Mapping Out A Field

Zanbeel is pleased to present four artists from South Asia of countries lying between the Himalaya range and the Indian Ocean (north to south), and between the Ganga and Indus river valleys (east to west). These artists’ work explores the connected spaces of memory and imagination. The artists dream from a range of perspectives, using a range of media, including comic books and motion graphics. Their personal journeys are relayed through stories and images, and wander through our world and others. They look back and forth, at the memories that shape our imagination, and the imagination that remakes our understanding of the world.

We live in the present. We experience different feelings: such as happiness, sadness, joy, fear, excitement, etc; and most of these feelings will be archived in our mind as memories. We live in the present. We think about the future and imagine it. These imaginations could become our dreams, goals, or predictions. So, we invite you to think about the present. We invite you to think of it in relation to the past and future. After all, all of us, whether as individuals or collectives, understand the present through the lens of our memories (the past) and dream our futures from the present, through the filter of our thoughts and imagination.

Curated by Maryam Ghoreishi & Rashmi Viswanathan.

This program was made possible in part by a grant from the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs.

Online Exhibition

November 2020 - February 2021

Virtual Opening & Talk-through: November 22, 2020

Public Programming:

Animation Workshop: May 26, 2021

Presentation on South Asian Contemporary Art by curators Maryam Ghoreishi & Rashmi Viswanathan. Creative workshop facilitated by artist Sanika Phawde.

Prithi Khalique

Prithi is a filmmaker and visual designed based in Dhaka and New York City. She works at the intersection of 3D animation, motion graphics, and fine art. Prithi enjoys making projects that use color, 3D, and both still and moving images. In her personal work, she observes past and current issues around sexuality, objection, and systematic oppression; to consider alternative models of femininity and power. Her vocabulary draws from surrealism and South-Asian pictorial forms and connects them with contemporary visual languages of speculative fiction and CGI. Prithi hods a BFA in communication design from Parsons School of Design. She in based in Dhaka, Bangladesh and New York.

Saba Farhoudnia

Saba was born in Tehran in 1987. She has an MA from The University of Science and Culture in Tehran, Iran. She received her second MFA in Painting from the LeRoy E. Hoffberger School of Painting at MICA in Baltimore. Saba has been exhibiting her paintings across the world and her work has been published in magazines such as; Art Scope Magazine, Thalia Magazine, and Studio Visit Magazine. Saba works and lives in New York City. She is currently a 2020 fellow of the AIM fellowship at Bronx Museum.

Ziba Rajabi

Ziba (b1988), Tehran, Iran) received her MFA from the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, and her BFA from the Sooreh University, Tehran. She works primarily with painting, drawing, and installation. Her work is about her experience of living in the United States as an Iranian female artist. She is the recipient of the student artist grant for the Artist 360 Grant, a program sponsored by Mid-America Arts Alliance. Her work has been included in a number of exhibitions, nationally and internationally. She also has been an artist in residence at Vermont Studio Center.

Sanika Phawde

Sanika is an illustrator, cartoonist and reportage artist, working between New York City and Mumbai. She is currently pursuing her Masters in Illustration As visual Essay at School of Visual Arts. Her work documents and processes human relationships, everyday life and instances of emotional connection between strangers. She is interested in the conversations people have over food, and how food experiences are influences by immigration. Her comics are a part of the Zine Collection at Frick Fine Arts Library. Her work has been published by Print Magazine, Poster House, NY, and American Illustration. Some of the festivals she has exhibited at are: MoCCA Arts Festival, Toronto Comic Arts Festival, Comic Arts Brooklyn, Rendez-vous Carnet Du Voyage (Travel Illustration Festival in France), and NY Independent Art Book Fair.