Open Book: Sahand Heshmati Afshar on Mahbubeh

Every month, Open Book focuses on highlighting artist book makers around the world. 

Please join us for: Sahand Heshmati Afshar on Mahbubeh. Mahbubeh is an artist book that turns a collection of narratives from touching a plant to ancient history, from tablets to amputated bodies after an explosion. This autoethnographic collection stages the author’s experience with the US Department of Homeland Security (US DHS) in poems, images, and an essay; via various printing methods and materials. Mahbubeh lands a plant, an archive of tablets, and a tool in Counter-terrorism Studies; designed as an identificatory. The poems are apostrophe constraint writings that perform the phases of the interrogation by US DHS in English and Farsi.

Artist biographies:

Sahand Heshmati Afshar

Sahand Heshmati Afshar is a multidisciplinary artist from Iran, living in the US. Sahand graduated with a Master of Fine Arts in Studio from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a Bachelor of Science degree in Pure Mathematics from Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran. He has been a member of the Association of Iranian Painters since 2018.

Sahand has a fellowship from Kala Art Institute, 2022, and is the author of Mahbubeh, the Poor Farm Press, 2021. In addition, he has participated in the Viewing Program, The Drawing Center, New York, NY, 2021, Separate Boundary, Iranian Artists’ Forum, Tehran, Iran, 2021, The Annual Exhibition of the Association of Iranian Painters (AIP), 2020.

His work shows in the United States and Iran. Recent exhibitions include Present Artifact, Ralph Arnold Gallery, Loyola University Chicago, 2021, Kolombeh, 6018NORTH, Chicago, IL, 2019, Sahand Bijeh [Kalam] Zanjani, Azad Gallery, Tehran, Iran, 2017, Percussive Planes, Azad Art Gallery, Tehran, Iran, 2016. Also, He has performed in Chicago Cultural Center and Mana Contemporary, Chicago, IL, 2019, Links Hall, New Blood XII, Chicago, IL, 2018.

Amira Hegazy

Amira Hegazy is a multimedia artist working between drawing, printmaking, publishing, and scholarly media.

She currently lives in Chicago, Illinois, where she teaches at Columbia College Chicago and is a research fellow at the Design Museum of Chicago, focusing on design history and the typography of Chicago. Amira is a native of Milford, Michigan, where she grew up between traditional American and Egyptian cultures. Amira’s experiences navigating between identities, places, and cultures inform much of her work. 

 Amira has an MFA in Printmedia from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a BA in Studio Art and Sociology from Washington and Lee University with Honors in International Immersion. Social science and field research continue to be an important part of her artistic practice. She has exhibited her work at the International Print Center of New York, The William King Museum of Art, Hyde Park Art Center, and other venues internationally. 

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