AGNES Program: Open Secret features artists Parastoo Anoushahpour (19 + 20 January), Kriss Li (9 + 10 February), Sharlene Bamboat (9 + 10 March) and Sofía Gallisá Muriente (6 + 7 April). The workshops are free and open only to students. 

Parastoo Anoushahpour is an artist originally from Tehran now based in Toronto working predominantly with film, video and installation. This workshop is an opportunity to watch Anoushahpour’s The Time That Separates Us closely and go through some of the processes and research that shaped its form and content. The hope is that we create an open dialogue around the themes and strategies of making present in the work. The script for the film was formed through a series of collective writing exercises that often took place along the Jordan River and around the key sites of the film. Through this process the group found forms for speaking of geology, politics, and sexuality using a language that acknowledged the contradictory symbolism of these sites while allowing for gaps in meaning, in which empathy, desire, and organic intelligence could operate. We’ll go through these exercises together. And participants are welcome to workshop their own thinking and ideas about projects that engage with certain forms of doubling, specific sites, or borders.