DIRECTORS
FOUNDING DIRECTOR:
AVA ANSARI
TRANSCULTURAL ALIGNMENTS, TRANSLINGUAL HEALINGAva Ansari is a transmedia poet, performer, curator, somatic instructor, and Persian interpreter working with the sensual, institutional, and digital bodies. Her practice lives at the intersections of choreographic, linguistic, musical, and spatial composition; heterotopic healing and radical cyber celebration; and translingual embodiment and bodies' free navigation.
Since 2010, Ava has been working with telepresence and telephonic technologies to connect distanced communities and diversify the fixated notions of poetic expression and governance. “The Back Room” collective for critical dialogue and virtual poetics with hubs in Iran and the US (Doris Duke Foundation’s Building Bridges Awardee 2014); “Subway” app for public dance beyond its preventing laws (Nitsche Michael, Vital Media, MIT Press, 2022); and “Conducting Studies”processor for poetic mapping (International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression 2015, International Symposium on Electronic Arts 2014) are examples of her collaborative projects.
DIRECTOR: DR. CRAIG L. WILKINS
SPATIAL JUSTICE, ARCHITECTURE OF COLORDr. Craig L. Wilkins is an architect, theorist, author, critic, and 2017 National Design Award Winner. Recognized as one of the leading scholars on African Americans in architecture, his essay, “(W)Rapped Space: The Architecture of Hip Hop” (2006) is the first theoretical source that predicted the influence of hip hop on architecture. His first book, The Aesthetics of Equity: Notes on race, space, architecture and music received a 2008 Montaigne Medal and 2009 National Indie Excellence Award.
DIRECTOR: SALAR ANSARI
RESONANCE, SONIC ENGINEERINGSalar Ansari is a DJ, producer, instrumentalist and engineer, uniquely positioned at the forefront of the sonic connection bridging the SWANA (Southwest Asia-North Africa) region and the Midwest, US. He is the co-founder of Feeder Loft recording studio and music label in Waawiiyatanong/Detroit, and Analog Room international music residency in Iran and UAE. Salar has garnered accolades from recording engineering with the famed Blue Note Records to winning the 2021 Detroit Music Awards for “Best Electronic Recording.”
In total, he has featured on over 50 productions as an engineer, producer, and session musician while collaborating with an incredible array of artists across the globe. He releases original music through “Moozikeh Analog Room” and Feeder Loft Records as well as his own imprint “Passed Out On A Persian Rug.” In addition to his own production work, he’s also a founder of improvisational dance act “DMVND” with Rafael Leafar and Ian Fink as well as “Everyday Crisis” with Luis Resto and George Rahme.