ONE DAY: CrossConnections project invites Iranian and Iranian Americans teens to "Document Your World!"

March 15, 2006

Webstories
- Document one day of your life using any combination of images, text, scans, and/or sound to create your personal story. Selected entries will be published as part of an online documentation of everyday lives of the Iranian and Iranian-American diaspora.

Workshops
- Based on the submitted stories, a selected number of teens will be awarded the opportunity to work with Bay Area Iranian-American artists and writers towards the creation of a public art project, exhibition, and catalog. During this process, the awardees will gain hands-on experience and will hone their skills in creative writing and photo-based image making.

Workshop Artists and Writers: Mahru Elahi, Haleh Hatami, Taraneh Hemami, and Bijan Yashar.

How to participate

1. Create a short story of one day of your life using 5 to 10 images or writing synopses of your everyday encounters. You can tell your story through images of friends and family, home, school, objects that are significant to you. Your writing could be describing one incident, or they can be series of short paragraphs that record your day. You may also include accompanying sound. Think about the following questions:

   • If someone made a documentary about you, what would it look like?
   • What is your public and private world? What is your "real world"? What is your reality?
   • How do you fit in your world? What questions are you still asking?

2. Fill out the application form.
   Send your materials
   by email to: info@xconnections.net
   or mail to
   CrossConnections
   CCA Center for Art and Pubic Life
   5212 Broadway
   Oakland, CA
   94618

Click here to view and print the application form.

Important Dates:

• Stories from all teens of Iranian descent living outside Iran, due May 26
• Bay Area entries to be considered for workshops due April 28
• Selection announcement for workshops: Monday May1
• Workshop San Francisco: Saturday May 6 and 13, 2-6 PM at California College of the Arts, San Francisco campus
• Workshop San Jose: Sunday May 7 and 14, 2-6 PM
  San Jose State University, San Jose, CA
• Exhibition/Events: June 1-4 Oliver Art Center Gallery California College of the Arts, Oakland campus

About the Artists

Mahru Elahi
Mahru Elahi returned to California in February 2003, after many years of working in New York City public schools. She is currently a teacher with WritersCorps, a project of the San Francisco Arts Commission. Mahru was recently awarded a 2006 Hedgebrook Writing Residency. Mahru's poetry will be featured in the forthcoming anthology, Let Me Tell You Where I’ve Been: New Writing by Women of the Iranian Diaspora. She is a graduate of UC Santa Cruz, and earned her Masters of Science in Teaching from New School University in New York City.

Haleh Hatami
Haleh Hatami left Berkeley for Tehran as an infant and returned eight years later. Her work, including translation, appears in various journals and anthologies, including Strange Times My Dear, The PEN Anthology of Contemporary Iranian Literature and forthcoming in Brooklyn Review and Kenyon Review. She has taught courses in creative writing at San Francisco State University and Mills College. She holds degrees in Political Science and Middle Eastern Studies from the University of California at Berkeley, graduate degrees from University of Chicago (History) and San Francisco State University (MFA, Creative Writing).

Taraneh Hemami
Born in Tehran, Iran, Hemami immigrated to the United States in 1978. She received her MFA from California College of the Arts in Oakland, California in 1991. For the past fifteen years she has exhibited her works nationally and internationally and has been the recipient of many awards including the Creative Work Fund, the San Francisco Arts Commission’s Individual Artist Grant and the James Irvine Vision from the New California Award. She has been an Artist in Residence at Montalvo Center for the Arts and Djerassi Resident Artists Program. Hemami is the 2005-2006 Visiting Artist at the Center for Art and Public Life at the California College of the Arts.

Bijan Yashar
Bijan Yashar was born in Tehran, Iran and has been living in California since 1979. A Bay Area based video artist and photographer, Yashar has an MA in Educational Psychology from UC Berkeley, and an MFA in New Genres from the San Francisco Art Institute. In addition to pursuing his fine art photography and video work, he is currently a Multimedia Arts Instructor at Vista Community College in Berkeley, and also teaches digital art workshops at UC Berkeley's Academic Talent Development Program.

About CrossConnections

CrossConnections, is a residency project at the Center for Art and Public Life at California College of the Arts. The project engages the Iranian and Iranian-American diaspora community in an intergenerational, creative dialogue about issues of cultural identity, preservation, and representation. CrossConnections is led by the Center’s visiting artist, Taraneh Hemami, with visiting scholar, Persis Karim.

The Center for Art and Public Life is an integral part of California College of the Arts, dedicated to creating community partnerships that serve the college and the diverse populations of the Bay Area. We would like to thank Christensen Fund for their support of the project.

For more information on please visit CrossConnections and Xconnections.