Exhibition Views of these illusory utopias
Photos by Cecily Brown
these illusory utopias
by Aneesa Shami Zizzo and Yasmine Nasser Diaz
with special contributions by Sholeh Asgary and Fariha Róisín
September 19 – October 23, 2021
Inquire about purchasing artwork by emailing info@thestudio203.org.
This exhibition is a dialogue between two artists, working with different mediums and visual references that illustrate peculiar remnants and fantastical scenes– from both above and below the ocean’s surface. Diaz’s intricate collages on paper depict anomalous hybrid beings that coexist in Earth’s post-anthropocene oceans, alluding to a future of ecosystems less challenged by human interference.
Zizzo’s elaborate textile pieces narrate the destruction caused by a catastrophe similar to the explosion that occurred at the Port of Beirut last year, but which takes place within a parallel universe. The exhibit, which incorporates works on paper, sculptural textile, sound, and moving imagery, questions the current trend of utopian fantasies while invoking themes of ruination, recovery, and hope.
these illusory utopias (collaborative installation)
Photos by Cecily Brown
Yasmine Nasser Diaz, installation with video and audio (4 min 23 sec), silk-rayon fiber etching, fishing net, and polyester netting
The audio incorporates multiple sounds including murmurs of various sea life, children swimming in a pool, and waves of ocean water lapping at shore. Overlaid throughout the entire track is a sound composition by Sholeh Asgary. Situating the body as a site of knowledge, Asgary’s sound compositions make use of her own voice and the innate properties of everyday objects as an ether for direct communication in an otherwise disparate circumstance of image.
Aneesa Shami Zizzo, Natural disaster sculptural assemblage, reclaimed fabric samples, foam inserts and scraps, fabric scraps
The sculptural assemblage visually references the Port of Beirut after the August 4, 2020 explosion, including the partially destroyed grain silos, flattened earth, shattered city buildings and the Mediterranean Sea.
at the water’s edge by fariha róisín
Gentle organisms like bright blue spools,
aquatic by nature but Earthbound
in a carnal sense
in a bodily sense—
in a dark sweet shimmer of the ocean’s glitter,
sense, is a word
describing everything that could be,
there’s no less of anything anymore,
it’s a merging of
Saturn’s grind,
soil like a meteorite dipping
into the water’s edge,
and us shadowed
by unicorn bright.
Everything is kaleidoscopic,
nurturing teaches us about the brave,
about the kinetic
collected
from my heart to yours
the body shies
asunder and the mercurial moons speak
through me to you.
Thank you for this
brightness, they speak.
Stark like nothing,
the clouds building in the water
like Atlantis’ reach
come close, come close
life is still here.
About Aneesa Shami Zizzo
Aneesa Shami Zizzo is an artist and researcher based in Los Angeles using recycled materials to create fiber art. Her work references the sublime and world mythologies to evoke a sense of the collective unconscious within her imagery. Shami holds Bachelor of Fine Arts degrees in both Fiber and Art History from the Kansas City Art Institute. She was the Textile Arts | Los Angeles AIR at Helms Design Center in 2018, and was a Fellow for the Mildred’s Lane Attention Labs: Order of the Third Bird in 2015. Shami’s work has been exhibited nationally in galleries and museums. She recently created costumes for Planet City (2020), directed by Liam Young, which was commissioned for the NGV Triennial 2020 in Melbourne, Australia. Aneesa Shami is also the co-owner and director of Studio 203, an artist-run space in Los Angeles that collaborates with artists to create exhibitions and host workshops and performances.
aneesashami.com
@aneesashami
About Yasmine Nasser Diaz
Yasmine Nasser Diaz is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice weaves between culture, class, gender, religion, and family. She uses mixed media collage, immersive installation, fiber etching, and video to juxtapose disparate cultural references and to explore the connections between personal experience and larger social and political structures. Diaz is especially interested in complicated narratives of third-culture identity and their precarious invisibility/hyper-visibility.
Yasmine is a recipient of the Harpo Visual Artists Grant and the California Community Foundation Visual Artist Fellowship and has works included in the collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, The University of California Los Angeles, and the Arab American National Museum. Her work has been featured in Artnet, HyperAllergic, Artsy, and Artillery Magazine. Yasmine is represented by Ochi Projects, Los Angeles, CA
yasminediaz.com
@yasmine.diaz
About Fariha Róisín
Fariha Róisín is an Australian-Canadian writer, editor and multi-disciplinary artist. She has published How To Cure A Ghost (Abrams, 2019), Being In Your Body (Abrams, 2019) and Like A Bird (Unnamed Press, 2020) which was named one of the Best Books of 2020 by NPR, Globe and Mail, Harper’s Bazaar. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Al Jazeera, The Guardian, Vice, Village Voice and others. She is the founder of Studio Ānanda, a space of cultivation and archive for radical, anti-colonial wellness. She writes a weekly newsletter and is also the Deputy Editor of Violet Book.
fariharoisin.com
@fariha_roisin
About Sholeh Asgary
Sholeh Asgary is an Iranian-born interdisciplinary sound artist whose immersive works, performances and audience participatory scores implicate the viewer-participant into future mythological excavations, bridging large swathes of time and history, through water, water clocks, crude oil, movement, light, imaging, voice, and sound. Her 2021 residencies include Headlands Center for the Arts, Mass MoCA, ARoS Kunstmuseum, and Real Time & Space. Asgary’s works have been supported by such institutions as Sotheby’s Institute of Art, Minnesota Street Project, Charlotte Street Foundation, Ann Arbor Film Festival, and Gray Area Foundation for the Arts. She holds an MFA from Mills College and BA from SFSU.
sholehasgary.com
@sholehasgary