Framer Framed welcomes resident researcher Elham Puriya Mehr

Elham Puriya Mehr

Framer Framed welcomes resident researcher Elham Puriya Mehr

We are pleased to announce the arrival of Vancouver-based Iranian curator and researcher Elham Puriya Mehr, who will join Framer Framed as a resident researcher in October 2024. During her one-month stay in Amsterdam, she will continue her research on cultural devices and methods in knowledge-making.

As part of her ongoing project The Third Space: The Affective Atmosphere of Coffeehouses, Elham Puriya Mehr will investigate Dutch coffeehouses as learning environments. Building on her previous research in Vancouver, Tehran, London, Trieste and Istanbul, she seeks to collaborate with Dutch artists, curators, gallery directors and scholars to explore the emancipatory potential of coffeehouses in generating new futures. This research invites us to reconsider the role of coffeehouses in fostering creative approaches to knowledge creation.

Coffeehouse culture originated in Iran during the Safavid period in the 16th century, particularly in Isfahan, and played a significant role in fostering intellectual and social exchanges. These coffeehouses were egalitarian spaces where people gathered to engage in storytelling, or Naqqāli’, and they became centers for sharing knowledge, ideas, and art. The Iranian model of the coffeehouse later influenced European cities like London and Amsterdam, where coffeehouses became venues for sober discussion on politics, science, and culture. In 17th century Amsterdam, coffeehouses rivalled theaters and universities, drawing in a diverse array of people who sought both intellectual stimulation and entertainment, hosting lively discussions and offering activities.

As popular meeting places for debate, coffeehouses have played a useful role in developing political freedoms and challenging hierarchical and colonial power structures. By studying the role of coffeehouses, it can activate the potentiality of alternatives to contemporary institutional structures. In her research project Coffeehouses as Emancipatory Learning Atmospheres, Puriya Mehr challenges today’s conventional education system, which is deeply rooted in neoliberal values of self-sufficiency and excellence. She reimagines learning as a communicative process based on the sharing and exchanging of knowledge, shifting the focus from ‘how to learn’ to ‘where to learn.’ Inspired by scholars Fred Moten and Stefano Harney, she advocates for slowing down the learning process and redefining the concept of ‘study’, emphasising the importance of an atmosphere where skills, ideas, failures and sensory experiences can be exchanged in new ways.

Puriya Mehr is no stranger to Framer Framed. Almost ten years ago, in 2015, she co-curated the third part of the exhibition series Crisis of History with Robert Kluijver. She also curated Voice-over Noord (2015), a participatory project in Amsterdam-Noord that used a bus as a mobile exhibition space to explore immigrant life and cultural separation.

Crisis of History – Beyond History (2015). Photo: Michiel Landeweerd / Framer Framed

In 2015, Framer Framed invited Puriya Mehr to co-curate the third part of the exhibition-triptych Crisis of History at Framer Framed. Crisis of History #3 – Beyond History offered a curatorial deconstruction of Western perceptions of the Middle East. Curators Kluijver and Puriya Mehr invited artists to explore contemporary uncertainties and ideological structures in the post-history landscape of the Middle East. The first two exhibitions of this series examined the effects of this imposition and the strategies of resistance deployed by artists in response. The last exhibition was guided by the question: how can we deal with the past, present and future outside the normative framework offered by history? Crisis of History #3 – Beyond History focuses on differences and similarities in historical stories considerably stemming from the Persian Gulf region, and Iran and Saudi Arabia in particular.

That same year, Puriya Mehr started Voice-over Noord, which brought live performances and discussions into public space and transport in Amsterdam-Noord. During a public bus tour, artists were invited to engage in a process of re-mapping Amsterdam-Noord via the medium of voice-over narration of the city landscape. Puriya Mehr initiated a similar project for the first time in Sanandaj, the capital city in the Kurdish part of Iran, in 2013. Together with an artistic team, author Özkan Gölpinar and performance artist and filmmaker Ehsan Fardjadniya, Puriya Mehr translated the project from Iran to the Netherlands, making unexpected connections between Amsterdam-Noord and Sanandaj.

With Voice-over Noord, Puriya Mehr and her collaborators attempted to link the social structure of Amsterdam-Noord with the physical area, while creating a platform for the exchange of ideas. With her current research in 2024, she again investigates the social landscape in Amsterdam.

Voice-over Noord

Credits

Elham Puriya Mehr’s research at Framer Framed is generously supported by the Canada Council for the Arts through the Art Abroad grant and by Framer Framed.

Framer Framed is supported by the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science; Amsterdam Fund for the Arts; Municipality of Amsterdam; and VriendenLoterij Fonds.