Our grateful thanks goes to independent curator Jamilee Polson Lacy for her extraordinary series of posts exploring the relationship between language and image, literature and the visual arts. Next up, we’re very pleased to have Safa Samiezade’-Yazd as our new blogger-in-residence. Samiezade’-Yazd is an Iranian writer and editor whose expertise falls into two categories: contemporary art/performance and the Middle East. Together, the two give her a unique perspective on the depth of a region that is usually overshadowed by its politics. Her three one-woman shows explore Iranian identity in America–one through the veil, the second through Khomeini, and the third through the Islamic practice of temporary marriage. All three have been performed in Colorado, Vermont, and New York City, and one was presented at the Women Playwrights International Conference at the University of Mumbai. Most recently, she co-curated the first festival of Iranian theater to be presented in the United States, which earned recognition in Backstage Magazine, The New York Times Arts Section, NPR’s All Things Considered, WNYC, BBC Radio, Frontline’s Tehran Bureau, and Voice of America’s Persian News Network, which re-aired her interview as a “Best of VOA” segment. Safa holds an undergraduate degree from the University of Denver and a Masters of Fine Arts degree in Interdisciplinary Art from Goddard College. She currently edits the arts, film and music sections for Aslan Media Initiatives, an online non-profit news source on the Middle East and its diasporic communities. Welcome, Safa!
