DIRECTORS
FOUNDING DIRECTOR:
TRANSCULTURAL ALIGNMENT &
TRANSLINGUAL HEALING
Ava Ansari is a Farsi interpreter, transmedia
poet, transcultural curator, and yogi working
with the sensual, institutional, and digital
bodies. Their 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 healing technologies and
distanced communities to diversify the
fixated notions of poetic expression and
governance. “The Back Room” collective
for critical dialogue and virtual poetics with
hubs in cities in Iran and the US (Doris Duke
Foundation’s Building Bridges Awardee,
2010-14); “Subway” app for poetic public
movement beyond preventing laws
(International Journal of Arts & Technology,
Volume 7, 2014); 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
their collaborative projects.
CO-DIRECTOR:
SPATIAL JUSTICE & ARCHITECTURE OF
COLOR
Dr. 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.
CO-DIRECTOR:
RESONANCE & SONIC ENGINEERING
Salar Ansari is an Iranian immigrant 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, along
with Rafael Leafar and Ian Fink as well as
Everyday Crisis with Luis Resto and George
Rahme.