions include Does the Show Need to Go On? at The Trade Apartment in Brixton and On Look But Don’t Touch at Display Gallery in Prague. He now lives in Berlin.
Zoe Strauss, Philadelphia, USA