Elham Puriya Mehr

Canada

Elham Puriya Mehr is an independent curator based in Vancouver, Canada. She earned her Bachelor's and Master's degrees from Tehran University of Art, followed by a Ph.D. in Art Research from Alzahra University. Additionally, she completed her Postdoctoral Advanced Practice at Goldsmiths, University of London. Focused on the potentiality of “learning spaces,” Elham explores the generation of new vocabularies, practices, and knowledge through the possibility of “events.” Over the past seventeen years, she has significantly contributed to the international art scene as a curator, educator, and writer. Elham has presented her work in various exhibition spaces, universities, city venues, as well as at conferences and symposiums.

During her two-week residency at SAHA, Elham will immerse herself in the culture of Istanbul coffeehouses through a combination of on-site exploration and archival research. She plans to engage with artists, curators, gallery directors, and scholars to deepen her understanding. Her research, titled "The Third Space: The Affective Atmosphere of Coffeehouses," delves into the potentialities of specters in social spaces. By situating coffeehouses at the crossroads of fiction and non-fiction, Elham seeks to ignite fresh aspirations for shaping the future of "learning spaces." Her objective is to challenge the 'biopolitics of happiness' as defined by capitalism, critiquing the infrastructures that perpetuate the conditions of our everyday lives. Through this residency, Elham invites us to reconsider our perceptions of coffeehouses and envision their potential in cultivating new knowledge.

In today's hierarchical learning spaces, where publics accessibility is often limited, this project serves as a momentum to envision innovative spaces and devices of learning. It encourages us to conceptualize new, alternative collective ones for the future, breaking away from the constraints of existing structures and promoting a more inclusive and accessible approach to knowledge making and sharing. During this residency, Elham Puriya Mehr will present a video and discuss her research in a public presentation.

For further information and contact: E.PuriyaMehr@gold.ac.uk
On Instagram: @elham.puriyamehr