Marina Miliou-Theocharaki and Sanaz Sohrabi: States of Prose
How do the material and conceptual definitions of nationhood implicate the individuals within given societies in the continuum of history? For this exhibition, Marina Miliou-Theocharaki and Sanaz Sohrabi examine the conditions of nation-making strategies, and the ways by which collective memories and national imaginaries can be stored in objects, rituals, spaces, and events.

Initiated from individual research, the works of Miliou-Theocharaki and Sohrabi explore the contemporary effects of nation-state policies and national consciousness on current economic, social, and cultural conditions. How are certain sociopolitical histories defined, preserved, attached, and celebrated? What is the sound and what are the gestures that define their preservation?

Marina Miliou-Theocharaki is an interdisciplinary artist, mover and writer who drifts between Athens, Greece and Chicago, IL. In her work, she delicately orients herself around definitions of the body and its archaeology within prescribed spaces. She focuses on the moment when nonbelonging acquires sociopolitical dimensions, she then deconstructs it and filters it through poetry. Her work has been exhibited in venues including The Megaron Athens Concert Hall, Greece; Vienna Ballhaus, Austria; Figure One Gallery, Champaign, IL; Chicago Artists Coalition, Chicago, IL; the Comfort Station Logan Square, Chicago, IL; the Den Theater, Chicago, IL; Dfbrl8tr Performance Art Gallery, Chicago, IL; as well as the Cook County Jail, Chicago, IL. In 2015 she was awarded the BFA/Post-Baccalaureate Fellowship from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago as well as the 2014 George Roeder Undergraduate Award in Visual & Critical Studies. In 2016 she was Hatch Resident at Chicago Artists Coalition. She currently holds a position as a curatorial assistant and ASFA liaison for documenta 14. Please visit marinamt.com for more information.

Sanaz Sohrabi works with image making and moving image practices in order to investigate the impermanence and malleability of archival records, historical narratives, production of imagery versus production of ideology and the role of images in shaping collective memory. She received her BFA from University of Tehran and later relocated to Chicago where she received a two-year scholarship to pursue her MFA in photography, video and interdisciplinary studio arts at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Awarded residencies include: SOMA Summer School Mexico City in 2017, Est-Nord-Est résidence d’artistes in 2016, Vermont Studio Center in 2015, and Chicago Artist Coalition Bolt Program from 2014-2015, among others. Exhibitions, festivals, and screenings include: Videonale 16 Bonn, Fiva 06 Buenos Aires (1st prize for short film), Halifax Independent Filmmakers Festival 2017, Images Festival 2017 Toronto, Transart Triennale 16 Berlin, Expo Chicago 2013, and 6018North in Chicago, among others. Please visit sanaz-sohrabi.com for more information.

Miliou-Theocharaki and Sohrabi are co-founders of the quarterly Tamaas / تماس / επαφή an online journal on arts and politics, an online platform of non-simulation and public speaking, a space for declaration of thoughts, desires and where urgencies manifest. Please visit tamaas.org for more information.

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Tags: Marina Miliou-Theocharaki, Rogers Park, Roman Susan, Sanaz Sohrabi, States of Prose