Counterpulse, 80 Turk Street, San Francisco

Breaching Towards Other Futures
Counterpulse, 80 Turk Street, San Francisco
Friday, February 7, 2020, 7:00 – 7:45PM
Curated by Azin Seraj and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto

In partnership with CounterPulse and in conjunction with Where do you want ghosts to reside?, Southern Exposure presents Breaching Towards Other Futures, a performance  by Morehshin Allahyari and Shirin Fahimi on February 7, 2020. Allahyari and Fahimi channel the revelation of a jinn figure Aisha Qandisha and Ilm al-raml (Geomancy – science of the sand) as their methods for telling and opening doors towards other futures. Aisha Qandisha is one of the most honored and fearsome jinn in Islam. She is known as ‘the opener’. When she possesses humans, she does not take over the host but rather opens them to the outside; to a storm of incoming jinn and demons, making them a traffic zone of cosmodromic data. Ilm al-raml refers to the foresight that the Earth holds with itself. Through its practice, this foresight is revealed and future is seen, known, and breached.

These artists layer a poetics of their own personal histories with nationalist narratives, to humanize and bring nuance into the conversation, as a counterpoint to reductively framing Islamic stories as those of violence and victimhood.

With deep regret and profound frustration, Southern Exposure announces that artist Shirin Fahimi will not be present at her performance, Breaching Towards Other Futures, on Friday, February 7th. The performance will still be taking place but in a modified format. Learn more here.