𝗳𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗵 𝗸𝗮𝘇𝗲𝗺𝗶 & 𝘇𝗲𝗹𝗶𝗸𝗵𝗮 𝘇𝗼𝗵𝗿𝗮 𝘀𝗵𝗼𝗷𝗮: 𝙢ū𝙨𝙝𝙩ū𝙠

​𝙢ū𝙨𝙝𝙩ū𝙠: 𝙖 𝙥𝙚𝙧𝙛𝙤𝙧𝙢𝙖𝙣𝙘𝙚 𝙛𝙤𝙧 𝙩𝙬𝙤 𝙢𝙤𝙧𝙩𝙖𝙧𝙨, 𝙗𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙙, 𝙬𝙖𝙩𝙚𝙧, 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙖 𝙙𝙞𝙨𝙥𝙚𝙧𝙨𝙚𝙙 𝙗𝙤𝙙𝙮

​june 24, 6.15-7.15p at gmtc

​performance activation

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​on june 24, gmtc presents 𝙢ū𝙨𝙝𝙩ū𝙠: 𝙖 𝙥𝙚𝙧𝙛𝙤𝙧𝙢𝙖𝙣𝙘𝙚 𝙛𝙤𝙧 𝙩𝙬𝙤 𝙢𝙤𝙧𝙩𝙖𝙧𝙨, 𝙗𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙙, 𝙬𝙖𝙩𝙚𝙧, 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙖 𝙙𝙞𝙨𝙥𝙚𝙧𝙨𝙚𝙙 𝙗𝙤𝙙𝙮 by artists 𝗳𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗵 𝗸𝗮𝘇𝗲𝗺𝗶 and 𝘇𝗲𝗹𝗶𝗸𝗵𝗮 𝘇𝗼𝗵𝗿𝗮 𝘀𝗵𝗼𝗷𝗮.

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​beginning from the politics and poetics of hospitality, 𝙢ū𝙨𝙝𝙩ū𝙠 is a performative gathering that explores food as a material archive of migration, famine, kinship, displacement, and survival. “𝙢ū𝙨𝙝𝙩ū𝙠” stands for a modest food whose name may be understood as “that which fits inside a fist.”

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​the work emerges through an ongoing conversation between 𝗸𝗮𝘇𝗲𝗺𝗶 and 𝘀𝗵𝗼𝗷𝗮, developed across months of exchange shaped by distance, interruption, and movement between locations. rather than presenting a fixed research outcome, the project approaches conversation itself as a method: stories, rumors, confessions, recipes, and observations accumulate through companionship, forming a shared field of study.

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​at the center of the performance is the hāvān (mortar and pestle), one of the oldest food technologies still in use across southwest and central asia. historically used for grinding grains, herbs, medicines, and preserved foods, the hāvān exists between domestic labor and embodied knowledge, between tool and archive. alongside the hāvān, dry bread occupies a central role within the performance. across geographies shaped by drought, sanctions, war, displacement, and famine, drying bread has functioned as a technology of preservation. bread becomes portable. bread migrates. bread waits.

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​originating from 𝘀𝗵𝗼𝗷𝗮 and 𝗸𝗮𝘇𝗲𝗺𝗶’s collaboration across distance, the performance asks what forms of intimacy remain possible under conditions of restricted movement, and how companionship can operate in spite of distance.

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​𝗳𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗵 𝗸𝗮𝘇𝗲𝗺𝗶 (she/they, b. 1992, tehran), also known as afimoh, is an artist, researcher, and host whose practice moves between artistic research, fiction writing, moving image, material fabrication, and collective forms of gathering. rooted in experiences of displacement, grief, and cultural transmission, her work engages with hospitality, vernacular knowledge systems, ritual, kitsch visual culture, and the fragile infrastructures through which memory travels. working through slow research processes, conversations, meals, and collaborative encounters, she investigates how stories, affects, and forms of belonging persist across generations, geographies, and states of rupture.

​𝘇𝗲𝗹𝗶𝗸𝗵𝗮 𝘇𝗼𝗵𝗿𝗮 𝘀𝗵𝗼𝗷𝗮 is an artist, researcher, and غمخوار grief-eater living and working on unceded Onondaga land (syracuse, new york). working across moving image, ephemeral fabric photobooks, and gestural studies, her practice moves between ecologies of interdependence, failures of image-making, and transmission of memory. her work tends toward personal collective mythmaking and ineffability.