Salon on Iran with Amitis Motevalli and Mark LeVine

Levantine Cultural Center hosts a salon on Iran to discuss the recent elections, ensuing public protest and goverment crackdown on freedom of speech and assembly. The format is a public conversation with artist/activist Amitis Motevalli and author/musician Mark LeVine, followed by an open forum where your perspectives are welcome (meanwhile, post your thoughts here). Amitis Motevalli is an Iranian American mixed-media artist, activist and educator who just returned from a trip to Iran. She will offer her eyewitness report. Mark LeVine has frequently traveled to Iran in his work with Iranian musicians, and blogs on the situation in Iran for the Huffington Post.

Salon on Iran, Wednesday, July 1, 2009, 7:30-9:30 pm. Free to the public, donations welcome. Refreshments available. Seating limited, RSVPs strongly advised, to 310.657.5511. Levantine Cultural Center/Inside Outside Gallery, 5998 W. Pico Blvd., Los Angeles CA 90035 (one block east of Crescent Heights, ample street parking).

About the Speakers

Artists and activist Amitis MotevalliAmitis Motevalli was born in Tehran, Iran and moved to the US in 1977. In 1995 she received a BA from SFSU in Art with a minor in Women's studies and in 1998 an MFA from Claremont Graduate University. Her work as an artist incorporates a combination of near-eastern aesthetic with a western art education. Motevalli states, “Being an immigrant in the US shows in my work a duality of culture, both natural and learned. In all of my work, I create a dialogue that critiques dominant views of oppressed people and culture in general.”

Her work in art education is with youth who share a similar duality in vision. Motevalli has been active in creating social change with her students on issues of civil rights within the class through pedagogy or working with students and community to organize around issues that effect their quality of life and access to education.

Amitis Motevalli is a recipient of the California Community Foundation Fellowship and the Visions of California Award. She currently lives and works in Los Angeles, exhibiting art nationally and abroad as well as organizing to create an active and resistant cultural discourse through information exchange, either in art, pedagogy or organizing artist and educators.

The focus of her work has centered on signage and symbology from Iranian and Islamic art such as pattern and miniature painting. She is also influenced by symbology used in American pop culture in particular, symbols generated by American media. After her family emigrated to the U.S. in '77, they did not predict that turmoil would keep them from returning to their homeland and family. This estrangement from her own culture and entrance into a culture with a history of hostility toward the previous creates, in her work an overlapped aesthetic through the visual culture of Iran and all of the cultures within Los Angeles. There is not a sense of belonging to either territory but a constant intermingling or float over all. Visit her site.

Mark Levine and Iranian metal musician Ali Azhari in TehranMark LeVine is a leader of the new generation of historians and analysts of the modern Middle East and Islam. LeVine spent over a dozen years living, researching and reporting from the region, including Iraq, Israel, the Palestinian Territories, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Turkey, Pakistan, Iran, the Persian Gulf and Morocco. Working in Arabic, Hebrew, Turkish, and Persian, as well as Italian, French and German, he has interviewed senior international political figures, reported from Beirut's green line, taught Qur'an to Muslim Brothers, performed from Woodstock to Paris to Damascus Gate, lived next door to Hamas mosques, stood against bulldozers, dodged terrorist bombs, and uncovered damning files in dusty archives. He knows the history, politics, religions-and most important, the peoples-of the region as a friend, but with a highly critical eye.

LeVine's wide and deep knowledge of the politics and history of the Middle East and North Africa (from Morocco to Afghanistan), its religions and its cultures, and its relations with Europe, Africa, Asia and the United States, enables a unique breadth of insight into the broader dynamics that have produced the events that dominate the news today. His writings challenge the actions and opinions of rulers and ruled, oppressed and oppressor, and through them the accepted paradigms for writing about the region, and about hot-button issues such as globalization, terrorism, politics and popular culture.

Besides his academic, journalistic and consulting activities, LeVine has a long history of blending art, scholarship and activism. As a musician he has recorded, performed and toured all over the world with artists including Mick Jagger, Chuck D, Michael Franti, Dr. John, Ozomatli, Hassan Hakmoun, Arab/Muslim heavy metal and hiphop artists The Kordz (Lebanon), MC Rai (Tunisia), Salman Ahmed (Junoon--Pakistan), Cafe Mira (Morocco, Algeria, France), Ghidian Qaymari (Palestine), blues greats Johnny Copeland and Albert Collins, world music artists Sara Alexander and al-Andalus, and numerous R&B and hiphop acts. 

Mark's recent book is Heavy Metal Islam: Rock, Resistance and the Struggle for the Soul of Islam. He blogs on Iran and the music scene for the Huffington Post. Visit the Heavy Metal Islam web site.