“REMOooOTE: Detroit-Tehran (MagiCity)” 2018

Produced by POETIC SOCIETIES, the bi-locational telepresence concert celebrated the process for the creation of “All Blue: Part One Majorelle” by Salakastar. It provided space for the activation of the throat chakra and allowed distant communities in Detroit and Tehran to communicate and relate beyond their mainstream media representations. The daylong event connected the Arab American National Museum, Dearborn to the Xcept Studio in Tehran and celebrated shared “blueness” as resilience, depression, and magic between the two cities with guest acts by Salar Ansari, Mehdi Ansari, Xcept, AmirAliii, and REZ.

“REMOooOTE: Detroit-Dubai (Over Suspense)” 2017

Produced by Poetic Societies, the first telepresence festival of the globe connected Detroit’s Sidewalk Festival to Analog Room Party and Residency Space for electronic musicians in Dubai. It provided an opportunity for Ava’s siblings, music producers and DJs, one in Dubai and one in Detroit, to connect their public sets. The event marked the first artistic reunion of the Ansari brothers after Salar migrated to the US in 2015. With a live-streaming delay of eight seconds, they exhausted traumas of migration and created familiar celebratory memories for healing.

“[] the line: Detroit-Tehran” 2017

Produced by POETIC SOCIETIES in collaboration with the Hinterlands, the telepresence workshop series provided five-week of innovative training on theatrical telepresence production with 25 artists and parallel physical rehearsals, dialogue, and hands-on research between Detroit and Tehran. It connected Play House in Detroit to Pejman Foundation in Tehran.

“Open Relationship” 2014

Produced by The Back Room in collaboration with CultureHub, the public panel acted as a coda for “Spatial-Making-Do,” an eight-week, three-channel telepresence workshop with artists, art organizers, and scholars in Detroit, New York, Isfahan, and Tehran. The program ended with a duo performance by panelists Craig L. Wilkins and Ava Ansari the co-curator of the program and took place at the Recess in New York City.

“Spatial-Making-Do” 2014

Produced by The Back Room and hosted by CultureHub in NYC, Sazmanab in Tehran, and Mani Studio, Isfahan, the eight-week three-channel telepresence workshop provided space for 45 artists, curators, and organizers in Isfahan, New York, and Tehran to share ideas and discuss texts translated by The Back Room for the activation of public space in different cultural contexts. The program received the “Building Bridges” Grant of the Doris Duke Foundation in 2013.

“Compose, Composite, Composition” 2012

Produced by The Back Room and hosted by Culture Hub in NYC, Sazmanab in Tehran, and Hozeh Honari in Mashhad, the three-channel telepresence lecture and discussion provided an opportunity for artists and curators for direct conversation with Shirana Shahbazi in conjunction with the exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, "New Photography 2012."

“A Call“ 2011

Produced by The Back Room, the telepresence theatrical performance took place between White Box in NYC and Aaran Gallery in Tehran with 80 performers, two directors, a choreographer, and production teams in Tehran and NYC, the two-channel performance marked the first independent memorial dedicated to the dead, the living, and the forgotten of the Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988). The project was created in collaboration with Wafaa Bilal.

“Dynamic Encounters“ 2011

Produced by The Back Room, the telepresence performance workshop connected Wafaa Bilal's Studio in NYC to Aaran Gallery in Tehran with twelve Iranian emerging artists and performers who presented recent works in progress and discussed issues related to contemporary performance art practices, new media, and strategies for interacting with new publics.

“Siting Performance” 2011

Produced by The Back Room and Sazmanab, a two-channel two-day telepresence public interventions and rituals workshop connected Eyebeam in NYC to Silk Road Gallery in Tehran with Richard Schechner, Bavand Behpoor, and 40 artists in Tehran and New York.